{"id":268,"date":"2018-11-15T14:38:17","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T19:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp\/?p=268"},"modified":"2019-01-28T08:23:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T13:23:14","slug":"session-summary-using-plain-legal-english-principles-for-better-writing-by-lisa-hew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/2018\/11\/15\/session-summary-using-plain-legal-english-principles-for-better-writing-by-lisa-hew\/","title":{"rendered":"ATA 59 JLD Session Summary 3: Using Plain Legal English Principles for Better Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Presented by: Lisa Hew<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lisa Hew is a Japanese&gt;English translator specializing in law and marketing. She has been translating for more than 15 years, including eight years at a Japanese law firm and three years at a Japanese fashion house. She started freelancing in 2011 and established Belle Translation Japan, Ltd. in 2014. She has given presentations at the meetings of the Japan Association of Translators and the Japan Translation Federation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Summary Written by: Hajime Sato<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As many of you know, Lisa is a prominent member of the JLD. If you were at the JLD\u2019s annual meeting and heard her \u201cpep talk,\u201d you\u2019d know that she is an excellent speaker with a great sense of humor, and that she is passionate about what she does.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa was born and raised in Canada and studied East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. She first came to Japan in 1993 and studied Japanese at Nichibei Kaiwa Gakuin and Sophia University. After graduating from the University of Toronto, she returned to Japan. In 2003, Lisa joined TMI Associates, one of the largest law firms in Japan, and developed her skills and specialization as a legal translator. Lisa is now the Principal of Belle Translation Japan, Ltd., a translation company she established in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Based solely on the session\u2019s title and Lisa\u2019s personality, I was certain that this session would be interesting and useful, but I was not prepared to be blown away. In this fast-paced presentation, Lisa outlined the important principles of Plain Legal English (PLE) and turned my world upside down. I have been translating legal documents for many years, but I was completely unaware of the PLE movement and its principles. I had thought that it was a good thing if I could write in English like an American attorney would, using phrases like \u201chereinafter\u201d and \u201cany and all.\u201d (Oh, no!)<\/p>\n<p>According to Lisa, and now I agree, that kind of thinking is old and misguided. I feel some instinctive resistance to PLE and expect many English-speaking attorneys will, too, because it goes against pretty much everything we\u2019ve been doing. But, after Lisa\u2019s presentation, I am convinced that PLE is pointing to the right direction. We legal translators should follow the PLE principles and encourage our clients to do so as well. Here are the main points of PLE, as presented by Lisa.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The goal of PLE is to increase readability without decreasing accuracy. Your writing should be concise and clear. The reader should understand your writing easily by reading it once.<\/li>\n<li>The five things to avoid are:\n<ol>\n<li>Wordiness\n<ul>\n<li>Use concise variance (e.g. \u201cregarding\u201d instead of \u201cwith regard to\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Avoid \u201cof\u201d (e.g. \u201cservice commission\u201d instead of \u201ccommission of services\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Delete words\/phrases that do not add any meaning (e.g. \u201cthe period\u201d from January to March) even if they are in the source text<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Legalese\n<ul>\n<li>Avoid traditional wording and write plainly (e.g. aforementioned, hereinafter)<\/li>\n<li>Avoid bureaucratese (e.g. such, said, foregoing)<\/li>\n<li>Avoid long words (e.g. \u201cnotice\u201d instead of \u201cnotification\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Avoid \u201cshall\u201d and use \u201cmust\u201d, unless you use it consistently to mean \u201chas a duty to\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Redundancy (e.g. \u201caid and abet,\u201d \u201cindemnify and hold harmless\u201d)\n<ul>\n<li>Just pick one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Nominalization (nouns formed from verbs)\n<ul>\n<li>Think \u201cwhat is the action?\u201d and \u201cwho is doing it?\u201d and write simply.<\/li>\n<li>Example: \u201cdecide\u201d instead of \u201cmake a decision\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Translationisms\n<ul>\n<li>Active over passive (e.g. \u201cexcludes\u201d instead of \u201cnot included\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Keep related elements close (dates, adverbs, relative clauses, \u201conly\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Present tense over future tense<\/li>\n<li>No run-on sentences\n<ul>\n<li>Ideal average sentence length is 20 words<\/li>\n<li>Takes more than one breath to read aloud? &gt; Separate<\/li>\n<li>More than one subjects? &gt; Separate<\/li>\n<li>More than one concepts? &gt; Separate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Singular over plural (if singular has a broader scope)<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t use \u201cthe\u201d unless it is necessary.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t use \u201cand\/or.\u201d Pick one.<\/li>\n<li>\u201ca\/an\u201d over \u201cany\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Principal clause up front<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although her session was packed with information, Lisa made it easy to follow because she spoke clearly and used the PowerPoint slides effectively. It also helped that she made us laugh a lot with her inimitable sense of humor. Well done, Lisa, and thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Suggested reading: Bryan A. Garner, <em>Legal Writing in Plain English<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Presented by: Lisa Hew Lisa Hew is a Japanese&gt;English translator specializing in law and marketing. She has been translating for more than 15 years, including eight years at a Japanese law firm and three years at a Japanese fashion house. She started freelancing in 2011 and established Belle Translation Japan, Ltd. in 2014. She has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23,5,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}