What Shylock Can Teach Lawyers About Speaking and Writing
Shylock from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice may be able to teach lawyers a few things about speech and brief writing.
The blog Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills uses Shakespeare’s words, spoken through Shylock, along with other famous speeches to illustrate eight good speechwriting techniques. The (new) legal writer blog noticed the summary and suggested the same concepts could apply to brief writing.
One technique is the harmonizing sentence, in which the weight on one side is balanced on the other side. The example is this speech by Shylock: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
Six Minutes uses an Arnold Schwarzenegger speech to help illustrate the technique of refrain. Schwarzenegger’s refrain: “America is back. Back from the attack on our homeland. Back from the attack on our economy. Back from the attack on our way of life.”
Hat tip to Legal Blog Watch.
