REFLECTIVE AND

PERSUASIVE WRITING
Prof. (Mrs.) Ngozi Udombana, PhD
Head, African and Comparative Law
Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies

Presented at the NIALS Workshop on Legal Writing Skill, University of Lagos Campus, Akoka,
on Tuesday, 1 November 2022
2 Presentation Outline

 Objective and Intended Expectation

 Introduction
 Clarification of Concepts
 Reflective Writing
 Tips on Reflective Writing
 Persuasive Writing
 Relevant Skills for Reflective and Persuasive Writing
 Conclusion
 Resources
3 Objective and Intended Expectation

 Objective: to enlighten participants on the role of reflective and

persuasive writing as a means of communication and the skills
needed to employ this form of writing for effective communication.

 Intended Expectation: that at the end of this presentation, the

participants would have gained a deeper knowledge of the subject
and be able to apply it to enhance their writing skills in the
discharge of their duties
4 Introduction
 Writing is a complex activity that represents and shapes a person’s thoughts. It portrays a
person’s mind, and attitude and pattern of thinking about something. Good writing is,
generally, challenging and calls for reflective/critical thinking.
 The lawyer often engages in the writing of documents that have legal implication, such as
a letter, legal advice, motion, memo, report, contract, pleading, brief of argument, judicial
opinion, binding legal text that create rights and obligations, like a deed of assignment,
among others.
 Some of these require drafting a balanced analysis of a legal problem or issue and some a
predictive and persuasive legal analysis or written advocacy.
 Adequate reflection and persuasion play a significant role in the realisation of the goal of
the content of these documents.
 This presentation underscores how participants can effectively engage in reflective and
persuasive writing as well as the necessary skills for accomplishing this goal.
5 Clarification of Concepts
 Reflective: Reflective, which means pondering, especially thinking back on the past is the
adjective of the verb ‘reflect’, which means to think seriously, to
ponder/contemplate/meditate/mull over/chew over/ruminate/consider or reconsider etc.
 Moon defines it as “a form of mental processing with a purpose and/or anticipated
outcome that is applied to relatively complex or unstructured ideas for which there is not
an obvious solution.”
 Persuasive: Persuasive is an adjective of the verb ‘persuade’, and means the ability to
persuade or convince.
 In effect, it means the ability to successfully convince someone to agree to or accept, or do
something, usually through reasoning and verbal influence.
 It also means to convince of by argument, or by reasons offered or suggested from
reflection etc.; to cause to believe.
6 Clarification of Concepts

 Writing: As a noun, writing means something written – a document, article, book – in a

permanent form. It is the contrast of oral communication.

 As a verb, writing generally means the process of representing a language with letters,
words or symbols for the purpose of communication.

 Writing is, thus, an incisive tool for expressing oneself and conveying thought through
words, which enables the writer to share meaning and understanding.

 Legal Writing signifies writing relating to law; this takes various forms as indicated in the
introduction.
7  Reflective and persuasive writing, therefore, means writing which contents have been
seriously thought over and presented in a convincing way.
 The aim of such writing is to persuade readers or the audience to accept the writer's point
of view on an issue and probably agree with a suggested course of action.
 To achieve this aim, the writer must develop a logical and reasonable argument in
support of the view. In essence, the writing must be good.
 With reference to legal writing, Pamela Samuelson observes “A good legal writing must
make people feel as if they have seen something more clearly, it must induce the reader
to feel that he would have come to the same conclusion that the author reached had the
reader done his or her own investigation of the subject-matter. If this is achieved the
writer has attained a kind of ‘window pane’* effect on the reader.
 * A sheet of glass in a window through which one can clearly see outside.
8 Reflective Writing
 Reflective writing provides an opportunity to gain further insights from one’s work through
deeper reflection on one’s experiences, and through further consideration of other perspectives
from people and theory. Through this, knowledge is deepened.

 More importantly, for our purposes here, reflective writing is relevant in sharpening one’s general
writing skill and encourages thoughtful and balanced level of thinking as it helps the writer to
process and explore ideas, and analytical skill about his/her thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

 Reflective thinking is as important as Reflective writing as one flows from the other.

 Thinking by writing is an effective way to make decision carefully and deeply, and it can also
improve awareness to the situation in issue.
9 Some Tips on Reflective Writing
 Bear in mind the purpose of your writing.

 Reflective writing requires practice and constant standing back from oneself.

 Practice reflective writing on the same incident through the viewpoints of different people.

 Deepen your reflection/reflective writing with the help of others through discussing issues
with individuals and groups, getting the viewpoints of others.

 Always reflect on what you have learnt from an incident, and how you would do
something differently another time. In other words, always ‘reflect back’ on the past and
‘reflect forward’ to the future.
10

 EXERCISE ON REFLECTIVE
WRITING
11 Persuasive Writing
 The aim in persuasive writing is to support a legal position and convince the
reader to agree with the legal conclusion that favours that position.
 Proper analysis of issues is necessary.
 To write persuasively, two primary principles must be kept in mind:
 Perspective, i.e. the viewpoint you are advocating. This must be clearly
articulated and presented; and
 Audience, i.e. the reader, who is sought to be convinced to agree or accept the
argument.
 In a persuasive writing, while trying to present a balanced argument, emphasis is
placed more effectively on putting across information that is only necessary to
favour your position.
12
 In Re Pinochet’s case, one of the persuasive submissions made by Pinochet’s
counsel, Ms Montgomery, Q C, in the petition, was that “Although there was no
exact precedent, your Lordships' House must have jurisdiction to set aside its
own orders where they have been improperly made, since there is no other court
which could correct such impropriety.’ In essence, in principle, it must be that
their Lordships, as the ultimate court of appeal, have power to correct any
injustice caused by an earlier order of the House. Since there is no relevant
statutory limitation on the jurisdiction of the House in this regard, its
inherent jurisdiction remains unfettered.
 Relevant Skills for Reflective and Persuasive
13
Writing
 Use topic sentences: Write every heading and subheading as a sentence. Every
paragraph should also begin with a topic sentence and end with a thesis sentence that
summarises and answers the topic sentence.
 Consider this paragraph
 It is impossible to have an absolute separation of powers. Montesquieu argues that
though the three arms of government must be separated and entrusted to different
people, there must be a balance of power among the separated arms of government
to be achieved through the fused mechanism of ‘checks and balances.’ Effective
oversight, while demanding that each arm asserts its authority, requires a measure of
mutual cooperation. As a matter of fact, each arm of government functions within a
larger political system. It is linked with other institutions in various ways and, in
consequence, its decisions often reflect the inter-relationships.
14  Topic sentences:
 Enhance coherent argument,
 Helps to easily determine the logical flow and consistency of
argument,
 Helps to ensure that the content of each paragraph relates to its
heading.
 Captures the attention of the reader and gives him/her an easy view
of the direction of your argument.
 Know Your Audience: A good knowledge of recipients of the
writing will help you adapt it to their need/expectation.
15  Prepare Adequately: This includes –
 Knowing the background i.e. learn the facts and know the issues involved in the
subject. This will give you a better approach to the issue as you write.
 Research the law and other applicable rules as well as notices, policies, reports,
circulars etc. Try to frame the facts into legal issues and narrow your legal research.
 Outline your arguments in a way that will align with the result you seek. Stick to
only your strongest and best-supported arguments and do away with weak ones.
 Structure your writing in a logical manner to enable the reader move sequentially
from point to point with full comprehension. Failure to present your argument in a
logical manner will result in irritating disruptions and loss of your audience.
Drawing up a table of content will be quite helpful in this regard
 To have sufficient writing time, start to write early and set time aside to do so
without distractions. Adopt a time management technique that works for you.
16
 Organise Methodically: A methodically organised writing – be it
a brief, report, advice, even a letter, etc. – is easy to read. Avoid a
haphazard arrangement of the content of the writing.
 Adequate preparation, logic and paragraphing aid orderly
organisation.
 Since your aim is to persuade your reader to agree with you, you
must make it as easy as possible for the reader to make that
choice.
 It is advisable to start with an introductory statement or a brief
summary of your argument and your desired outcome before
going into the full details.
  Clearly Explain Your Point: explain your point of view in a way that it can be understood at
17 first reading.
 Part of clearly explaining your point entails writing in a simple concise manner and avoiding
the use of ambiguous or vague terms or phrases.
 Ambiguity exists when a word or phrase can be interpreted in more than one way. E.g.
“light”, “vessel”, “carpet”.
 A word is vague when there is doubt about its boundaries or when it has an open textured
meaning. E.g., “handicapped”, who exactly is handicapped and what form or degree of
handicap is implied? Avoid every form of confusion of law or facts.
 Legal writing should be flawlessly clear, lucid and enlightening.
 To get your points across, it is safer to assume that your readers know nothing about the
subject than to assume that they do and are likely to agree with you.
 In effect, do not write in a conclusory way. Prove your point by providing every relevant
detail. Describe people, places, things and events, if necessary.
18  Be ethical: writing ethically is a mark of true professionalism. Ethical writing entails being
fair and accurate, focusing on issues and avoiding personal attacks and exaggeration. Avoid
terms like “absurd,” “disingenuous,” “preposterous” ‘thoughtless”, “ridiculous” and such
like.
 Ethics also demands gender neutrality in writing. Gender neutral writing avoids the use of
gender specific words, such as chairman/chairlady, policeman/policewoman,
landlord/landlady and a host of others. Terms like chairperson, police officer, lessor etc.
should be used.
 As Judge Gerald Lebovits notes, “Non-gender-neutral writing is discrimination in print,
and gender neutral writing allows the reader to focus on content, not style, and thus does
not distract from the message.”
 He further notes that instead of sentences like: “A perfectionist likes her briefs to be
perfect.”, “A perfectionist likes their briefs to be perfect.” or “A perfectionist likes his or
her briefs to be perfect.” ones like: “A perfectionist likes perfect briefs.” or “Perfectionists
like their briefs to be perfect.” should be used.
19  Proof read: Review the draft document. Every good writing takes
time and effort.
 The first draft is never an ideal document. It is essential to edit it.
 A piece of writing that contains grammar, punctuation, or spelling
errors cannot be taken seriously. Such errors distract from the
substance of the writing and make the writer appear unprofessional.
 You should, as such, proofread the writing, review your arguments
and make them as efficient as possible; take out any unnecessary
thing and rewrite any unclear portion.
20  Pay Careful Attention to Details
 There are seemingly minor details that can be easily overlooked, yet they can rubbish your
writing. They, therefore, call for careful attention. They include –
 Accuracy of facts – crosscheck your facts to ensure that they are correct and do not contradict
or vary with each other.
 Sentences – are they complete in thought and expression?
 Consistency in spelling and formatting– are your spellings correct and consistent with the
house style? Is your formatting: numbering, bullet points etc. uniform? Is every t crossed and i
dotted? Is your capitalisation method uniform?
 Punctuations – are your punctuations accurate and in the proper places?
 Beware of computer spell check and auto correct.
 Is the document complete and all the issues intended to be dealt with covered?
 Cross check your headings. Where the draft contains an outline or a TOC, ensure that the
presentation in the body is in line with the outline or TOC.
 Careful attention to detail calls for a painstaking editing of your draft before submission.
21 Conclusion
 The ability to communicate effectively in writing is one of the most vital
professional skills and assets of a lawyer.
 Effective communication can be accomplished through reflective and persuasive
writing.
 This presentation has discussed reflective and persuasive writing, noting that it
entails a deep reflection on issues, proper analysis and the ability to persuade the
target audience.
 It also underscored some of the relevant skills for such writing.
 It is expected that the application of this knowledge, with necessary adaptations to
the different forms of documents participants regularly prepare in the course of
their work, will stand them in better stead.
22 Resources
 Wiktionary, en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/thesaurus.
 J. Moon, 1999, Learning Journals: A handbook for academics, students and professional development. Kogan
Page. London, 23.
 B. M. Ghandi, ‘Legal Language, Legal Writing and General English’ (EBC Publishing Pvt Ltd, Lucknow,
2009), 164-193.
 Pamela Samuelson, ‘Based on: Good Legal Writing: Of Orwell & Window Pans’, University of Pittsburgh
Law Review, 149 (Fall 1984).
 J. A. Moon, 2006, Learning Journals: A handbook for reflective practice and professional development. 2nd ed.
New York: Routledge.
 ‘Reflective Writing: Guidance Notes for Students’ - Pete Watton, Jane Collings and Jenny Moon, 2001.
 Siti Mutiara Sani, Nia Kurniawati and Dahlya Indra Nurwanti, ‘The Use of Reflective Writing to Improve
Students’ Writing and Critical Thinking’, In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and
the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First
International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017)
- Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pp 331-335, 331. <
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327770474>.
 K. Hyland, 2002. ‘Authority and invisibility: Authorial identity in academic writing’, Journal of Pragmatics,
34(8), 1091–1112.
 Gerald Lebovits, ‘Write to Win’, The Queens Bar Bulletin – DECEMBER 2008, 14.
23

 Thank You for Listening