Featured presenter: Ronald R. Hofer, District Staff Attorney, Wisconsin Court of Appeals

In this entertaining program, you will learn to see your writing as the reader will see it.  You will gain valuable insight into how English works and by learning what all readers have in common, you will acquire new tools to make your writing more convincing, understandable and effective.

• How legal writing is both different from and similar to other kinds of writing

• Rhetoric: examples from popular culture, journalism and case law

• How clarity helps persuade

• What gets lost between the words in your head and the words on the page

• How readers decode what you write

• What causes readers to misunderstand or lose interest

• What readers look for when they read

• Which words readers “see” and which they don’t

• How different kinds of words affect readers differently

• How to shorten sentences without losing content

• How to diagnose and correct your writing problems.