Unit 4 of English — Paper I (syllabus: Module IV — grammar and usage, vocabulary, and the conventions of legal and official writing). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.
What this unit covers
- Why does a law degree begin with a language module, and what are the types of written communication a lawyer actually meets?
- What does a well-drafted instrument and a well-drafted deposition look like, and how do the bad specimens fail?
- What is the difference between a private letter and a letter written for the record?
- What are the rules of effective letter writing, and what disaster does each of them prevent?
- What is a précis, and what are the five operations that produce one?
- How does tense choose between a rule and an event, and why does it matter to a drafter?
- When is the passive voice right in a legal document, and when is it a way of hiding?
- What changes when speech is reported, and why does a lawyer read the transcript rather than the summary?
Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.