Our weekly writing tip is designed to make you a better writer, one step at a time. Take two minutes to improve your writing skills and read this tip.

It’s time to follow last week’s inaugural Off the Clock writing tip with a new drafting tip. These are supposed to be “two minute tips,” but honestly this one will take less. I’ll call it a 5 second tip.

Here it is: Don’t use contractions in formal legal writing.

Now go back to your business. Consider yourself enlightened.

But maybe you’re saying, “you just used a contraction in your tip about not using contractions!” Then keep reading for another minute. The purpose of avoiding contractions is to 1) sound more formal and 2) avoid mistakes. If you’re writing a law review article, contract, or a letter to someone you want to impress, spelling out all of your words will help you accomplish a more professional tone. It will also keep you from making mistakes if you’re prone to your/you’re or its/it’s switches and help you avoid other clarity issues.

You can set Word to catch contractions for you. Under Tools go to Spelling and Grammar, go to Options then Settings, then check the appropriate box. (In older versions of Word, this is Tools, then Options, then the Spelling and Grammar tab, then Settings).

On the other hand, if you’re writing a letter to a client—or maybe even a blog post—and want to set a friendly tone, well then go right ahead and contract to your heart’s content. Sometimes it’s good to sound less formal.

Posted by Andrea Hable