That’s the question posed and addressed by my buddy Mike at C&F.

Interviewed by Peter Robinson on NRO’s Uncommon Knowledge.

I share (in part) this sentiment expressed by Justice Scalia, which comes to us via Professor Althouse:

[Scalia] finds writing “painful” but loves “having written.”

I don’t consider writing “painful,” but it is a challenging process, to be sure. And I am almost never completely satisfied with what I’ve written. But like Scalia, I love “having written.”

It really is a joy to do something you love every day. 

I am trying to read a page or two of Bryan A. Garner’s “The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style” every day, and I’ve decided to post interesting writing-style tips that I come across here at SA. So, with that said, here is the first tidbit I found useful:

The em dash may suggest drama; the colon may suggest a cause-effect relationship; the semi-colon may suggest that the clauses are of equal importance; parentheses may suggest that what they contain is of lesser importance.

I think this is a fairly accurate description of how many readers interpret these four punctuation marks, and is something we lawyers should keep in mind while crafting our motions/briefs.