7.7 The Main Part: Four Levels of Analysis
Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize!
One of the key skills of an accomplished writer - whether it is an attorney writing a brief for the client or the court, or a student or professor writing an academic paper - is the right prioritization. Time and effort should be spent where they are most needed! In other words, your writing project should be expansive where it is necessary and useful, and it should be brief where there is no need to say more.
How does this look in practice? The typical paper of a beginner will be long where the subject is easy and the argument uncontroversial. And it will be short where things get complicated and controversial. This is the ultimate frustration for the reader: The reader has to plough through pages and pages of boring stuff that merely recites what everybody already knows and agrees with. When she finally gets to the interesting points, where potentially some new arguments or solutions could be presented, the paper only glosses superficially over the issues and does not deliver anything worthy of writing or reading.
Obviously, you will take the opposite approach. Your paper will be short where you are merely reminding the reader of the well known and generally accepted background to the issues you are addressing in your paper. And when things get interesting, this is where you have truly invested yourself and where you will elaborate in detail and with persuasive arguments!
Apply the Four Levels of Analysis!
For every point that you make in a legal brief or in an academic paper, make a conscious decision about the level of analysis it needs:
Level 1 = so irrelevant that readers would be surprised to see the point:
“What Does This Have to Do With That???” => Don’t even mention it!
Level 2 = relevant but uncontroversial:
“Everybody knows that!” => Mention the point, but without explaining or justifying it, if it is necessary to understand the progression of thought, the connection between different and more important points.
Level 3 = important and potentially controversial:
“I am not so sure about that!” => Elaborate the point with your supportive arguments, which should end the doubt or controversy.
Level 4 = the crux of the matter:
“I don’t believe that!” => Elaborate the point with your supportive arguments AS WELL AS obvious counter-arguments and how and why those can be disproven; try to deliver the triple punch: i) state your main argument(s) in favor; ii) state your supportive argument(s) in favor; iii) name the obvious or previously published/stated counter-arguments and explain why they are not relevant or persuasive. Conclude by summarizing why your arguments win.
In this context, see also Construction and Deconstruction of Arguments below!
Finally, how do you decide which level to apply? Just put yourself in the shoes of your opposing counsel or a critic of your paper. Which points would the other side concede? And where would they put in their greatest effort to prove you wrong?