OPENING STATEMENT
(cleaned up) The Daring New Explanatory Parenthetical BY WAYNE SCHIESS, TEXAS LAW, LEGALWRITING.NET
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uppose you’re writing a piece of legal analysis and you need to quote a case that’s quoting another case. And suppose you omit some words and alter it a bit. Under Bluebook rules, you’d cite the case you’re quoting as well as the underlying source, and you’d show every alteration and omission. Those are the rules. So you might end up with something like this: The Court has previously observed that “[t]he failure to affirmatively establish the fact sought does not ‘prevent the cross-examination from having . . . probative value in regard to the witness’s credibility.’” Henry v. State, 343 S.W.3d 282, 288 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (quoting Cawdery v. State, 583 S.W.2d 705, 710 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979)). But what if you could delete the brackets, the ellipses, and the quotations within quotations? What if you could omit the underlying source and the parenthetical it’s embedded in? Wouldn’t that be okay, as long as you told the reader you “cleaned up” what would otherwise be a messy quotation? If you did, it might look like this: The Court has previously observed that “the failure to affirmatively establish the fact sought does not prevent the cross-examination from having probative value in regard to the witness’s credibility.” Henry v. State, 343 S.W.3d 282, 288 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (cleaned up). That cleaner, neater version was the goal of attorney Jack Metzler when he invented the “cleaned up” explanatory parenthetical in 2017. Metzler has also written a
What if you could omit the underlying source and the parenthetical it’s embedded in? Wouldn’t that be okay, as long as you told the reader you “cleaned up” what would otherwise be a messy quotation? law-review article about (cleaned up). The idea was to make quotations easier to read and to reduce words and bibliographic clutter. So the original: Above all, “[c]ourts presume that the Legislature ‘ “understands and correctly appreciates the needs of its own people, that its laws are directed to problems made manifest by experience, and that its discriminations are based upon adequate grounds.” ’ ” Enron Corp. v. Spring Indep. Sch. Dist., 922 S.W.2d 931, 934 (Tex. 1996) (quoting Smith v. Davis, 426 S.W.2d 827, 831 (Tex. 1968) (quoting Texas Nat’l Guard Armory Bd. v. McCraw, 126 S.W.2d 627, 634 (Tex. 1939))). would look like this: Above all, “courts presume that the Legislature understands and correctly appreciates the needs of its own people, that its laws are directed to problems manifest by experience, and that its
discriminations are based on adequate grounds.” Enron Corp. v. Spring Indep. Sch. Dist., 922 S.W.2d 931, 934 (Tex. 1996) (cleaned up). Metzler’s idea was a hit. Lawyers and judges have started using (cleaned up). It has appeared in dozens of appellate briefs and judicial opinions in Texas. Metzler’s rules for (cleaned up) are too lengthy to quote here; you can find them on my blog, LEGIBLE. But his policies are useful: Using (cleaned up) means that in quoting, the author • has removed extraneous, non-substantive material such as brackets, quotation marks, ellipses, footnote numbers, and internal citations; • has changed capitalization without indicating the changes; and • has made changes that enhance readability while otherwise faithfully reproducing the quoted text. Bottom line: using (cleaned
up) makes quoting and citing easier and aids reading, too. But beware. When you use (cleaned up), your credibility is on the line. You’re saying, “I haven’t altered this quotation unethically, and I haven’t done anything dishonest or underhanded.” If you use (cleaned up) to change the quotation in ways that misrepresent the original text, your credibility is gone. Of course, that’s true of anything you cite or quote: If you’ve exaggerated, fudged, or lied, someone—judge, staff attorney, clerk, opposing counsel—will find you out. So consider (cleaned up) and join me in hoping the next edition AUSTIN LAWYER L AL of the Bluebook takesAnote. Footnotes: 1. Jack Metzler, Use (cleaned up) to Make Your Legal Writing Easier to Read, Before the Bar (Oct. 3, 2017) https:// abaforlawstudents.com/2017/10/03/ use-cleaned-up-make-legal-writingeasier-to-read/. 2. Jack Metzler, Cleaning Up Quotations, 18 Journal of Appellate Practice and Process 143 (2017). 3. https://sites.utexas.edu/legalwriting. 4. Metzler, supra note 2, at 154.
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