specific material underneath the heading and not be concerned with anything
else. It is like the builder’s string line in that it tells them where to go and where
not to go. (ii) Structural Function. Headings convey key ideas
168
and provide
“guideposts for the journey”.
169
They are particularly helpful “where a [text] is
lengthy or deals with a number of different issues”.
170
If any further
justification is needed, reflect that without headings most technical writing
would be constituted by a “dense unbroken text”.
171
(iii) Summary Function.
When a text is finished a writer needs to check it to ensure that it is sound.
One quick way to do this is to scan the headings. By doing this, the overall
structure is revealed in the headings and the content of the text is summarised
by the headings.
Length
Introduction
There are two simple rules about the length of a text. First, a text should be as
long as it needs to be. It needs to be as long as it takes to complete the
purpose for which the text was written. Second, a text needs to be as short as
possible. As Sir Harry Gibbs put it, a text should have “as much brevity as the
subject will permit”.
172
Texts that are too long inflict on a reader the “menace
of prolixity, irrelevant wandering and imprecision. They make for both
misapprehension and non-apprehension, creating boredom and distraction
from the points that matter”.
173
Obviously there are demands here that are potentially conflicting. A text needs
to be complete, and at the same time, as brief or succinct as one can make it.
Completeness
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance
run
174
Information in any text needs to be complete. A writer should deal with the
subject “fully and conscientiously”.
175
This applies to all legal writing, but there
is a special consideration for judgments. In “an era of openness and
___________________
168
Kirby (1990) p 702
169
Kirby (1990) p 702
170
Gibbs (1993) p 501
171
Kirby (1990) p 702
172
Gibbs (1993) pp 498-499
173
Kitto (1992) p 795
174
Rudyard Kipling If
175
Gibbs (1993) p 502
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