The book is designed to facilitate learning:
• provides a basic guide to the skills of legal writing
• process-oriented text takes students step by step through outlining, creating a working draft, creating the final document, and revising effectively
• teaches reasoning and writing as two interrelated processes by integrating creating a rule of law into the writing process and linking it to the large-scale organization of the document The author pays close attention to different learning styles, keeping the book teachable and accessible
• concrete explanations and examples reinforce the material
• exercises help students build their writing skills
• appendices include a sample office memorandum, trial brief, appellate brief, and cases uses in the examples and exercises

Changes for the Fourth Edition enhance the teachability of the book:
• two more sample documents are introduced, and all the documents in the appendices are identified as examples of particular common kinds of analysis
• materials are streamlined wherever possible to control the length of the text
• citation materials are fully updated