| 1. | Familiarize yourself with the various canons and doctrines that courts use to construe a word or phrase. Some common ones appear on the next page. |
| 2. | Hone your research skills so that you can find numerous types and pieces of evidence that will help readers to glean the meaning of the disputed text. Hunger for clues that support your reading of the text. Do not stop researching simply because you find one piece of support. |
| 3. | Think creatively about how a word or phrase is used. When making a textual argument, one of the hallmarks of great advocacy is to show how the disputed term is used in other contexts. Similarily, think of alternate words that could have been used in the statute — but that the legislature declined to use. |
| 4. | Do not simply grab the nearest dictionary to obtain a definition of a disputed word. Learn which dictionaries are favored by courts. Consult (and cite) multiple dictionaries and pay attention to which edition of a dictionary you use. |
| 5. | Emphasize the statute’s overall purpose if that purpose is consistent with your reading of the specific provisions that the parties are disputing. That might require you to sneak into your textual argument either dicta or a few lines of legislative history (which is discussed in Chapter 8). |
| 6. | Refer the court to materials from the case’s record or from prior cases in which your adversary (or the court) used the disputed term consistently with your interpretation. |
