Writing Tips: Sophistication and the Apple Effect

Question

How can lawyers make their writing more sophisticated by taking advantage of the Apple Effect?

“Not Sophisticated!”

Once upon a time, I was working with a talented young associate who was really frustrated with her supervisor. This supervisor would regularly shower the associate with colorful criticisms about the lack of sophistication in her writing. The poor associate tried to remedy the problem with standard solutions like doing more research, inserting more citations, identifying more reasons for her arguments, etc. But, nothing seemed to satisfy her demanding boss.

This problem really interested me because I thought she was following the right approaches to addressing her sophistication issue. So, I asked the associate to provide me with redacted versions of her writing and the edits of her supervisor. When I examined the writing with the associate, we quickly discovered that her supervisor was primarily focusing on formatting issues like sections, headings, bullet points, usage of bold, etc. In other words, her boss was going for the Apple Effect.

The Apple Effect?

When I was a young boy, we didn’t have fancy Apple stores. We just had electronics stores, simple stores that were crammed with electronics gadgets.

Old School Electronics Store

Then one day, we suddenly had Apple stores. These stores really stood out because they weren’t crammed with products. In fact, they kind of looked like a waste of space. They just contained a few products displayed on tables or desks. Everything else was empty and kind of weird.

New School Apple Store

But, here’s the funny thing. These empty stores were making a lot more money than your traditional electronics stores. People loved going into them, not just because of the products, but also because the store design just felt simple and comfortable. Better yet, the stores also made the products themselves feel better - more sophisticated, more valuable.

The Apple Effect in Writing

If you want to utilize this Apple Effect to achieve a similar level of sophistication and value in your writing, you just need to use formatting to make your writing feel less crowded. (In typography, they call this approach using more “white space”). In other words, you should focus on formatting with sections, section headings and bullet points to make your writing stand out.

For example, consider the following two CVs. Which of the formats looks more sophisticated?

Version 1: Low White Space

Version 2: High White Space

When I ask my students to choose the better version, they always choose the second version because it just feels better … more structured, more focused, more reader-friendly, and more sophisticated. It’s the exact same content, but the format feels much better.

Learn More

If you are fascinated by the topic of document design, I highly recommend that you check out the following book: “Typography for Lawyers” by Bryan Butterick. The book is extremely practical and provides many tips on making your writing more sophisticated without the need to do any more research.

Also, if you want to learn more ways to make your writing sophisticated and valuable for clients, join us for our High-Value Writing course.