The GSA provides and enforces these rules to ensure that legislation considered and passed by the GSA have a consistent, readable, and professional style. The executive alliance, administrative services, and policy services commissioners enforce these rules upon legislation. The drafting team also provides drafting services to graduate students. For assistance with drafting legislation, contact the GSA Policy Services team.

Enacting Clauses

The GSA uses four types of enacting clauses:

• For bills: “Enacted by the Graduate Student Assembly:”.
• For resolutions: “Resolved by the Graduate Student Assembly:”.
• For orders: “Ordered by the Graduate Student Assembly:”.
• For constitutional amendments: “Enacted by the Graduate Student Assembly, by and with the advice and consent of the dean of students and the university president, as follows:—”.

Document Formatting

Legislation must have 1.25″ top and bottom margins and 1.5″ left and right margins. The policy services commissioner may exempt legislative measures from this requirement on a case-by-case basis. This requirement does not apply to draft legislation circulated for discussion or to budget bills. 

The GSA's prefers either Book Antiqua (i.e., Palatino) or MT Garamond (the default Garamond that comes with word) as the typefaces for submitted legislation. 

General Writing Guidelines

Problem Words and Phrases

• Never, ever use "shall." As we will explain, "shall" is an exceptionally problematic word that causes ambiguity, poor and unclear writing.
  • When expressing a requirement or duty, use "must." Using "must" is much more clear and forces you to actually consider what you're writing. Lawyers and legal drafters tend to throw "shall" around thoughtlessly, and laws/drafts end up peppered with "shall" in various—often meaningless or unnecessary—places.
  • "Must" has the advantage of both being a requirement and a call to action. The GSA cannot order the university do to anything—so "shall" is inappropriate. However, the GSA can recommend that the university do something and can make a call to action—in such event "must" is appropriate.
  • If, for whatever reason, you are compelled to use "shall," read the sentence back to yourself and substitute "has a duty to" in the place of "shall" and see if the sentence makes sense. If it does, you used "shall" correctly; if it doesn't make sense, rewrite it. No exceptions. 
• Instead of "shall have the power to," use "may."
• Instead of "shall be established," use "established" or "establishes."
• You must use extreme caution when using "provided." In general, you should never use this word in legislation. Not only is this word problematic because of its complicated nuance, but also because it isn't everyday English. If you need to create an exception, or create a condition, use "but" or some other word.

Prefer Active Voice*

The GSA strongly prefers writing in the active voice. However, there are some situations where writing in the passive voice is not only acceptable, but is also useful. Generally, the passive voice is acceptable in two situations:

1. the actor is clearly understood from context; or
2. the actor is irrelevant.

Those two requirements often go hand-in-hand, but not always.

Writing in the active voice has two primary advantages: (1) it makes your writing more direct and clear, and (2) it makes your writing more powerful and versatile. For example, take the following two sentences:

Sentence 1.
A copy of this resolution must be provided to the Dean of Students' office within 10 days.

Sentence 2.
The GSA must provide a copy of this resolution to the Dean of Students' before the 11th day.

Active Voice Benefits

• It's clear who the actor is.
  • Allows you to hold the specific actor accountable.
  • Makes it harder for the actor to pass the blame.
• Clearer sentence structure.
  • Makes it harder to misinterpret your sentence.
  • Makes your sentence more accessible to those who aren't fluent in legislative English.

Passive Voice Benefits

• Can sometimes make your sentence shorter.
• Leaves the actor unclear.
  • This is beneficial when:
    • the actual actor is irrelevant; or
    • the actor is clearly understood from context.
  • Diffuses blame away from a singular person.

The Killer Be's

If you're using any of these words, you're probably (but not always!) using the passive voice and should think closely about what you're writing:

1. Am,
2. Is,
3. Are,
4. Was,
5. Were,
6. Be,
7. Being,
8. Been.

"Of"

Whenever you use the word "of," ask yourself the following: can I reword this into a possessive? Peppering drafts with "of" makes writing less readable and overly/unnecessarily legalistic. Compare the following:

• "It is the position of the GSA that the university shall provide its students with reasonable pay."
• "It is the GSA's position that the university must provide its students with reasonable pay."

"Only"

When using the word "only," place it as close to the clause/object you're modifying as possible. 

Colons

• Use a colon to link independent clauses to words, phrases, clauses, or lists that identify, rename, emphasize, amplify, explain, or illustrate the sentence that precedes the colon.
• You may capitalize the first word after a colon only if the statement following the colon is a complete sentence and functions as a formal statement or question. If the element following the colon is subordinate, use a lowercase letter to begin that element. 

Periods, Commas, Colons, Semicolons: Where to Place Them?

Standard English requires that, after an end quotation mark, commas and periods be placed inside the quotation marks while colons and semicolons are placed outside the quotation marks. The GSA observes and enforces this rule with only one exception: when making writing verbatim examples and when drafting legislative amendments. In this situation, what's within the quotation marks is the literal text we're concerned with; anything that isn't a part of that literal text must be placed outside the quotation marks. 

Using Dashes Properly

Excluding the hyphen, English uses two types of dashes: em-dashes and en-dashes. Usage of an em-dash is a matter of style, but the en-dash's usage is governed by grammatical rules.

En-Dashes (–)

The en-dash has two uses:

1. It indicates a range of values.* Examples include:
   1. pp. 523–44.
   2. Sections 4.2208–4.2212.
   3. Schedules A–E.
2. It denotes a connection or contrast between pairs of words.

* If you open a range of values with "from," pair it with "to" instead of using an en-dash.

Em-Dashes (—)

The em-dash marks a break between parts of a sentence. Use it when a comma is too weak, but a colon, semicolon, or pair of parentheses is too strong.

Amending Documents

Additions, Insertions, Deletions

An addition between two existing units is an "insertion." An addition at the end of a series is an "addition."

Ramseyer/Cordon Style

The GSA uses Ramseyer/Cordon style for its bills that amend the bylaws. Ramseyer/Cordon style requires that you clearly indicate insertions and deletions from the bylaws. In the GSA, insertions are set in underline and deletions are set in linetype (i.e., strikeout) and enclosed in square brackets.

You must mark an addition or insertion with an underline. You must mark a deletion by [enclosing it in square brackets and striking through the deleted text].

The GSA makes a small distinction between "additions" and "insertions." If you're appending something to a series, it's an addition; if you're inserting something between two preexisting things, it's an insertion. For example:

• "Chapter 17, Graduate Government Code, is amended by adding Sections. 4.1708 through 4.1715 to read as follows:".
• "Title 4, Graduate Government Code, is amended by inserting Chapter 6A to read as follows:".

Floor Amendments

An amendment to an existing legislative item is done in "cut and bite" style. When amending in this manner, always place the location of the amendment before the actual amendment itself. For example:

• In Section 4, (page 1, lines 2–15), strike "president" each time it appears and substitute "chancellor".
• In amended Section 11, strike "only".

Hierarchy of Provisions

Remember that all legislation is equal unless you specify a provision's relationship with other provisions. Use "Except as provided," "notwithstanding," and "despite" to specify one provision's primacy over others. 

Additional Drafting Resources

The GSA provides the following resources, which you may check out from PCL, to assist you in drafting legislation. You will notice that some of these resources contract each other and provide conflicting advice; that is fine! Legislative drafting is an art: not a precise science. The GSA has resolved some of these conflicts in this guidance, but we leave the other conflicts to you to resolve in your own draft. 

• Garner, Brian A. 2013. The Redbook: A Manual of Legal Style. 4th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Academic Publishing.
• Dorsey, Tobias A. 2006. Legislative Drafter's Deskbook: A Practical Guide. Alexandria, VA: TheCapitol.Net. 
• Garner, Bryan A. 2013. Legal Writing in Plain English. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 
• Filson, Lawrence E. and Sandra L. Strkoff. 2008. The Legislative Drafter's Desk Reference: Best Practices in Drafting Federal and State Laws and Regulations. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
• Garner, Bryan A. 2016. Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Legislation. Dallas, TX: RosePen Books.
• Rynearson, Arthur J. 2013. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step.
• Alred, Gerald J. Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu. 2020. Handbook of Technical Writing. 12th ed. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's.
• Strunk, William Jr. and E.B. White. 2000. The Elements of Style. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
• Peacock, James. 1961. Notes on Legislative Drafting. REC Foundation.