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is that bad? My professor said that whatever we are going to use in the discussion needs to be in the facts--so I am including everything I will use and it seems REALLY long.

How long are statements of fact usually? Obviously it will depend on the case, but generally speaking..for the 1st graded memo [closed universe]...facts are coming from a transcript of testimony

goosey wrote:is that bad? My professor said that whatever we are going to use in the discussion needs to be in the facts--so I am including everything I will use and it seems REALLY long.

How long are statements of fact usually? Obviously it will depend on the case, but generally speaking..for the 1st graded memo [closed universe]...facts are coming from a transcript of testimony

How long is your overall memo going to be (or supposed to be)? Our closed memo had a 6 page limit, and I got the facts onto about a page and a half.

My 8 page memo had 1 page of facts.

Our facts seems to be about a page.

How long is this memo supposed to be?

no page limit but she said 7 should do it...my last memo was 4 pages and had one page of facts and she said my facts were really good.

this seems excessive but theres just so much in there...I dont understand what to cut out.

goosey wrote:no page limit but she said 7 should do it...my last memo was 4 pages and had one page of facts and she said my facts were really good.

this seems excessive but theres just so much in there...I dont understand what to cut out.

No way you should waste 3 pages on facts if the memo is 7. My guess is that your discussion may not be focused enough if you need 3 pages of details to back it up. You only need to discuss the key points and issues (therefore you only need the facts that back up these key points and issues). Any extraneous facts can be omitted. First try a search through your discussion. See if you mention details that aren't really necessary to your analysis. If you can find some, you then go to the facts section and take them out. Its a double space-saver since you delete from two places at once. I did this on my memo and managed to stuff everything into 6 pages.

A 7-page memo should NOT NOT NOT be almost 50% statement of facts.

ok I guess I should get to chopping away at this..

goosey wrote:ok I guess I should get to chopping away at this..

Use your SOF to just give the gist, then work in certain relevant details as needed during your argument.

finishing up my 8 page maximum memo right now... I've got just over a page of facts. I'm squeezing this onto 8 pages by the skin of my teeth.

SeymourShowz wrote:finishing up my 8 page maximum memo right now... I've got just over a page of facts. I'm squeezing this onto 8 pages by the skin of my teeth.

I am pretty sure I will go over 7 pages. She said not to worry about the pages too much because we shouldnt be cutting out good analysis just to fit into 7 pages, but at the same time we need to be economical with our words. I really hate this memo. The last memo was so much more stress-free because it wasnt graded. I did well on it...and this one...kjashjhsjkdha. its liek a train wreck.

Every fact you put should be used in your analysis. There should be nothing extra.

You are writing your facts before you write your analysis?

LurkerNoMore wrote:You are writing your facts before you write your analysis?

This is a good point. OP, since you only want to list out the absolutely necessary facts, you should write your discussion first. Once you have your analysis down, then you will know exactly what specific facts you need to support that analysis.

rockstar4488 wrote:Every fact you put should be used in your analysis. There should be nothing extra.

This is bad advice. It should be the other way around - every fact used in your analysis should be in your statement of facts. But sometimes you need background or contextualizing details in your facts that you won't necessarily analogize later.

If a fact is not crucial to the fact pattern, and not specifically used in your discussion, get rid of it.

You don't earn points on fact patterns. Just make sure you give the gist of what happened and make sure that the facts you rely on in your analysis are there.

Fact section should be written last. I write my analysis and then I read though and make a check list of the facts I mention. Then my fact section is basically just these facts with connecting language just to make it a coherent narrative. my 6 page closed memo had maybe 3/4 of a page of facts.

Seriously, nothing should be in the facts that you don't reference, unless the story becomes incomprehensible without it. If your facts are three pages long and they are indeed all referenced in your analysis, that means you have at least two pages of analysis taken up just by fact referencing. If your memo is only 7 pages that leaves 1 page of pure analysis (since all the other BS in the memo takes up at least a page), which is absurd.

random question, are you all referring to 7-8 pages SINGLE spaced? my LRAW requires double space, and most memos are in the 10-16 page range, which would match up to what's being discussed here

oh, for the record, my statement of facts is usually 1 page single spaced, maybe less, depends on the complexity of the case

Our closed memo is 8 pages double spaced and we have to use 6 cases. After the questions presented, shorts answers, and statement of facts, I was only left with 6 pages to CREAC 6 cases, fml!

Only read OP; 3 pages is too many facts. It should be 2, max. Condense.

3 pages of facts is illogical in a 7 page memo, and here's why: almost everything in your statement of facts will be repeated elsewhere. So if you have 3 pages of facts, you have no room for argument. If it's not essential to your argument, lose it.

I'm not sure if it will helpful at this point for you, but I personally found it really helpful to write my memo out of order, discussion section first since that's really the meat of any memo. That way I knew exactly what facts were relevant to my argument when I wrote that section, and I was able to distill down to a very concise conclusion for the issue and brief answer.

6am and I am (should be) working on a brief for moot court. I hate this shit.

Statement of Facts length should depend on what sort of memo you are writing. If it is a fact-based issue, then I think a significant SOF section can be appropriate, even if you include information that is not directly referenced in the discussion. As long as the fact serves a persuasive function, and does not create word limit restrictions on important arguments that need to be in your discussion, I think its fine to go a little nuts on facts.

so everyone in my section that I've spoken to (and those that have spoken to people that I have spoken to) say their statement of facts are between 2 and 3 pages. I emailed my professor and asked and she suggested I do what many people have said on here: write the analysis and then go back and take anything out that I didnt use and isnt necessary to make the story understandable.

I don't think there is a "right" way to write the memo. Some people start with facts, then do analysis, some prefer to do analysis and then facts. I usually outline my analysis before I write the facts so I have a pretty good idea of what facts I'll be using in the analysis and what needs to match up in the statement of facts. Note: Over the course of two semesters of LRW, I found out what works for me. You should do the same.