Legal pads — yellow pads of lined legal-size paper — are the birthplace of big ideas, concepts, and transformations and are the weapon of choice for scholars, lawyers, and activists shaping messages and tenets. Their simplicity appeals to the iterative process and is still preferred by many over developing meaning and understanding on computers.

TheLegalPad explores the tools writers deploy, the use of rhetorical devices, their effectiveness, and the endless contradictions of the English language. Read on below…