Make a Template

A Law on Mass.gov

Make a Template

If you remember diagramming sentences in grade school, the process here is similar. The object is to look at the law, identify the parts with meaningful labels, and order the labels in a word processing program of your choice.

We can already tell how general laws are titled from the previous image and can make these labels:

• Part

• Title

• Chapter

• Section

Clicking on the title link brings up the text of the section:

The body of the legislation is specific at the ‘section’ label. More context is needed for the other labels identified in the title. Drill backward by clicking the links on the left that correspond with the rest of the title link: Chapter 89, Title XIV, and Part I. This will broaden the subjects of the laws and will help you find exactly where an addition should be made.

Writing legislation for laws regarding roads is spelled out in Part I, Title XIV with the title ‘Public Ways and Works’. It might be necessary to create a new chapter or revise a chapter. If adding a new chapter, look on the left to see 92B as the most recent. An example addition would be Chapter 93, ‘Unmarked Crosswalks.’ Following would be Section 1, 2, 3, and so on each written on different but related legislation for unmarked crosswalks.

The template to create is simply those four labels, three of which are titles and the section label will contain the body of the legislation. Additional labels to include would be ‘purpose,’ ‘definitions,’ ‘exceptions,’ and ‘provisions/jurisdiction’ as these are fields in a Turq.io submission. An appropriate template for use on Turq.io is given below.

Title:

Chapter:

Part (General Laws Section):

Purpose:

Definitions:

Provisions/Sections:

Exceptions:

Jurisdiction:

This template is more expanded than the legislation upload form on turq.io so that each label can be developed thoroughly. After final editing, you can copy and paste from the template to the corresponding form field. When you have more ‘sections’ than the form allows, condense them into a ‘provisions’ field.