Lessons · Law foundations · drafting a chronology
A chronology: one line, one date, one fact
A chronology is every relevant dated fact, earliest first, one per line, each with the document it comes from.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The file with no chronology is the file nobody can pick up. Six months of correspondence in a box tells you nothing; the same events on two pages in date order show the gap where somebody stopped replying, and that gap is usually the case.
How to think about it
One line per fact, and never two facts on one line. If the date is uncertain, say so on the line rather than leaving it out, because a missing line is invisible and an uncertain one is a question somebody can answer.
Worked example
3 January: order placed. Purchase order 4471.Date, fact, and where it comes from. Three columns, every time.
17 January: delivery date confirmed in writing. Email from the supplier.Facts, not conclusions. What the document says, not what it means.
28 January: goods arrive damaged. Delivery note, signed and marked.Even a fact that helps nobody goes in. The chronology is not an argument.
Earliest at the top, latest at the bottom, no exceptions.The order is the whole value of the document.
Your turn
Every line of a chronology carries a date, a fact, and one more thing, so that any line can be checked.
Date, fact, and the it comes from
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Writing what a document means instead of what it says. The chronology is the shared, uncontroversial spine of the file, and the moment it argues, the other side stops accepting it and the office loses its most useful page.