I’m working right now on the next edition of my Academic Legal Writing book, which I hope will be out this Fall. If you’ve used the book, and thought it was missing something, or said something incorrectly or unclearly, I’d love to hear your suggestions.
former student says:
a section on the role of blogs in student writing?
January 27, 2010, 4:25 pmEric Rasmusen says:
I haven’t read the book (I ought to, I know, I’d probably get a lot out of it). Here’s a plea for something, though: an editorial comment that law reviews ought to have a list of references at the end, just as in all other fields’ scholarly journals and in legal briefs (at the beginning). It’s an example of useful redundancy to have the references both in the footnotes and at the end.
January 27, 2010, 4:47 pmMike says:
former student makes a good point.
A couple of years ago a law student e-mailed me something like the following: “I want to write a paper on Section 1983. My law professor advisor told me to you read your blog. I saw your post on ______. Would that make a good paper idea?”
I responded, of course, and he ended up turning an idea from of my blog posts into a paper.
January 27, 2010, 5:04 pmohiolawdog says:
I have a tip that I don’t remember reading this in your book (although it could be in there).
My tip is to begin working on a new article as soon as you send one out.
Here was my experience with my last article. I wrote an article and sent it out early in the submission season. As soon as I had sent out this article, I began working on a second one. Early on in the submission season, I received an offer for publication from Journal 1. Around two or three months after receiving the offer for publication from Journal 1, I received an offer from Journal 2. I told Journal 2 that I had already accepted an offer for publication for the article, but that I had a second article that they may be interested in. Journal 2 eventually published the second article.
In my experience, the biggest hurdle that a non-professor writer must clear is getting the law student editors to take a chance on someone outside of the academy. Once you have already cleared this hurdle, it is much easier to get the student editors to accept your piece. Anything that can be done to help clear this hurdle is helpful, but I’ve found that this is a short cut to clearing this hurdle.
January 27, 2010, 5:40 pmtfkw says:
I’d like to see a section for LLMs, explicitly comparing and contrasting expectations of foreign and American law schools. I urged the book on a Japanese LLM student in one of my classes who seemed totally lost as to what was expected of him in a seminar paper; I wish I knew if it did any good. I felt really bad for him.
And no, I have no idea what he experienced back in Japan, or where most LLM students come from, or what their biggest pitfalls are. For all I know it should be the subject of a separate book.
January 27, 2010, 6:43 pmGainesvilleGuest says:
What types of things are you already planning to add? VC commentators may be able to offer some useful feedback – and I’d be interested to hear it.
January 27, 2010, 10:22 pmTigerNacho says:
Just a few insights and advice for Law Review board members would be nice. How might they best devise effective write-on competitions? How can they best manage junior associates through the writing process? Stuff like that. Plenty has been written about the writing phase of law review (Academic Legal Writing is at the top of that list), but I have found little available on the editing/managing process. I understand it’s a little off-topic, but some of those 2Ls poring over Academic Legal Writing to get through their first year on law review would love to be able to earmark a few pages for 3L year.
January 27, 2010, 10:52 pmThanks, I’ll hang up and listen.
Frank Rosenblatt says:
Professor Volokh,
I’m an Army Major attending the Army JAG School LL.M program in Charlottesville, VA. All 116 of us have to write a scholarly paper, and we all use your book. It is an excellent resource.
Your book (I have the third edition) doesn’t have much on footnoting. My classmates and I vary widely in the extent and uses of footnotes. In my opinion, military legal scholarship tends to over-cite to the point of distraction. Some guidelines on best approaches for student notes would help a lot.
Keep up the great work.
Frank
January 27, 2010, 11:09 pmCooley Law Student says:
I’m not sure if you already suggest this (and my apology if you do), but I feel that your book would do well to mention the usefulness and importance of utilizing automated web alerts to aid in research. LexisNexis Alerts, Google Alerts, and Westlaw KeyCite Alerts are all excellent ways to stay up-to-date on the latest legal cases and aid in research.
See also: Using Google alerts to your advantage in the legal field.
January 28, 2010, 12:12 amlgm says:
Advice: shorten it. Strunk and White is the right length for general writing. Add maybe law specific pages — how to cite, etc. In my experience, people who need a writing book are not interested in language & usually don’t like reading. They will not read a book on writing that is too long.
January 28, 2010, 11:11 amGary says:
It would be nice to address submitting articles as a non-student, non-professor, non-judge, practicing attorney (which seem to be a small minority of published law review article authors).
January 28, 2010, 3:07 pmPhil says:
I guess add things that will justify the price of buying a new edition. So, unlike the vast majority of college textbooks.
January 29, 2010, 8:59 amThaddeus Mason Pope says:
Sell separate books for each audience: seminar writers, law review staff, etc. At least in Health Law, Aspen and West have taken 1000+ page casebooks and broken them into 4 smaller books for more specific audiences (e.g. med mal, public health, bioethics, finance). There are, of course, other models where a substantially similar book is modified and sold under separate covers to separate markets.
January 29, 2010, 12:14 pmInnocent Bystander says:
I am a huge fan of the book and doubt that you could shorten it without hurting it. One suggestion: the Third Edition promises a Word macro that would identify bad words and phrases. Yet, I haven’t seen it — before the website overhaul, volokh.com/writing promised that the macro would arrive soon; now, it just redirects to a 2004 blog post. I would write the macro myself, but I am lazy. If you could get an RA to do it, the world would be a better place!
January 29, 2010, 11:17 pmFrank Rosenblatt says:
From Page 149: “The answer, it turns out, is 17,500. Why? Because 18,500 of the over 35,000 were suicides.”
The answer, as it should turn out after a recalculation, is 16,500.
February 13, 2010, 9:04 pm