An articles editor for a Top 20 law review writes:
I have for some time been thinking that it would be best to simply eliminate accepting paper copy submissions for [our law review]. The online system we primarily use (and where we receive the vast majority of our submissions) is far superior to paper copies. Indeed, the only thing that paper copies do from my end is give me more tedious work that cuts into the substantial time I must give to other editing responsibilities, as I must log each submission my hand. It does so while giving authors no benefit that I can see.
I thus see no point to paper copies. They only add work for absolutely no benefit. I hear, however, that some professors actually prefer sending paper copies. The only halfway decent justifications I have heard are (1) that they can send a personalized cover letter via mail (this justification makes no sense as our online system allows for the submission of cover letters); and (2) that authors think they have a better chance of getting their submission promptly reviewed because the editor who reviews paper submissions will give them a quick look when logging them into the law review's system. This latter explanation is at least plausible, but my experience is that this gives the author no advantage over online submissions, as I and other editors do the same thing with online submissions.
I write to ask for your help. I would like more information on this issue from professors. As your blog is read by a wide array of professors, I was wondering if you could put a post on your blog asking professors to comment on this issue, so I and others can get better information.
A good question; what do our law professor readers think?
The only argument I've seen demanding paper submissions has been in regular publishing, where it reduces the "slush pile" issue (spamming specialty publishers with inappropriate or poorly written submissions, because it's so easy to do via email) -- given how small the population of law professors is, I'm pretty sure it's not a huge issue for law reviews. On the other hand, how big of a problem is it for the law reviews, really, to get a handful of submissions on paper? This problem is self-resolving, as the e-submission-adverse retire or die off.
Of course, a professor who is sufficiently technophobic that they refuse to use ExpressO is probably also a professor who isn't going to be commenting on a blog post.
I've resolved the standardization problems that Professor Sherry identifies by ignoring them: if a law review wants to double-space my paper or prefers Courier to a more readable typeface, it takes them two keystrokes in Microsoft Word, and would take me days to track down every last submission requirement. I'd rather use that time writing.
Outside of law profs, students on law review, and some legal employers, I'm not sure anyone does. When doing real-world research, I've yet to come across a useful law review article.
The UCLA Law Review did almost everything on paper. But it's still easier to have an electronic copy: you don't have to worry about losing or storing the original, and if someone needs another copy, you just hit print.
While it's much easier for submission/tracking/big picture edits, I find it makes detailed copy-editing virtually impossible. But that's because of the review submission process not because of the paper submission process (I generally get little text boxes to leave comments to authors/editors and radio boxes to numerically rate aspects of the paper).
On Suzanna's varying requirements, in the EE world, we have templates (Word and LaTEX) which take care of formatting issues and describe content requirements which minimize author headaches.
I think the difficulty with a "no paper copies" rule is that law professors vary in their knowledge of journal practices. Some profs are diligent and check websites for policies, and some are not too careful and just do what they have done for years. A rule that no paper copies are accepted at all might lead a journal to reject perfectly good articles from authors who fall in the latter camp instead of the former camp (more likely with senior authors who aren't checking websites as often). Given that, I think it's probably better, at least for now, to have a journal policy that strongly prefers electronic copies than to have a policy stating that no paper copies are accepted at all.
On the other hand, it seems clear that this is where journal submissions are heading. So I think the question is what to do in the transition time before we're fully electronic.
You're being funny, right? That's ALL they care about. They can't evaluate the merits of the argument, but they certainly can evaluate the formatting.
(A similar problem pervades the teaching of writing in high schools &colleges, so I'm not picking just on the law students here.)
Current students (and academics) get Expresso use subsidized, of course, and some recent grads can continue to use their student email accounts to get the subsidy, but Expresso *automatically* bars anybody using a student account from submitting to a journal that claims not to take student work. This means that a recent law school grad can't submit to most top journals through Expresso without paying for it (and creating a separate account to do so).
Of course, the current hodgepodge is also a nuisance, but journals should probably remember that switching to Expresso only will block out a lot of non-law-professor work, at least by the non-wealthy. Maybe practitioner (and recent graduate) work is sufficiently bad on average that this is a virtue, not a vice, but it should be done knowingly if so.
If you are a student, you really don't want to be submitting to law reviews that don't take student submissions anyway. Guaranteed waste of time.
The only people that ExpressO really affects by pricing are law clerks and low salary practitioners. But then you have to consider whether paper or some other method would be cheaper. Paper is definitely not cheaper. SSRN is, and many people go that route for that reason.
What's the over/under on how many times a professor at the conference whispers to his seatmate, "This 'Local Governments at Risk' stuff is pointless, but anything's better than grading exams"? 150,000?
Electronic submission is very expensive if you're not already a law professor.
I am not touting the virtue of paper submissions. I am worried about the writers (and journals) who are suggesting that everybody should use Expresso (or worse, exclusively Expresso). Journals that accept emailed submissions in addition to Expresso (or have those cumbersome online submissions systems) are far more accessible to recent grads and law clerks, some of whom are smart and write smart articles.
It's always amazed me how little legal academics are willing to invest in the infrastructure of legal scholarship as a whole. Paper-based submissions policies have one big advantage: they place the organizational burden of submissions on the students. This makes sense only so long as one has no respect for the students' time.