Academic Legal Writing

by Volokh, Eugene

• ISBN13: 9781587787928
• ISBN10: 158778792X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-31
• Publisher: Foundation Pr

Summary

Designed to help law students write and publish articles, Academic Legal Writing provides detailed instructions for every aspect of the law school writing, research, and publication process. Topics covered include law review articles and student notes, seminar term papers, how to shift from research to writing, cite-checking others? work, publishing, and publicizing written works. With supporting documents available on http://volokh.com/writing, the book helps law students and everyone else involved in academic legal writing: professors save time and effort communicating basic points to students; law schools satisfy the American Bar Association?s second- and third-year writing requirements; and law reviews receive better notes from their staff.

Table of Contents

Foreword	1	(4)
Judge Alex Kozinski
Introduction	5	(3)
Acknowledgments	8	(1)
Articles and Student Notes: The Basics	9	(54)
The Initial Step: Choosing a Claim	9	(23)
The Claim	9	(4)
Novelty	13	(1)
Nonobviousness	14	(1)
Utility	15	(4)
Soundness	19	(9)
Selling This to Your Readers	28	(1)
Topics and Structures You Should Generally Avoid	28	(3)
Case Notes	31	(1)
Organizing the Article	32	(16)
Write the Introduction	32	(4)
Explain Background Facts and Legal Doctrines	36	(3)
Prove Your Claim	39	(3)
Make Your Article Richer: Connect to Broader Issues, Parallel Issues, and Subsidiary Issues	42	(5)
Rewrite the Introduction	47	(1)
The Conclusion	48	(1)
Turning Practical Work into Articles	48	(4)
Extract	49	(1)
Deepen	50	(1)
Broaden	51	(1)
Connect	52	(1)
Budgeting Your Time	52	(2)
Deciding What to Set Aside	54	(2)
Choosing a Title	56	(4)
Summary	60	(3)
Choose a Topic	60	(1)
Make a Claim	61	(1)
Write a First Draft	61	(1)
Edit	61	(1)
Publish and Publicize	62	(1)
Think About Your Next Article	62	(1)
Seminar Term Papers	63	(5)
Introduction: Comparing Seminar Term Papers and Academic Articles	63	(1)
Nonobviousness	63	(1)
Soundness	63	(1)
Writing and Structure	63	(1)
Utility	63	(1)
Novelty	64	(1)
Figuring Out What Your Instructor Expects	64	(1)
Finding a Topic	65	(1)
Budgeting Your Time	66	(1)
Turning the Paper into a Publishable Article	66	(2)
Research	68	(5)
Identifying Sample Cases and Incidents	68	(1)
Understanding the Law	69	(3)
Get the Big Picture	69	(1)
Get the Details	70	(1)
Find Other Works on the Topic (the Literature Search)	71	(1)
Knowing When to Start Writing	72	(1)
Writing	73	(28)
There Are No Lazy Readers---Only Busy Readers	73	(1)
Go Through Many Drafts	73	(1)
If You See No Red Marks on a Paragraph, Go over It Again	74	(1)
If You Need To Reread Something To Understand It, Rewrite It	74	(1)
Read the Draft with ``New Eyes''	74	(2)
Finish the First Draft Quickly/Defeat Writer's Block by Skipping Around	76	(1)
React Effectively to Editing Suggestions	76	(1)
Use Subsection Headings	77	(1)
Use a Table of Contents	78	(1)
Note Down All Your Ideas	79	(1)
Things to Look for: Logic	79	(5)
Categorical Assertions	79	(1)
Insistence on Perfection	79	(1)
False Alternatives	80	(1)
Missing Pieces	81	(1)
Criticisms That Could Apply to Everything	81	(1)
Metaphors	82	(1)
Undefined Terms	83	(1)
Undefended Assertions, and ``Arguably''/``Raises Concerns''	83	(1)
Things to Look for: Writing	84	(13)
Paragraphs Lacking a Common Theme	84	(1)
Long Paragraphs	84	(1)
Inadequate Connections Between Paragraphs	85	(1)
Redundancy	85	(1)
Unnecessary Introductory Clauses	86	(1)
Other Unnecessary Phrases	86	(2)
Legalese/Bureaucratese	88	(1)
Unnecessary Abstractions	89	(2)
Passive Voice	91	(1)
Cliches	92	(1)
Figurative Phrases	92	(3)
Unduly Harsh Criticism	95	(1)
Personalized Criticism	95	(1)
Abbreviations	96	(1)
Word Choice Errors	96	(1)
Proofreading	97	(1)
Editing: Three Exercises	98	(3)
Basic Editing	98	(1)
Editing for Concreteness	99	(2)
Using Evidence Correctly	101	(46)
Read, Quote, and Cite the Original Source	101	(9)
Legal Evidence	101	(3)
Historical, Economic, or Scientific Evidence	104	(1)
Newspapers	105	(3)
Transcripts	108	(1)
Web Sites	109	(1)
Check the Studies on Which You Rely	110	(1)
Compromise Wisely	111	(1)
Be Careful with the Terms You Use	112	(2)
Avoid False Synonyms	112	(1)
Include All Necessary Qualifiers	113	(1)
Use Precise Terms Rather Than Vague Ones	114	(1)
Try To Avoid Foreseeable Misunderstandings	114	(1)
Understand Your Source	115	(2)
Handle Survey Evidence Correctly	117	(10)
What Do Surveys Measure?	117	(1)
Errors in Generalizing from the Respondents to a Broader Group	118	(3)
Errors in Generalizing from the Question Being Asked	121	(3)
Errors Caused by Ignoring Information from the Same Survey	124	(1)
Respondents Giving Incorrect Answers to Pollsters	125	(1)
An Exercise	126	(1)
Be Explicit About Your Assumptions	127	(11)
Inferring from Correlation to Causation	128	(2)
Extrapolating Across Places, Times, or Populations	130	(6)
Inferring from One Variable to Another	136	(1)
A Summary plus an Exercise	137	(1)
Make Sure Your Comparisons Make Sense	138	(6)
Consider Alternative Explanations for Disparities	138	(2)
Make Sure That Cost/Benefit Comparisons Sensibly Quantify Costs and Benefits	140	(1)
Say How Many Cases the Comparison Is Based on, and How Small Changes in Selection May Change the Result	140	(4)
A Source-Checking Exercise	144	(2)
Summary	146	(1)
Cite-Checking Others' Articles	147	(3)
Recommendations for Cite-Checkers	147	(2)
Recommendations for Law Review Editors	149	(1)
Publishing and Publicizing	150	(21)
Consider Publishing Outside Your School	150	(10)
You Can	150	(1)
You Should	150	(2)
Here's How	152	(8)
Working with Law Journal Editors	160	(7)
Have the Right Attitude About Edits	160	(2)
Insist on Seeing All Changes	162	(1)
Always Keep a Copy of Any Marked-Up Draft You Mail	163	(1)
Make Sure Your Earlier Changes Were Properly Entered	163	(1)
Use the Opportunity To Edit More Yourself	163	(1)
Keep the Copyright, but Grant Nonexclusive Rights	164	(3)
Publicizing the Article Before It's Published	167	(1)
Publicizing the Published Article	167	(2)
Reprints	167	(1)
Distributing the Article Electronically	168	(1)
Planning the Next Article	169	(2)
Entering Writing Competitions	171	(6)
Why You Should Do This	171	(1)
Competitions That Don't Offer Publication	171	(1)
Competitions That Guarantee Publication	172	(2)
Competitions That Offer a Chance for Publication	174	(1)
Competitions That Solicit Published Pieces	175	(1)
Competitions That Solicit Unpublished Pieces	175	(2)
Getting on Law Review	177	(32)
What Is a Law Review?	177	(1)
Why Be on a Law Review?	178	(1)
Which Law Review?	179	(1)
``Making Law Review''	180	(1)
Writing On: Background	181	(4)
What the competitions are like	181	(1)
Begin before the competition starts	182	(3)
Writing On: A Timeline for After You Start	185	(22)
Read the instructions	185	(1)
Photocopy	186	(1)
Read the assignment and the source materials	186	(1)
Choose a claim	187	(2)
If you can't find the perfect claim, go with what you have	189	(1)
Do the editing/proofreading/bluebooking test (if there is one)	189	(2)
Write a rough draft of the paper, quickly	191	(6)
Use the sources effectively	197	(3)
Ignore the mid-competition blues	200	(1)
Edit	200	(3)
If you have time, reread this section and the Writing section	203	(1)
What to do if you're over the page limit	203	(2)
Near the end	205	(2)
Special Suggestions for Case Notes	207	(1)
The Personal Statement	207	(2)
Write well and proofread carefully	207	(1)
Pay attention to the instructions	207	(1)
Make yourself sound interesting, but politically unthreatening	208	(1)
If you're applying to a specialty journal, stress your interest or experience in the specialty	208	(1)
Academic Ethics	209	(9)
Avoiding Plagiarism	209	(4)
The Two Harms of Plagiarism	209	(1)
Your Obligations	210	(2)
Copying from Yourself	212	(1)
Being Candid	213	(1)
Being Fair and Polite to Your Adversaries	213	(1)
Being Fair to the Law Review Editors Who Publish Your Article	214	(1)
Preserving Confidentiality	214	(1)
Treating Sources Fairly	215	(1)
Making Data Available	216	(2)
Conclusion	218	(1)
APPENDIX I: CLUMSY WORDS AND PHRASES	219	(7)
Needlessly Formal Words	219	(3)
Verbs	219	(2)
Nouns	221	(1)
Adjectives, Adverbs, Conjunctions, and Prepositions	221	(1)
Circumlocutions	222	(3)
Generally	222	(2)
Verbs Turned into Nouns or Adjectives	224	(1)
``The Fact That''	225	(1)
Redundancies	225	(1)
APPENDIX II: ANSWERS TO EXERCISES	226	(18)
Editing Exercises	226	(8)
Basic Editing, p. 98	226	(5)
Editing for Concreteness, p. 99	231	(3)
Understand Your Source, p. 116	234	(2)
USA Today Survey Report, p. 126	236	(1)
Drunk Driving Study, p. 138	237	(1)
Source-Checking Exercise, p. 144	238	(6)
The First Claim	239	(2)
The Second Claim	241	(3)
APPENDIX III: SAMPLE COVER LETTERS	244	(5)
For Sending an Article to Law Reviews	244	(1)
For Sending a Reprint to Potential Readers	245	(2)
For Sending a Reprint to Potential Readers on Whose Work You Substantially Rely	247	(2)
Endnotes	249	(8)
Index	257