Scholarly Legal Writing: General Materials

This guide is easy-to-read for all types of writers and includes notes for legal professionals. The authors consulted multiple grammar-related sources in their research, so readers would not have to. The book contains the following: Rules of grammar and punctuation, with examples. Key grammatical terms necessary for understanding rules. Citations to grammatical and legal sources. Style tips. Self-test exercises and answers. An easy-to-use index.

Incorporating the useful suggestions of attorneys who relied on the previous edition, this new 3rd Edition gives you the specialised knowledge and techniques to draft clear and compelling legal documents -- no matter how complicated the issues involved. Hailed as 'the best book ever written on legal writing' by practising attorney and former Marine Corps Staff Judge Advocate Theodore Hess, the book includes exercises, examples, and highlighted drafting do's and don'ts to help you to: Craft introductions that activate readers' minds from the start; Develop a writing persona that's credible, professional, and engaging; Write strong, streamlined sentences that bring subjects into clear focus; Create logically-linked paragraphs that carry readers forward smoothly; Break up information stylistically and graphically to enhance comprehension; Use syntax, verbs, and varied sentence lengths to keep readers' attention; Instil writing with added grace, energy, character, and imagination; Communicate directly with different audiences, including clients, associates, senior lawyers, and judges; Identify drafting problems, understand their causes, and find the right editorial solutions. The book shows you how to blend reason and emotion, detail and simplicity, and concrete language and metaphors to ensure that your legal writing does full justice to your legal thinking.

Every year, law students across the country participate in the write-on competition for a shot at the most highly coveted prize in law school: membership on the law review. But until now, law students had nowhere to turn to for reliable information regarding the competition. This book has changed all that. Making Law Review explains how the competition works, and reveals the surprising and innovative techniques students have used to excel in it. Author Wes Henricksen interviewed dozens of current and former law review members at many of the top law schools to learn their secrets to success in the write-on competition. This book synthesizes those students' experiences into a comprehensive body of valuable advice on topics such as how to best prepare for the competition, how to effectively allocate your time throughout it, and how to write a winning submission paper.

This book teaches law students how to write scholarly papers for seminars, law reviews, and law review competitions. It helps novices and even more-experienced scholars to write papers with a minimum of anxiety. Employing a process theory of writing, the text first describes the enterprise of scholarly writing and then discusses techniques for brainstorming, researching, drafting, and revising for substance and style. There are also chapters on footnote practice, plagiarism, law review editing, and publication. Appendixes provide a sample law review competition paper, answers to in-text exercises, and sample syllabi for scholarly writing courses.

Designed to help law students write and publish articles, this text 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. The Fifth Edition, based on the author's experience teaching his newly designed Intensive Editing Workshop and First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, adds material on editing, rebutting counterarguments, writing strategy, identifying and using the key assets of the article, fighting "the curse of knowledge," and submitting articles to law reviews. It also adds extra examples of sound writing, as well as editing exercises.

From the author of Stylish Academic Writing comes an essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed one hundred academics worldwide about their writing background and practices. Relatively few were trained as writers, she found, and yet all have developed strategies to thrive in their publish-or-perish environment. So how do these successful academics write, and where do they find the "air and light and time and space," in the words of poet Charles Bukowski, to get their writing done? What are their formative experiences, their daily routines, their habits of mind? How do they summon up the courage to take intellectual risks and the resilience to deal with rejection? Sword identifies four cornerstones that anchor any successful writing practice: Behavioral habits of discipline and persistence; Artisanal habits of craftsmanship and care; Social habits of collegiality and collaboration; and Emotional habits of positivity and pleasure. Building on this "BASE," she illuminates the emotional complexity of the writing process and exposes the lack of writing support typically available to early-career academics. She also lays to rest the myth that academics must produce safe, conventional prose or risk professional failure. The successful writers profiled here tell stories of intellectual passions indulged, disciplinary conventions subverted, and risk-taking rewarded. Grounded in empirical research and focused on sustainable change, Air & Light & Time & Space offers a customizable blueprint for refreshing personal habits and creating a collegial environment where all writers can flourish.