Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Most law students are required to produce at least one scholarly paper during law school. Many schools have an upper level or long paper requirement (at least 30 pages and in the style of a scholarly law review article).
Here are some resources that will help students understand what scholarly writing is and how to select a topic:
Jessica L. Clark & Kristen E. Murray, Scholarly Writing: Ideas, Examples, and Execution, Carolina Academic Press (2010)
Elizabeth Fajans, Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers, Thomson/West (2005)
Wes Henricksen, Making Law Review: The Expert’s Guide to Mastering the Write-On Competition, Durham, N.C. : Carolina Academic Press (2008)
Heather Meeker, Stalking the Golden Topic: A Guide to Locating and Selecting Topics for Legal Research Papers, 1996 Utah L. Rev. 917 (1996)
Richard A. Posner, The Little Book of Plagiarism, Pantheon Books (2007)
Ruthann Robson, Law Students as Legal Scholars: An Essay/Review of Scholarly Writing for Law Students and Academic Legal Writing, 7 New York City L. Rev. 195 (2004)
Eugene Volokh, Writing a Student Article, 48 J. Legal Educ. 247 (1998)
Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers, New York, N.Y.: Foundation Press (2003)
I would also recommend to any student that they make an appointment with their reference librarian for help with research strategies and resources.