Friday, March 16, 2007

Suggestions for Law Review Editing

I picked up this reference on the Law Librarian Blog:

Concurring Opinions blogger Dan Solove wrote a few days ago about his pet peeves concerning how law review submissions are edited. His grievances are about American journals. But are Canadian journals free from some of these practices?

In his post entitled Law Review Editing: Some Suggestions for Reform, Solove stated:

"My sense is that many law review editors have no idea just how widely professors view some of their editing practices as silly and bothersome. Perhaps by airing them out here will lead to meaningful reform. Here are two of the silliest rules and practices of law review editing:

1. Parentheticals
One of the most obnoxious rules is the requirement that nearly all cites need to have a parenthetical containting descriptive text.

(...)

2. Footnotes for Every Proposition
Another irksome practice is when law review editors want footnotes for nearly every proposition in the article. For example:

The earth revolves around the sun.

A footnote must be added:
The earth revolves around the sun. [Footnote 1]
Footnote 1. See Nicolaus Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)"

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posted by Michel-Adrien at 2:12 pm

2 Comments:

Blogger Connie Crosby said...

I was thinking on the one hand that those people who object to the process should just start up blogs and publish the articles themselves. But, then they would lose the benefit of the whole review process which is important.

I wonder if anyone has thought about creating middle ground with a law review blog?

2:29 pm  
Blogger Michel-Adrien said...

In the United States, a growing number of law reviews are creating blog-like online companions that allow for freer, quicker scholarly communications.

Take a look at:

* my Feb 12 post entitled More and More Original Legal Scholarship Going Online - http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-and-more-original-legal.html

* my Feb 15 post Another Law Review Adds Online Companion - http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2007/02/another-law-review-adds-online.html

* my Feb 18 post More About Blogs Changing Legal Scholarship - http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-about-blogs-changing-legal.html

5:12 pm  

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