Scholarly Writing

Book excerpt: In addition to a standard first-year legal writing curriculum, most law schools now require upper-level students to write a sophisticated legal research paper on a topic of their choice. Students often struggle through the scholarly writing process, from finding a topic to polishing a final paper, and many never fully develop and defend a thesis. Scholarly Writing: Ideas, Examples, and Execution offers a lifeline to students, guiding them through the process of constructing their legal research papers from start to finish. With over 10 years combined experience teaching scholarly writing to J.D. and LL.M. students, the authors identify common roadblocks for student writers, and offer advice and techniques for how to successfully overcome these roadblocks. The book walks students through a five-step process for researching and writing scholarly papers and follows five published student papers from idea to final execution as a method of illustrating the principles advocated in the text. This example-based approach sets this book apart from others; the authors not only tell students how to approach their papers, but through annotated excerpts of example papers, they show students how to approach their papers. The book includes up-to-date information about legal research and organizational tools. It also includes "bright ideas" that supplement the text with ideas and examples for student writers. The text may be used as either a required text for a course in Scholarly Legal Writing or a companion guide for students working on scholarly legal writing projects independently.