Writing Competitions for Law Students

BLS faculty can view a digital copy of this book by creating a West Academic account at https://faculty.westacademic.com
Contents: Introduction to the legal system and legal writing -- Analyzing legal authority: case law -- Analyzing legal authority: statutes -- Organization of a legal discussion: large-scale organization -- Organization of a legal discussion: small-scale organization -- The thesis paragraph -- Writing a legal document: the legal memorandum -- The writing process -- Effective paragraphs -- Sentence structure & language -- Types of legal arguments in resolving questions of law -- Interviewing the client -- Counseling the client -- Letter writing -- The trial brief: memorandum of law in support of or in opposition to a motion -- Writing the appellate brief -- Oral argument -- Law school exams.

Excerpt from publisher's summary: "Scholarly Writing: Ideas, Examples, and Execution walks students through a five-step process for researching and writing scholarly papers and follows multiple published student papers from idea to final execution to illustrate 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 offers new strategies for strengthening a draft paper, including how to use an outline to transition from research to writing. The fourth edition also includes content on generative artificial intelligence."

The authors of this guide are former BLS faculty. There are three copies in the Reserve collection & one circulating copy in the Main collection.
Includes these chapters: The writing process: getting it down on paper -- The writing process: revising and polishing -- Footnotes and the ethical use of borrowed materials -- Writing with care -- Writing with style --Getting mileage: winning awards, publishing your work, and joining the conversation.

Includes these chapters: Entering writing competitions -- Academic ethics.

Many law student writing competitions state that citations in submissions should conform to the current edition of The Bluebook.

Contents: Part 1. Mechanics -- Part 2. Grammar, usage, and editing -- Part 3. Specific documents -- Part 4. Scholarly writing.
The description of this legal style manual at Amazon states that this new edition includes "updates relating to pronoun use (especially they) and questions of unconscious bias."

Contents: Style as choice -- Understanding style -- Correctness -- Clarity -- Actions -- Characters -- Cohesion and coherence -- Emphasis -- Clarity of form -- Motivation -- Global coherence -- Grace -- Concision -- Shape -- Elegance -- Ethics -- The ethics of style.

This is an updated edition of a well-known guide to clear legal writing. It includes many sample legal documents and exercises.