Writing on to a Journal

Yesterday the four journals at UW Law and Prof. Kaltsounis offered an information session about the Melissa S. Landers 1L Write-on Competition. Whether or not you made it there, you might have some lingering questions about writing on. How can you figure out the material and write a good comment in a week? What's the best way to attack the problem? Is there anything you can do to prepare before the competition starts? What's a comment supposed to look like anyway?

Here to help you is Patrick Eoghan Murray, a 2013 UCLA Law grad who has posted Write on! A Guide to Getting on Law Review on SSRN.

Many law reviews select their members using a competition known as a "write on". Every year, many first year law students who have little to no experience with legal academic writing struggle to make sense of the basic principles necessary to do well in this endeavor. This Comment guides these students by presenting a strategy to succeed in this competition. By understanding some key information, a prospective applicant can increase her chances of getting on law review and improve her writing and editing abilities. It is my hope that this Comment will not only provide a benefit for individual applicants to law reviews, but will also have the downstream effect of boosting the quality of legal scholarship published by student-run law journals.

Graphic: image from "Bouquinistes et Bouquineurs. Physiologie des Quais de Paris du Pont Royal au Pont Sully ... Illustrations d'E. Mas," available in the British Library's photostream on Flickr