1,720,965 research outputs found
MacCrate (in)Action: The Case for Enhancing the Upper-Level Writing Requirement in Law Schools
Get PDFIn 2001, the American Bar Association amended the Standards for Accreditation of Law Schools to require, for the first time, a “rigorous writing experience after the first year.” During the summer of 2004 the author conducted a nationwide survey to determine how law schools responded to this change. The author found that most schools did little more than to require students to take at least one course which was evaluated by means of an academic paper rather than an examination. The author concludes that this is probably not the response the ABA had hoped for, but suggests that a 2005 amendment to the Standards, which now require “writing in a legal context”, holds more promise for encouraging law schools to focus more on practical legal writing skills
The Plot Thickens: The Appellate Brief as Story
No full textWhy are appellate briefs boring Does overreliance on structural paradigms like IRAC lead to formulaic and overly legalistic writing The author suggests that by conceiving of briefs as stories and consciously using the elements of narrative character conflict setting theme and plot among others the brief writer can make the clients story come to life for the reader hopefully producing a more interesting and therefore compelling brief The author has written a brief in a mock case Rubin v Old York Department of Social Services and then deconstructs the brief in the article to show how the author intentionally used the elements of narrative to write a compelling brief in a difficult legal setting The brief and the record it is based upon are also available for download on SSR
Fear and Loathing in Persuasive Writing: An Empirical Study of the Effects of the Negativity Bias
No full textCognitive psychologists have identified a phenomenon they call the negativity bias in which humans seem to remember and be affected by negative information more strongly than by positive information What are the implications of this bias for legal writers Should they focus on negative themes describing the opposing side as bad instead of positive ones describing their clients as good and worthy More specifically do trial judges fall prey to the negativity biasThis article describes an empirical test in which 163 judges were asked to read different versions of a Preliminary Statement to a trial brief some using positive themes others using negative ones to measure whether and by how much the judges perceptions of the parties were affected The study concludes that in many but not all cases negative themes did seem to have more impact on the judicial reade
Of Metaphors and Magic Wands: Are Corporations Really People?
No full textThe metaphor that corporations are people has been around for at least 150 years While the metaphor that money is speech is more recent both metaphors conceal some basic problems Yet both metaphors are implicitly used in Supreme Court jurisprudence most infamously in the 2010 Citizens United decisionbrbrThis paper challenges both metaphors and suggests new ones corporations are tools and money is a megaphone If we use those metaphors to think about the corrupting influence of money in our political system perhaps we could get to more sensible decisionsbrbrThe paper ends with a survey of current efforts around the country to overturn Citizens United through an amendment to the United States Constitutio
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Judging by the Numbers: An Empirical Study of the Power of Story to Persuade (Survey Tool)
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