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How the hell can you honestly assess whether a writing sample has been edited? You can't seriously think that you're able to divine when someone has received input. And I think it's rather ridiculous that a judge feels that talking through editing advice rather than scribbling their criticisms down on a page is somehow a loophole. What nonsense.A. Nony Mouse wrote:I took it seriously, people I know took it seriously. (My judge - who edits everything heavily - sat and talked through a writing sample with an intern and didn't touch it specifically so the intern could say it was unedited.) I don't know if you'd get dinged if you used an edited sample, I saw writing samples from internships with other judges that I discounted slightly because I knew those judges did a lot of editing and didn't really believe that the sample was the applicant's own work.
I suspected that some applicants had received input because I had interned for the judges for whom the applicants had interned and I knew how those judges worked and that they edited student work a great deal. And you didn't know the judge I worked for, so shut your mouth. The directions say "unedited," they don't say "never received feedback of any kind ever." It's not like the judge said, "On p. 5 you have a misplaced comma" and decided that was a way to get around something being unedited. I just mean that he talked through the argument rather than writing comments on the page (which was his normal practice) so that the writing was the intern's own (it was still work that was going to go out under the judge's name so it's not like he wasn't going to give feedback). And that this was an example of how one judge viewed "unedited."Question Everything wrote:How the hell can you honestly assess whether a writing sample has been edited? You can't seriously think that you're able to divine when someone has received input. And I think it's rather ridiculous that a judge feels that talking through editing advice rather than scribbling their criticisms down on a page is somehow a loophole. What nonsense.A. Nony Mouse wrote:I took it seriously, people I know took it seriously. (My judge - who edits everything heavily - sat and talked through a writing sample with an intern and didn't touch it specifically so the intern could say it was unedited.) I don't know if you'd get dinged if you used an edited sample, I saw writing samples from internships with other judges that I discounted slightly because I knew those judges did a lot of editing and didn't really believe that the sample was the applicant's own work.
And you didn't know the judge I worked for, so shut your mouth.
I couldn't give a shit less if it was John Roberts, tough guy.Wow, it's almost as though legal hiring can be unpredictable and, at times, unfair. Who knew?Question Everything wrote:How the hell can you honestly assess whether a writing sample has been edited? You can't seriously think that you're able to divine when someone has received input. And I think it's rather ridiculous that a judge feels that talking through editing advice rather than scribbling their criticisms down on a page is somehow a loophole. What nonsense.A. Nony Mouse wrote:I took it seriously, people I know took it seriously. (My judge - who edits everything heavily - sat and talked through a writing sample with an intern and didn't touch it specifically so the intern could say it was unedited.) I don't know if you'd get dinged if you used an edited sample, I saw writing samples from internships with other judges that I discounted slightly because I knew those judges did a lot of editing and didn't really believe that the sample was the applicant's own work.
Yeah, that was my gut reaction and not really relevant, so I apologize for that. I was annoyed at aspersions against this judge, but I didn't get across clearly what he actually does. But I still disagree with the rest of what you wrote.Question Everything wrote:And you didn't know the judge I worked for, so shut your mouth.
A. Nony Mouse wrote:I really doubt it makes a huge difference, actually. The writing sample only becomes important once you get past all the other criteria (grades, school, LR or not, etc.). And most competitive applicants can produce a decent enough sample on their own, editing isn't going to radically transform it.
Let's put it this way - if someone really can't write and gets a clerkship on the basis of an edited sample, their co-clerks' lives are going to suck when it comes time to do the job.