Law Review EIC Vetting Process Forum

[A. Nony Mouse]

I mean, that is how editing works, dude.

[BigZuck]

I mean, that is how editing works, dude.

Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn't hate myself for having to decide if correcting an error is an error?

Seriously though Nony, how did you find anything redeeming in all this? I have an academic background too so, like, I'm down with articles and scholarship and stuff. But this? No way.

Maybe my journal just doesn't get very good submissions because it's not law review. Or maybe the people who choose the submissions don't know what they are doing. I don't know. I don't actually mind doing what is expected of me but I can't imagine taking on more than is required and I can't fathom any of this being a learning experience (other than reinforcing things like "semicolons are stupid" and "don't be a crappy writer" and "edit your crap before submitting it for publication.")

Eta: I mean, you don't actually have to answer that. I think for me it's just that journal is one of the worst parts of the law school scam. Law school is super expensive, frequently doesn't get people the job that they want, but then on top of that there's like nothing interesting about the school part (at least IMO). These professors sit around and either don't teach effectively or effectively teach stuff that really doesn't matter, they produce nothing of value, and on top of that their prose is worse than a lot of college students, let alone grad students, let alone real professors. Maybe they could submit something readable if there were some actual standards or consequences but nope.

But I'll shut up now. Good luck OP, I hope you snag EIC if that's what you really want.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Eh, you have to remember that before law school I wrote articles on what people might have thought/felt about what was going on in their lives 600 years ago. My standards may be a little off.

Honestly, though, there is a LOT of terrible stuff out there. The volume and (lack of) quality is horrifying. And I'm sure some people would think the articles my board selected are part of that terrible stuff (one of them turned out to be a nightmare because the author had apparently farmed citations out to research assistants who basically made stuff up and we nearly had to ditch the article, but that really wasn't apparent at submission).

There's also an unfortunate race on the part of LRs to get good articles and on the authors to get the best articles possible, and the timeframe is incredibly compressed - we were a good enough LR that people would submit to us to get offers to blackmail better LRs into reading their pieces, and we lost a lot of good articles that way. The pressure to fill your journal/get your piece published, and the massive volume of submissions, makes this a pretty unscientific process.

So it's not at all a good system for scholarship, but it's an interesting sociological phenomenon. (And I think if you want to research/write/publish, it's extremely helpful to see a lot of research/writing/publishing, in whatever context. This doesn't apply to most law students, though.)

(I also have the impression that our specialized journals got far fewer submissions and were stuck taking much worse stuff to fill out their issues, but I don't know how far up the food chain that applies. One of our journals was so ridiculously specialized, they got almost no submissions.)

[Kratos]

ime they don't choose the articles which are best written or cited correctly. they choose articles on topics that they think are new and cool and will get cited. so you could be a dogshit writer (relatively speaking obviously) with an incredibly novel topic, and it'll get chosen because the journal can edit the fuck out of it themselves to make it better. but that makes it so much worse for the editors, imo at least, because you have these poorly written articles that need a lot of work and I don't give a shit about the topics because they are boring AF to me, even if they are novel or whatever.

[banjo]

The domination of academic law journal publication by students is a scandal.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Well, publishing new scholarship and getting cited is kind of the point of journals. Something that's well-written and well-cited but doesn't say anything new isn't going to get you anywhere.

The editing thing is weird to me, though, because in the humanities you don't get anything like the in-depth editing (or cite checking) that you get in LRs. You do get editorial suggestions, of course, but you don't get the kind of line editing I've seen in LRs. It does seem that it can make legal authors lazy.

[jbagelboy]

Well, publishing new scholarship and getting cited is kind of the point of journals. Something that's well-written and well-cited but doesn't say anything new isn't going to get you anywhere.

The editing thing is weird to me, though, because in the humanities you don't get anything like the in-depth editing (or cite checking) that you get in LRs. You do get editorial suggestions, of course, but you don't get the kind of line editing I've seen in LRs. It does seem that it can make legal authors lazy.

It's an excuse for law professors to throw out every jumbled half-idea with very little detail or articulation with the expectation that student staffers will make it publishable substance. The proliferation of sub-par writing, research, and analysis joined with the general absense of legitimate peer review throughout legal academia casts a long shadow on the repute of any journal

That being said, the casebook industry is even worse. Millions of dollars made off debt-enslaved law students for essentially "edited" westlaw printouts.

[MCFC]

The domination of academic law journal publication by students is a scandal.

He just drops bombs throughout that entire Q&A.

[banjo]

The domination of academic law journal publication by students is a scandal.

He just drops bombs throughout that entire Q&A.

Yep. I also like this one:

Question: Do you think constitutional law should be taught in the first year? If so, why? If not, why not?

Posner: Absolutely not. It’s a terrible field, dreadfully politicized.

[rpupkin]

If the Supreme Court made a grammatical error in its original opinion, but then the author corrected the error when he quoted the SC opinion in his article, should I "correct" the author's quote by putting the error back in?

(stuff I have to think about while editing this garbage)

Uh, you'll also have to think about this stuff while editing briefs drafted by partners/senior attorneys. It just sound like you hate editing.

[BigZuck]

If the Supreme Court made a grammatical error in its original opinion, but then the author corrected the error when he quoted the SC opinion in his article, should I "correct" the author's quote by putting the error back in?

(stuff I have to think about while editing this garbage)

Uh, you'll also have to think about this stuff while editing briefs drafted by partners/senior attorneys. It just sound like you hate editing.

I'll just do transactional bro, NP

I'd probably be more open to it if they paid me 160K a year to do it

Etc.

I actually don't mind real editing. Like "Hey man, this sentence is 57 words long, make it shorter." I wouldn't even mind making it shorter myself. But this deferential stuff where you have to pretend that it's ok to use semicolons isn't really my jam.

But if someone wanted to pay me 160K to pretend that semicolons are ok then I'd probably be more open to it

Etc.

[A. Nony Mouse]

What's wrong with semicolons?

[BigZuck]

What's wrong with semicolons?

For starters: They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinion ... ove-story/

(I actually didn't read that but hopefully it supports my LOLsemicolons point)

[rpupkin]

What's wrong with semicolons?

For starters: They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinion ... ove-story/

(I actually didn't read that but hopefully it supports my LOLsemicolons point)

The article is good; you should read it.

[A. Nony Mouse]

What's wrong with semicolons?

For starters: They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinion ... ove-story/

(I actually didn't read that but hopefully it supports my LOLsemicolons point)

The article is good; you should read it.

[KD35]

I think we got away from the purpose of this thread, namely what is important for the EIC vetting process other than likeability.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Likability, the ability to convince people you will be efficient and able to run all the moving parts of the journal without turning into a fascist, and not looking like you only want to do it for the personal glory/career boost.