Online Legal Writing Center
Penn State Dickinson Law offers an Online Legal Writing Center to all law students. The Center includes writing resources to assist law students with various aspects of their writing.
The Online Legal Writing Center (OLWC) resources include videos, exercises, articles, and book titles. Resources include materials on the following topics:
-
Basic grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure (“Writing Tools”)
-
Legal writing refresher for practitioner writing
-
Use of authority and attribution
-
Citation and the Bluebook
-
Seminar paper and journal article writing
-
Judicial clerkship writing
-
English-as-a-second-language
-
Contract drafting
-
Legislative drafting
-
Law school exam writing
Current Students
Current Penn State Dickinson Law students can access the full Online Legal Writing Center on the Intranet (login required).
Go to IntranetOLWC Materials and Resources
Writing Tools (Basic Writing Skills)
These materials will help students to avoid errors and to achieve excellence in legal writing. This site has resources about legal writing style, sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation. In addition to the information within the website, other basic writing resources can be found in the Chart of Additional Resources for Writing Skills and on CALI (Punctuation and Grammar Basics for Students and Punctuation and Grammar: Advanced).
Legal Writing Refresher for Practitioner Writing
These resources provide a refresher for the skills learned in first-year Legal Analysis & Writing. This site has materials about CREAC, umbrella and roadmap paragraphs, point headings, and revision techniques. The site also has some information about appellate writing, such as standards of review and tables of contents.
Use of Authority and Attribution
These materials provide resources about using authority effectively, providing proper attribution to authority, and avoiding plagiarism.
Citation and Bluebook Resources
This section provides students with two Bluebook Guides to help with basic Bluebook rules: (1) a guide for practitioners and law clerks, and (2) a guide for journals and law reviews. For more detailed rules, reference the Bluebook, 22nd edition.
Resources for Writing Seminar Papers and Journal Articles
This section provides a list of resources to assist students with writing a paper for a seminar course or with writing scholarly articles. The resources have helpful advice relevant to all stages of a scholarly paper’s writing process, including: thesis selection; the research, outlining, and drafting stages; time management tips; and the editing and polishing stage.
Resources for Judicial Clerks
These materials provide information about judicial clerkships. The resources also provide pertinent information about drafting opinions, including the organization, content, and structure of an opinion as well as other substantive and practical tips for writing a court opinion.
English-as-a-Second-Language Resources
For ESL students, this website provides a list of resources that would be useful for legal writing.
Resources for Contract Drafting
This section provides a list of resources to assist students with drafting contracts. The resources have helpful tips and considerations for drafting effective contracts.
Resources for Legislative Drafting
This link provides a list of resources to assist students with drafting and writing legislation. The resources include textbooks that provide instruction on the legislative writing process.
Resources for Law School Exam Writing
This website includes resources to help students with law school exams. Specifically, the resources are useful to learn how to write effective essay exam answers.