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20 U.S.F. L. Rev. 445 (1985-1986)

handle is hein.journals/usflr20 and id is 459 raw text is: How to Write a Law Review
Article *
By RICHARD DELGADO
Professor of Law, UCLA Law School; J.D.,
University of California, Berkeley, Boalt
Hall (1974).
Introduction
HAVE BEEN ASKED TO SPEAK on how to write a law review
article. Like many, I find it much easier to write something than
to talk about my thought processes during that writing. Neverthe-
less, I have tried to distill out a series of observations, tips, short
cuts, and so on that I, personally, would have found helpful had
someone passed them on to me when I was starting out. Good law
reviews convey many of them to their new members at orientation
time. For many of you, these observations will be old hat; for this,
I apologize. Also, I should state at the outset that I have included
little in the way of political or critical analysis of law review writ-
ing. I have written elsewhere about that.'
Some of the matters I expect to touch on in this talk are
I. Why write a law review article at all, in preference to some-
thing else, a book or political satire, for example?
II. What varieties of law review article are there? Presumably
more than just the classic case cruncher. What are some of
the other kinds?
III. Topics-where to get them? How to know a good one when
you see it?
IV. Research strategies.
V. Footnotes and theory of authority.
• This article is a slightly edited version of an address given during the Minority Law
Professors' Conference which was held at the University of San Francisco School of Law on
October 26, 1985.
1, Delgado, The Imperial Scholar: Reflections on a Review of Civil Rights Literature,
132 U. PA. L. REV. 561 (1984).

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