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Writing and Editorial Guidelines
 

Writing style and accessibility of text

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  • Write as clearly and concisely as possible

  • Imagine your reader is a first-year undergraduate law student who has not studied legal theory before

  • Entries should be robustly edited with respect to accessibility for this kind of reader, while retaining their criticality and rigour in terms of intellectual content

  • You may use US or UK spelling, but please be consistent within a single entry

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Peer review

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  • All entries to Approaching Law will be peer reviewed

  • The intention is that each entry will be a standalone contribution to the academic literature in its own right, while also functioning as an entry point for students and others unfamiliar with the discipline

  • Peer review will be undertaken with the broad pedagogic aims of the project in mind

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Word Length

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  • Aim for 3,000 words, but up to 5,000 words is acceptable

  • This word length does not include footnotes and citations (see Footnotes and Citations)

  • Word length is for the main body of the entry, excluding the overview, further reading, and references list, etc (see Structure of an entry)

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Footnotes

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  • Keep footnote discussions to a minimum

  • Use footnotes primarily for citations and brief notes (e.g. on further reading, such as ‘this point is examined more fully by…’)

  • Consider carefully if something is relevant enough for extensive discussion, and thus whether it should be in the main text rather than a footnote (or should be cut)

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Citations

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  • Citations should be in footnotes using OSCOLA format

  • Entries should be fully supported with references to academic and other relevant sources, in line with usual academic publication standards

  • The aim is also to model good academic rigour and citation practices for student readers

  • Given the brevity and introductory nature of the texts, be strategic about what sources you cite in order to keep the text and footnotes streamlined

  • Bear in mind that your text will be accompanied by an annotated further reading section to guide readers into the wider literature (see Further reading section)​

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Structure of an entry

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  • Approaching Law aims to provide a standardised structure and format for entries as a framework for the diverse range of legal ideas it seeks to cover for student readers

  • The standardised structure is as follows:

    • Main Title: Keep this brief (e.g. ‘Modernity’, ‘Hart’, ‘Integrity’, ‘Extended Formalism’, etc) to articulate the central focus of the entry

    • Overview: In place of an abstract, include an overview of up to 100 words that sets out the focus, content, and structure of the entry for the reader

    • Contents: A contents list of section headings

    • Full title: This should be the main title, plus any subtitle (if using; avoid if possible)

    • Main body: This is the full text of the entry itself

      • Introduction: Include a short introduction that sets out both the broad focus and the structure of the entry

      • Sections: Do not use more than two layers of headings (i.e. only ‘headings’ and ‘sub-headings’), and include all section headings in the contents list

      • Concluding summary: this is part of the main body, providing a summary for the reader rather than e.g. an analytical conclusion

    • Further reading: see Further reading section

    • References: Full list of references for the entry (see Citations)

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Formatting

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  • Formatting will be done during the final publication process, after reviews and acceptance of the manuscript

  • There is no need for authors to format their entry in line with the template or in any particular way—but do follow the provided structure, and try to be neat and consistent, and take care to make your text as accurate and error-free as possible

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Further reading section

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  • In addition to a full reference section, each entry should contain a list of further readings

  • Aim for 3-5 key sources

  • The preponderance should be towards shorter (article-length) texts, given the introductory nature of Approaching Law, but these could be supplemented with 1 longer (book-length) text or primary philosophical source, if required

  • Think about what texts an undergraduate audience would likely find useful if they were to pursue the topic further

  • For each source, provide a short (up to 50 word) annotation explaining its key themes, relevance, or usefulness in terms of the entry’s topic to scaffold a student reader’s engagement with it

  • Entries will also include hyperlinks to other relevant entries, but this will be done in a more flexible way in discussion with authors, and will only appear on the web version of the entry so that it can be updated on a rolling basis as Approaching Law grows

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Submission of drafts

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  • Once accepted, please send final drafts as Word attachment via email to t.giddens@dundee.ac.uk

  • Include full author name(s) and a short (25 word) bio for each to be posted on the Approaching Law website’s list of contributors

  • Include contact email for the corresponding author

  • Include ORCID identifiers for all authors

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Publication

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  • All entries will be published open access, under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license to maximise free access

  • Final entries will be published online on the Approaching Law website as web pages

  • Entries will also be downloadable as PDFs from the website

  • Metadata for each entry will be saved to FigShare to generate its stable DOI that will link to the entry’s page and PDF on the Approaching Law site (this means each entry, once published, becomes a stable and citable digital source)

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Queries and contact

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  • Any questions, concerns, or if anything is unclear, please contact to discuss:

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