The Digital Natives Will Not Save Us: Reflections on the shallows

Review of Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (2010)

Riddikulus!: Tenure-Track Legal Writing Faculty and the Boggart in the Wardrobe

Professor Beazley compares myths to boggarts in this examination of the reasons schools cite when explaining their lack of tenure-track positions for legal writing faculty. These boggarts are the living myths that pop out and whisper in faculty ears whenever someone suggests that law schools should create tenure-track - or even permanent - faculty positions in legal writing. Although some faculties have defeated these boggarts, they are still out there, popping out not from under the bed or from behind the closet door, but at lunch in the faculty lounge, after the committee meeting, and during the conversation in the hallway. When challenged, these boggarts shift their shapes, twisting their logic until they are almost unrecognizable, exploiting the fears of those who debate the inclusion of legal-writing professionals in the academy. One by one, Professor Beazley introduces these boggarts and knocks them down as, Riddikulus

The Self-Graded Draft: Teaching Students to Revise Using Self-Critique

In this article, Professor Beazley first explains why the predictability of legal documents, legal writers, and legal readers makes an objective method of self-critique particularly useful in legal writing. She then discusses how she designs self-grading guidelines and explains various methods for incorporating the self-grading process into a legal writing course. Finally, she addresses some of the challenges she faced when assigning the self-graded draft to students, and discusses ways to deal with these challenges. In appendixes, Professor Beazley included two samples of self-graded draft guidelines for use in a three-draft Memorandum Assignment, as well as a short illustration of the physical marking that the selfgraded draft requires

Hiding in Plain Sight: Conspicuous Type Standards in Mandated Communication Statutes

Professor Beazley defines the concept of mandated communication statutes in this examination of typeface, language, and the mind\u27s ability to comprehend certain syntax. This article has a simple premise: when a government mandates written communication, it should present the mandated communication in a way that speeds comprehension. When communication is so important that the government is mandating the words and the presentation method, the writer and not the reader should not bear the burden of making sure that the information is comprehensible. In other words, the reader should not have to work to decipher the information; the writer should work to make the information easy to comprehend. Professor Beazley discusses the difference between reading and seeing, how reading comprehension occurs, and what can be done to improve it

Writing for a Mind at Work: Appellate Advocacy and the Science of Digital Reading

Professor Beazley explores the future implications to appellate advocacy as we move into the digital age. Understanding how that digital world affects legal reading is vital to understanding the future of appellate advocacy. Lawyers need to understand some of the science of how people read and interact with the written word; unfortunately, we have been slow to grasp the importance of this science. She defines and explains the concepts of Active Readers and Knowledge Work. She then addresses some of the issues that arise as active readers transition from paper to digital platforms. Professor Beazley concludes by describing some of the anticipated changes in hardware and software and makes suggestions about changes to court rules and more

Remarks, Golden Pen Award

Professor Beazley, then President of the Legal Writing Institute, joins her colleagues in presenting the inaugural Golden Pen Award to Arthur Levitt, Chairman of the United States Securities Exchange Commission, for his leadership in requiring plain language in financial disclosure documents, in this transcript of the presentation of the award at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C

Writing (and Reading) Appellate Briefs in the Digital Age

In this essay, Professor Beazley briefly reviews a slice of the voluminous research about how human beings read digital as opposed to paper text. In particular, she discusses studies of knowledge workers (defined to include those who use or generate knowledge in their work)4 and those who engage in active reading (defined as a reading process that includes nonsequential reading, searching a text, comparing texts, annotating, bookmarking, and the like).She concludes by making suggestions for legal readers, legal writers, courts, and database providers as to how best to accommodate the process of digital reading

Shouting into the Wind: How the ABA Standards Promote Inequality in Legal Education, and What Law Students and Faculty Should Do about It

This Article will analyze how we might return ABA Standard 405(b) to its appropriate role as a protector of equitable treatment of full-time law faculty. First, it will analyze some of the reasons that full-time legal writing and clinical faculty are treated differently; second, it will explain how the current system hurts equality, particularly gender equality; third, it will examine how these inequalities hurt the next generation of lawyers; fourth, it will describe how the inequalities hurt the supposed goals of legal education; and finally, it will suggest what law faculty, the ABA and AALS, and law students can do to improve all kinds of equality in legal education

Ballot Design as Fail-Safe: An Ounce of Rotation Is Worth a Pound of Litigation

For generations, some candidates have argued that first-listed candidates gain ‘‘extra’’ votes due to primacy effect, recommending ballot rotation to solve the problem. These votes, however, are generally intentional votes, accurately cast, and rotation is controversial. This article argues that rotation is appropriate because it mitigates the electoral impact of not only primacy effect, but also of two categories of miscast votes. First, rotation mitigates the impact of proximity-mistake votes, which can occur even on well-designed ballots when voters mis-vote for a candidate in proximity to their chosen candidate. Second, rotation mitigates the impact of mis-votes caused by flawed ballot designs, providing a fail-safe that can prevent some electoral meltdowns. Ballot rotation represents a last-best-chance to avoid the electoral impact of foreseeable and unforeseeable voter error and ballot design issues. Although the impact is small for each of these kinds of voter behavior, some elections are won in the margins. Further, because postelection fixes are both costly and ineffective, states should use election procedures that minimize the need for post-election litigation. Legislators should enact precinct-level rotation to evenly distribute the benefits and burdens of various ballot positions and to promote election results that more accurately reflect the choice of the electorate

The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching & Scholarship

Professor Beazley joins a panel of the elite of legal writing professors at Mercer University, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute in this transcript of the proceedings