![\"Image](\"http:\/\/writehouse.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Legal-scholarship.jpg\")
<\/a>Image credit: Farzadlaw.com<\/p><\/div>
\nTo be patentable, an invention must be:<\/p>\n
- 1. novel,<\/ol>\n
- 2. nonobvious (it must involve an inventive step), and<\/ol>\n
- 3. useful (capable of industrial application).<\/ol>\n
To be publishable, a piece of academic legal writing must make a claim that is:<\/p>\n
- 1. novel,<\/ol>\n
- 2. nonobvious, and<\/ol>\n
- 3. useful.<\/ol>\n
The claim a piece of academic legal writing makes must also be sound<\/em>.<\/p>\n The first requisite of sound legal scholarship is that it must make a claim. The attributes listed above (novelty, non-obviousness, utility, and soundness) belong to the claim. You should not write an article or book without a claim or with a claim that lacks any of these features. And you should not read any such article or book. We have enough good works out there. \u201cMany good works of original scholarship have a basic thesis\u2014a claim they are making about the world. This could be a descriptive<\/em> claim about the world as it is or as it was (such as a historical assertion, a claim about a law\u2019s effects, or a statement about how courts are interpreting a law). It could be a prescriptive claim about what should be done (such as how a law or a constitutional provision should be interpreted, what new statute should be enacted, or how a statute or a common-law rule should be changed). It could also be a combination of both a descriptive claim and a prescriptive one<\/em>. In any case, you should be able to condense that claim into one sentence.\u201d (Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review<\/em>, 4th edition, New York, Foundation Press, 2010, electronic version, 27 {italics in original})<\/p>\n Your one-sentence thesis statement (your claim) might look like one of the following:<\/p>\n Forcing your claim into one not-too-long sentence capsulizes your thesis, helping to \u201cfocus your discussion\u201d and \u201ccommunicate your core point.\u201d (Volokh) You should state your claim or thesis \u201cin a forceful way. Or use a concrete example to illustrate the issue, and then state your claim.\u201d (Joseph Kimble, \u2018Tips for Better Writing in Law Reviews (and Other Journals)\u2019, Thomas M Cooley Law Review<\/em>, vol. 30, no. 2, 2013, 197.)<\/p>\n You should state your thesis upfront, in your introduction, much like a brief writer states the issues upfront. \u201cWrite a compelling introduction\u201d that starts with your thesis and grabs the reader\u2019s attention (see endnote below). Shun banalities, generalities, platitudes, and philosophical musings. \u201cAvoid the sleep-inducing, but ubiquitous, front-end description of what you\u2019re going to cover in each part. Your headings should provide the guidance that readers need.\u201d (Kimble)<\/p>\n Endnote<\/strong> To be patentable, an invention must be: 1. novel, 2. nonobvious (it must involve an inventive step), and 3. useful (capable of industrial application). To be publishable, a piece of academic legal writing must make a claim that is: 1. novel, 2. nonobvious, and 3. useful. The claim a piece of academic legal writing makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[145,146,98,147],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-academic-legal-writing","tag-legal-scholarship","tag-the-write-house","tag-writing-skills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehouseng.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. The Penal Code of Zamfara State is unconstitutional because it prescribes cruel and unusual punishment amounting to torture contrary to section 34(1)(a) of the Constitution of Nigeria.<\/em><\/ol>\n
2. Properly interpreted, the combined effect of section 42(1) of the Nigerian Constitution (forbidding discrimination) and section 357 of the Criminal Code (criminalizing rape) is that a woman could be guilty of rape.<\/em><\/ol>\n
\nJoseph Kimble, \u2018Tips for Better Writing in Law Reviews (and Other Journals)\u2019, Thomas M Cooley Law Review<\/em>, vol. 30, no. 2, 2013, 197.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"