UofL Libraries: Legal Skills &amp; Study: Legal Writing

UofL Writing Center

University Writing Center
Make an appointment or check out FAQs to help make your writing stronger.

Seminar Papers
UofL Law Library guide to researching and writing a seminar or other research paper.

The Elements of Legal Style by Bryan A. Garner
Call Number: KF250.G37 2002
ISBN: 9780195141627
Publication Date: 2002
Explains the full range of what legal writers need to know: mechanics, word choice, structure, rhetoric, and special conventions.
Point Taken by Ross Guberman
Call Number: KF251.G83 2015
ISBN: 0190268581
Publication Date: 2015
Delves into the work of the best judicial opinion-writers and offers a step-by-step method based on practical examples.
The Redbook by Bryan Garner
Call Number: KF250 .G375 2018
ISBN: 1642421006
Publication Date: 2018
Shelf range: Reserve Section
The go-to source for all questions of legal style.
Scholarly Writing for Law Students by Elizabeth Fajans; Mary Falk
Call Number: KF250 .F35 2017 (Reserves Section)
ISBN: 1683282078
Publication Date: 2017
Teaches law students how to write scholarly papers for seminars, law reviews, and law-review competitions.

Grammarly
Online spelling and grammar checker.
[Free with premium service available.]
Oxford Dictionaries Quick Search app
Free access to the full American English or British & World English dictionaries. Search for words and find reliable definitions easily.

Oxford English Dictionary Online
The OED is an authoritative guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

Advocacy Words, a Thesaurus by William Drennan
Call Number: K50.D74 2013
ISBN: 9781627222242
Publication Date: 2013
Words are arranged alphabetically in two groups: favorable-critical (Part One) and critical-favorable (Part Two).
Black's Law Dictionary by Bryan A. Garner (Editor)
Call Number: KF156 .B53 2019
ISBN: 9781539229759
Publication Date: 2019
Shelf range: Reference
Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage by Bryan Garner
Call Number: KF156.G367 2011 (Reference)
ISBN: 9780195384208
Publication Date: 2011
Thoroughly discusses and analyzes modern legal vocabulary and style.

Basic Legal Citation
Legal Information Institute's "Introduction to Basic Legal Citation" by Peter W. Martin
The Indigo Book: A manual of legal citation
An open source citation manual, designed to provide a compatible implementation of a uniform system of citation.

ALWD Guide to Legal Citation by Coleen M. Barger
Call Number: KF245.A45 2017
ISBN: 9781454887768
Publication Date: 2017
Shelf range: Reserve Section
Legal reference citation manual
The Bluebook : A Uniform System of Citation by Harvard Law Review Association
Call Number: KF245 .B58
ISBN: 9780615361161
Shelf range: Reserve Section
Authoritative guidance to legal citation.
Understanding and Mastering the Bluebook by Linda J. Barris
Call Number: KF245 .B37 2015
ISBN: 1611637740
Publication Date: 2015
Shelf range: Reserve Section
Teaches how to understand and master the essential Bluebook rules for legal practitioners.

EndNote
Guide to using EndNote citation management software.
[Free for UofL students, faculty, and staff.]
Juris-M
Online legal citation software that can be used in combination with Zotero. For more about using Juris-M see Georgetown Law Library's tutorial.
[Free.]
Zotero
Online citation software that can be used in combination with Juris-M for legal citations.
[Free.]

CardBox
Unlimited cloud storage & a collaborative workspace.
[Free for UofL students, faculty & staff.]
Microsoft Office 365
Select OneDrive to access cloud storage & collaborative workspace.
[Free for UofL students, faculty & staff.]
Box
Cloud storage, accessible from any device.
[Free up to 10 GB, with premium service available.]
Dropbox
Cloud storage for photos, documents, and videos. Accessible from any device and allows for easy sharing.
[Free up to 2 GB, with premium service available.]
Google Drive
A suite of products to create, edit, store, and collaborate on various types of documents online. [Free]