Editing Wiki Law School:Manual of style

This is a general guideline for the creation, editing, and formatting of Wiki Law School Articles. This guideline will be a work in progress as all contributors experiment to find the most useful styles and formats. As contributors decide on more specific guilelines, this article should be edited to reflect those decisions in order to achieve uniformity throughout the wiki. To talk with others about desired changes, visit the talk page by clicking the discussion tab at the top of this page.

The goal of this manual is to encourage uniformity and understandability. However, we should be careful to not create too many guidelines and instructions; as such may discourage people from participating.

== Types of Articles ==

This web site will generally consist of legal topical outlines, articles about law schools, and case briefs. The default jurisdictions focused upon will be in the U.S., but jurisdiction-specific outlines for any jurisdiction are allowed and encouraged.

== Outlines ==

The outlines consist of several types of outlines:
* Full-length outlines
* Short outlines
* Jurisdiction-specific outlines
* Class-specific outlines

All outlines should be of a theoretical nature, insofar as the subject matter allows. Outlines that may be used by law students and law practitioners in all U.S. jurisdictions are preferred over jurisdiction-, class-, or professor-specific outlines.

Outlines should not contain detailed descriptions of any cases, but contain cross-links for important cases.

The layout of a good outline will generally follow the organization of a table of contents of a text for that topic. A good tip in creating an outline from scratch: type in the table of contents from your text book, save the article, then go back and fill out each section. Use headings and subheadings for organization. (See [[Help:Formatting]]).

=== Full-Length Outlines ===

Full-length outlines should be comprehensive and contain all information relevant to the legal topic. The legal topics should relate to U.S. laws.

Full-length outlines should be categorized in the generic [[:Category:Outlines|Outlines]] category. This is done by inserting <nowiki> "[[Category:Outlines]]"</nowiki> at the tail end of the outline.

The title should reflect only the legal topic discussed.

=== Short Outlines ===

Short outlines should be no more than thee pages in length (if on paper), and preferably only a single page. They should be viewed as more of a "cheat sheet" with abbreviations, etc. to help students remember the material at a glance. The legal topics should relate to U.S. laws.

Short outlines should be categorized in the [[:Category:Short Outlines|Short Outlines]] category. This is done by inserting <nowiki> "[[Category:Short Outlines]]"</nowiki> at the tail end of the outline.

Short outlines should be titled with a name that corresponds to that legal topic's full-length outline, but with "(short outline)" added after.

Full-length and short outlines for the same subject should link to the same case briefs and should cross-link to each other.

=== Jurisdiction-Specific Outlines ===

This category is self-explanatory. General outlines are preferred over outlines that are specific to any one jurisdiction. However, some students in certain jurisdictions may need to have such an outline. Students and practitioners from any jurisdiction in the world are welcome and encouraged to create outlines for their specific jurisdiction.

Jurisdiction-specific outlines should be categorized in the [[:Category:Jurisdiction-Specific Outlines|Jurisdiction-Specific Outlines]] category. This is done by inserting <nowiki> "[[Category:Jurisdiction-Specific Outlines]]"</nowiki> at the tail end of the outline. If the outline is also a short outline, categorize it into both appropriate categories by adding both category identifier tags.

Jurisdiction-specific outlines should be titled with a name that corresponds to that legal topic's full-length outline, but with the jurisdiciton indicator ("NY State") added after. For example, "Property NY State."

The jurisdiction indicator should be selected that reduces confusion with other jurisdicitons. The indicator should be uniformly used by all outlines dealing with that jurisdiction. If the jurisdiction is a state, the word "State" should be used as above to prevent confusion.

Jurisdiction-specific outlines should link to the corresponding non-jurisdiction specific full-length and short outlines, but the generic outlines should not link to jurisdiction-specific outlines.

=== Class-Specific Outlines ===

This category is for students preparing for a specific class and professor.

Class-specific outlines should be categorized in the [[:Category:Class-Specific Outlines|Class-Specific Outlines]] category. This is done by inserting <nowiki> "[[Category:Class-Specific Outlines]]"</nowiki> at the tail end of the outline. The [[Template:Infobox Outline|Outline Infobox]] should be used by following the directions on that template's page.

If the outline is also a jurisdiction-specific or short outline, categorize it into all appropriate categories by adding any relevant category identifier tags.

Titles to class-specific outlines should follow the general patterns established above, with the class identifier coming at the beginning of the title.

Class-specific outlines should be linked to more-generic outlines, but not the other way around.

=== External Links ===
* http://www.lawnerds.com/guide/outlining.html Provides a useful template for outlining.
== Law Schools ==

These articles may contain any information deemed useful for potential law students, current students, or alumni of a law school.

== Case Briefs ==

Seminal cases for any one topic should be included in its own article which will then be cross-referenced from the outline.

=== Title of the Case Brief ===

The case should be titled exactly how one would cite the case using BlueBook rules (e.g. abbreviate terms, use proper spacing, etc.). This way, others will be able to find the brief you already started working on, and prevent duplication of work.

=== Category of the Case Brief ===

Insert the case brief into the proper category, according to which area of the law the case holds importance. For example, [[Erie R.R. v. Tompkins]] falls into the [[:Category:Cases:Civil Procedure|Civil Procedure Category]], so the contributor adds <nowiki>"[[Category:Cases:Civil Procedure]]"</nowiki> at the bottom line in the case brief. In this way, the case brief will be categorized under Cases:Civil Procedure, which in turn will be categorized under the Cases category.

=== Redirects ===

Of less importance, create redirects from reporter citations that point to the case brief to ensure that others will find your brief and prevent duplication of effort (i.e., [[304 U.S. 64]] redirects to [[Erie R.R. v. Tompkins]]).

=== Links ===

If available, insert a link from the brief to the full text of the case on a free website such as Findlaw.

= Editing =

While the end goal is to have a fully comprehensive, easy to understand outline covering every legal topic, this will not occur immediately. The idea of a wiki is that you improve a page however and wherever you are able. If everybody were to do even a litle contribution, all the little contributions will eventually result in a very good article.

== Sentence Spacing ==

For the sake of consistency, put one space between sentences.