This site is a developmental version of Wiki Law School. To go to the production site: www.wikilawschool.org
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.
Types of Articles
This web site will generally consist of legal topical outlines, articles about law schools, and case briefs.
Outlines
The outlines consist of several types of outlines:
- Full-length outlines
- Brief 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: 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.
Brief Outlines
Brief outlines should be no more than five pages in length. They should be viewed as a "cheat sheet" with abbreviations, etc. to help students remember the material at a glance.
Jurisdiction-Specific Outlines
This 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.
Class-Specific Outlines
This category is for students preparing for a very specific class wherein the professor has a very particular focus such that the students would be better off with their own outline. This format is not preferred, as it reduces the overall utility of the outline.
Law Schools
These articles may contain any information deemed useful for potential law students, current students, or alumni at 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.
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 can. If everybody were to do so, all the contributions will eventually result in a very good article.