Speaker 1: This is how law review editors edit articles. Here is an early draft of an article that was published in the UC Davis Law Review. I will walk through the comment bubbles and track changes in this draft, which were made by the editor who reviewed this draft. In the first comment, the editor explains a formatting convention to the author. The gold book is a style and citation manual used by the UC Davis Law Review to supplement the blue book. The gold book states that M dashes should be cushioned on both sides by spaces. This comment is about another formatting convention of the gold book. Here we use one space between sentences instead of two spaces. The author actually uses one space between sentences fairly consistently and there were just a few typos such as this instance. For formatting or mechanical edits, such as this and cushioning the M dashes, we would only flag the first instance with a comment bubble to avoid cluttering the document. But all of these edits would still be made using track changes. In this comment, the editor noted that there appear to be missing sections in the table of contents. Since the author may add, remove, or reorganize sections during the editing process, we also double check that the table of contents is correct just before the final proof for publication. The editor also commented on the gold book rules for formatting the table of contents. Note that for publications in the UC Davis Law Review, the introduction and conclusion parts are not assigned a Roman numeral. It is useful to catch this early to avoid having to renumber internal cross-references later on. For example, part 2 would become part 1 if the introduction had originally been assigned as Roman numeral 1. Here the editor pointed out some bluebooking edits that were made to footnote 1, which you can see in the track changes. While this first round of edits was meant to focus on the substance and organization of the article, editors can also edit the citations if they spot errors. The track changes here look heavy, but that's mostly because the editor reordered one of the sources and added two URL addresses. After the first round of edits, the UC Davis Law Review has two rounds focusing on checking that the citations comply with the bluebook rules and checking each of the cited sources. This comment is also flagging some edits in the footnote. Here the editor is double-checking the acronym because this article references both the TVPA and the TVPRA, which are two statutes with very similar acronyms. Here the editor asks if the author would consider replacing some em dashes with commas. We typically defer to the author's stylistic choice, such as the use of commas and em dashes, but if the editor has a reason to flag a particular instance, I think that's reasonable. When suggesting stylistic edits, instead of directly editing the text with track changes, the editor will usually explain the edit in the comment bubble. This can help show that the editor is not trying to override the author's writing style while still making a suggestion. In contrast, for minor edits of obvious typos, editors will typically make those changes directly in the text. Editors should not be making substantive edits to the content of the article, but as you can see in the next comment, a common request that editors will make in an early draft is asking the author to provide supporting authority for certain assertions that do not currently have a supporting citation. If the editor has a particular recommendation, they can suggest reusing another source that is already cited in the article or find a new source. Since requesting additional footnotes increases the author's workload for the next round of revisions, we do not want to make excessive requests. When the assertion mentions a statistic or some fact that might not be well known, I would be more inclined to ask for supporting authority. In contrast, sentences that explain the author's opinion or perspective or information that is commonly known do not necessarily need supporting authority. I would also limit the number of requests for supporting authority to 1 or 2 per page unless the editor has a good reason to ask for more. Here is another request for supporting authority. And here is another request. You may have noticed that all of the comment bubbles begin by addressing the professor with the title of professor and sometimes followed by their last name. Also, when the editor makes a request to the author, the comment ends with a thank you. This helps convey a professional tone of communication, which can help leave a good impression. If the author has a good impression of the editor, the author may be more likely to accept the suggested edits or follow through with the editor's requests. Here is another comment about comma and em dash usage. Here the editor flagged more changes to the footnotes. You can see that the editor also spelled out the number 18 in the text. According to the bluebook, integers from 0 to 99 should be spelled out in both the footnotes and text unless an exception applies. This is a common edit to watch out for because some authors tend to default to using the numerals instead of spelling them out. The comment here flags changes to the footnote. You can see that the editor also added quotation marks to the acronym of the Violence Against Women Act in the text. This edit is based on the UC Davis Gold Book, which states that both parentheses and quotation marks should be used to introduce shorthand expressions such as acronyms that will be used again later in the article. Here the editor asked the author to consider using a synonym to replace moreover to avoid overusing the same word. When I searched the document, there were only 5 total uses of moreover, so I think it would have actually been okay to leave this sentence as is. In footnote 61, the editor flagged that one of the citations was missing a pinpoint citation. During the next round of edits, the editor assigned to check this source will likely be able to quickly identify and suggest a pinpoint citation because it is easy to run a keyword search in a digital copy of the Law Review article. Thus, I might have considered leaving this task to the next editor instead of asking the author to identify the specific page. However, if the cited source was a book, I would probably ask the author to provide the pinpoint citation or at least a relevant chapter of the book because the editor might not be able to obtain a digital copy of the book and it would be more tedious to search through pages of a hard copy of the book to find a page with support for the assertion. Here the editor suggests a rewording of the sentence for improved flow. To show deference to the author, the editor drafts the recommended change in the comment bubble instead of directly in the text. The editor also says in the comment bubble, if the comment usage was intended to create a certain tone or flow, please feel free to disregard as this is your project and I would never try to infringe on your personal writing style slash tone. I think this is a good way to clearly show deference to the author. I would not necessarily expect the editor here to hedge every single one of their suggested rewordings with this type of language, but it can be nice to sprinkle it in across a few of the comments. Here is another comment flagging edits in the footnote. If the bluebooking edits are clear, I do not think it is necessary to flag each footnote with edits unless there is something in particular that the editor wants to explain. Here is a request to rewrite the sentence to improve clarity. In this comment, the editor recommends adding one or two sentences laying out the elements of defamation. Since this is a substantive change, the editor goes into more detail to explain why this addition could better help the reader understand the main points of this section. Here is another suggested rephrasing. And here is a comment about bluebooking edits made directly in the text. Footnote 103 includes an id short citation, but this is improper use of the id short citation because the immediately preceding footnote 102 includes two different sources, so it is ambiguous whether the author meant to cite the first source, the second source, or both sources, thus the editor is asking the author to confirm. Resolving this ambiguity and fixing the citation could also have been left to the next editor assigned to check this footnote. The next four comments here are requests for additional supporting authority. So far, the editor has done a good job not making too many requests of this kind. Here the editor has adjusted the formatting of the section heading. Here the editor flags a bluebooking edit in footnote 118. Here is another request for the author to provide a pinpoint citation. As previously mentioned, this task could be left to the editor checking the cited sources in the next round of revisions, but if there is a particular reason to ask the author, then I think including a few of these requests is okay. If the editor catches a missing pinpoint citation, they can just add a placeholder such as pin so that the next editor will not miss it. The editor can also make a note explaining to the author that these placeholders are for internal use and that the author does not need to update the placeholders. Here is a request to add a supporting footnote. In footnote 125, there was a website URL that failed to load so the editor asked the author to double check that website address. I suggest only asking the author to provide or fix a URL if you cannot quickly find the website using a Google search. In footnote 136, there is another instance of improper id short citation because the immediately preceding footnote includes two sources. The editor selected one of the two sources to replace the short citation and asked the author to confirm whether that was the source the author intended to cite. Here is a request for a citation to the applicable statute. This is another example request for a substantive edit. The editor asks the author to consider adding a brief summary or closing paragraph to help drive home the takeaway of this section. The editor formatted the quoted language from the statute here as a block quote because it helps read more clearly with subsections A and B separated out. Note that if a quote includes over 49 words, the bluebook requires the quote to be formatted as a block quote. I see this formatting error sometimes because authors are not always checking the word count of each of their quotes. If an author does not want to use block quote formatting, the editor can suggest dividing a quote into two. In footnote 168, there was a missing URL for one of the internet sources. But the author did include a permacc link, which is a type of archive URL. The permacc archival tool includes a link to the original URL when you go to the perma.cc address, so the editor could have actually quickly identified the missing URL this way. As editor-in-chief of the journal, I reviewed all of my team's revised drafts during the first round of edits before they were returned to the authors. This missing URL was one of the themes I caught during my review, so I let the editor know how to find the URL and asked the editor to remove this request from the comment because it was no longer needed. Here is another request to add supporting authority. In footnote 185 and also in footnote 182, the editor added a URL and permalink to the citations of internet sources. Here is another request to add a brief summary paragraph to close out a section and transition into the next part of the article. Here the text included back and forth quotes. To improve the flow, the editor asked the author to consider paraphrasing the dialogue between the government and the court. In the text here, the editor suggested specifying that Jing Lopez was a Taekwondo coach because this additional context would be useful to understand the following details about this class action. This request to add a footnote is good because the text includes a quote, a whole new world, so a supporting authority should be included. Here is another request for supporting authority. This is also a good request because the text describes details about the primary question in the case before the district court. This page includes three more requests for supporting authority, all of which look like solid recommendations. The first sentence that is flagged includes details about the Child Victims Act. The second flagged sentence references three other states that have passed laws similar to the Child Victims Act, so a CEG signal could work well for an added citation, as the editor suggests here. The third flagged sentence quotes the language knowingly benefit and venture from the TVPRA, so a citation to the relevant section of the statute would be good. And that concludes this walkthrough of an example edit of a law review article.