Most journal organizations will provide specific information about how you can contribute as a member/editor. Here are some useful general guides and resources from the law library.
Manuscript review
Preemption-checking to check on a submission's the originality and utility may be part of your role in reviewing draft articles submitted for inclusion in your journal. These resources may help:
- Preemption Checking: Checklist (research guide)
- Annual Reviews - especially useful to get a "lay of the land" for interdiciplinary scholarship, dozens of journals in several subject areas (including Law & Social Science) that capture the current understanding of a topic, including what is well supported and what is controversial; set the work in historical context; and highlight the major questions that remain to be addressed
Source collecting
Vital to your role as a fact-checker and peer reviewer, your initial work on a journal staff may include collecting source materials cited in a submitted article. Some starters:
Cite-checking
The other major task of fact-checking and editing submitted articles both verifying the accuracy and completeness of the author's citations and standardizing the citation formats, a process nicknamed "Bluebooking":
- Bluebook (print version) for in-library use - current edition copies at Reserve Collection on LL1 - a 4-hour loan can be a good focused period to work on citation formatting, or to just familiarize yourself with the structure of the Bluebook
- Your journal may have a subscription to the online Bluebook for your use on journal work
