Scholarly Communication Issues

The September 28, 2007, Chronicle of Higher Education edition includes an article entitled "Bam! Pow! Footnote!" that mentions a new direction in law journal communications.

Two California Western School of Law professors decided to use the comic book format for their essay in the Journal of Legal Education. In fact, the article itself was about branching out of the somewhat stiff and dry legal essay writing style that has prevailed for over a hundred years--the essay is called "The Orthodoxy of Format: Some Sketches on Legal Scholarship."

The illustrations depict two professors walking and talking about the "scholarly merits of illustrated essays." (Oddly enough, the art was drawn by two Chileans, which makes me wonder how the authors got in touch with them.)

Is this the future of legal journal communications? I don't think so, nor do I think the authors are really advocating it. They are exploring how to get more law students actually reading the scholarly communication. Many of the complex concepts in law would be difficult to explain in this format, but it's definitely a fun side trip and experiment along the way.

Before considering the format for other journals, I'd like to know how many law students are interested in comic books or manga and whether or not generational differences come into play. It'd also be interesting to know how many people actually read the essay and what were their responses. However, a comic book style does stand out from the long paragraphs of normal legal essays, so this might be the perfect format to catch a lot of readers' attention. Journals in other fields may want to branch out and try this format, especially with simpler concepts than the law.

I personally am not a fan of comic books or manga, but if I were living the daily grind of a law student, this essay might be a nice change of pace.

-- Marla Ballou

Article available via LexisNexis Academic at the UTK Libraries.