Academic

So, for ten years now, my co-author Tracy McGaugh and I have published theInteractive Citation Workbook with Lexis Publishing.  The book began as a series of exercises we wrote to teach our students correct Bluebook form in our legal writing classes.  Tracy's husband is a software programmer, so when we decided that students would like the exercises better if they were on the Internet, and even better if they were sort of a game on the Internet, the ICW was born!  The book contains print versions of the exercises, and the exercises are duplicated in a quiz-type format on the Lexis website (The Interactive Citation Workstation).  Shortly after the idea was born, the ALWD Manual was published, so we created an ALWD version in print and online.  Exercises are updated each year.

Until this year, the ICW has been mainly targeted to first-year legal writing classes (and is also adopted by some legal assistant training classes) because the Bluebook rules used are for court documents and legal memoranda.  Until now, the ICW has not contained exercises designed to teach Bluebook footnote format for academic articles  That is. . . . until now!

The 2009 edition contains a rather lengthy Chapter 18 with five exercise sets on transitioning from the "Bluepages" format to footnote format.  It also details rules not taught in legal writing classes like "supra," infra," and "hereinafter."  So, if you are working with new law journal editors this year or teaching a seminar, you may want to check out the new and improved ICW and ICW website!

Note:  The new exercises are already online.  The print versions have not shipped yet, but pdfs are available from Lexis Publishing.