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Submission Requirements

     ISSUE 13 Volume 2

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SUBMISSIONS OPEN: January 19 2024
SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE: March 1 2024

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ALL submissions must be sent to: leicslawreview@le.ac.uk

 

Before submitting your work to the Law Review, read the following requirements carefully.

 

These dates are subject to a 1-week grace period, to be used as an extension for late submissions. Any essays submitted during the grace period will be fairly considered and reviewed, however timely articles will be given priority for publication.

 

Editing is conducted on a rolling basis, so the lineup of submissions may already be finalised by the time a late submission is received. If the lineup of articles is full but a late submission is deemed worthy of publication, it will be deferred to the next volume.

Court

Author Eligibility

Any student at the University of Leicester can submit a paper to be published, as long as the content touches on legal matters. You do not need to be a law student.

 

Authors must make sure that their submissions meet all the requirements and is submitted by the deadline. 

 

This year, we will also be accepting joint papers, which means students may co-author research essays with their peers.  

Content

The Law Review considers for publication articles written on ANY topic, provided they contain some aspect of the law. Interdisciplinary papers combined with legal study, such as Medico-legal or literary approaches to legal study, are acceptable.

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Submissions can be in first person or third person voice, but must always maintain a professional academic tone. This means that submissions cannot be opinion columns, blog-type pieces, or personal reflections. 

 

All submissions will be thoroughly reviewed and subjected to intensive database testing to ensure that there is no plagiarism at work. The University has a strict no-plagiarism or collusion policy and we intend to enforce this. Any essay that is improperly cited or blatantly plagiarised will be discarded for violating academic integrity.

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"Plagiarism: Plagiarism is used as a general term to describe taking and using another’s thoughts and writings as one’s own.  Plagiarism can occur not only in essays and dissertations, but also in scientific experimentation, diagrams, maps, fieldwork, computer programmes, and all other forms of study where you are expected to work independently and produce original material.

 

Collusion: Collusion is the active cooperation of two or more students to deceive examiners in one of the ways set out in the Regulations governing Student Discipline. You will be guilty of collusion if you knowingly allow any of your academic work to be acquired by another person for presentation as if it were that person’s own work.  If you offer to provide work to another student to be passed off as their own you are guilty of collusion."

(Source: Student and Academic Services UoL -https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/sas2/assessments/plagiarism )

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Format

ALL Submissions must be submitted online through our website's submissions link. Essays are expected to be:

  • Between 750 - 5000 words

  •  Double-spaced 

  • 12-point font with 1-inch margins

  • Times New Roman font

  • Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx files accepted only)

  • All sources must be cited in OSCOLA, following the Law department guidelines. This means there must be footnotes all throughout and a bibliography at the end, ordered by source type. For more information, please download the University guide to using OSCOLA in our citation section.

  • Pages numbered on bottom right side of each page

  • Must include a cover page with your submission title, your name, the date of submission). The cover page is the ONLY place where your name should appear. Articles will be read without cover pages first in order to eliminate the possibility of bias and to ensure the selection process may proceed based on a content-only criteria.

Editing Process

After the submission deadline, article writers are made to be anonymous. The articles will be evaluated by their content, their relevance of context, and the quality of references and information. All articles will be reviewed by the panel of editors and a number will be shortlisted for publication. All shortlisted articles receive edits and suggestions made by the panel. Writers will approve of the edits/suggestions to their article(s) prior to publication. We will contact the authors of the selected submissions via email within a week of the final submission deadline. 

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Articles are reviewed against the following criteria:

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CONTENT

  • Topic is relevant to the field of law. The essay is well-researched and reports information factually and accurately.

  • The author demonstrates a superior grasp of the content and critically engaged with academic ideas and principles.

  • Author demonstrates originality of thought, whilst maintaining the essay’s readability. Does not branch off into tangents or lose focus.

  • The essay has a strong thesis statement, which is consistently referred to throughout, and ends by either being resolved or pointedly addressed.

 

STRUCTURE

  • The author’s stance and approach makes logical sense and ideas are presented in an organized manner which relates back to the essay’s critical crux.

  • Ideas within the essay are fluidly transitioned into with clarity and logic.

  • Academic tone and verb tense are consistently maintained throughout the essay.

  • The essay has no major grammatical, syntactical, or structural flaws which may discount the validity of its content.

 

FORMAT

  • All guidelines provided on the Law Review website have been followed (12 point, Times New Roman, 1-inch margins, page numbers, cover page, etc…)

  • Each paragraph focuses on a single idea in a brief and concise way; ideas are not split into multiple paragraphs.

  • The essay does not surpass or undershoot the word limit.

  • The essay has a clear beginning, middle, and end. The clarity of this trajectory can be discerned with or without subheadings.

 

REFERENCING

  • All claims are sufficiently backed by evidentiary support which is both relevant and up-to-date.

  • Every source must be properly cited, in line with the OSCOLA guidelines supplied by the University library.

  • Every source must be publicly accessible and can be traced back and revisited during the editing process.

  • All claims must accurately reflect their source. Authors may not doctor quotes to suit their argument, forward their point, or match the rest of their research.

  • No evidence of plagiarism anywhere in the essay.

Citations

ALL submissions must follow the OSCOLA citation guidelines. Submissions must include footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. 

Essays that do not follow the proper citation format or include sporadic citations will be discarded for plagiarism.

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The formal guide to using OSCOLA can be found on the University of Leicester library webpage or quickly accessed by pressing the button below. Please note that this link will prompt you to login to your student account and is only available to students with existing access. 

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