Choosing a Topic for Seminar Papers and Journal Notes: What Makes a Good Note

A note should be:

• Original: Offering original research, ideas, and/or conclusions; it should bring something new to the world of legal scholarship.

• Topical: Concerning itself with issues of current interest or recent “hot topics.”

• Lasting: Avoiding focus on volatile world situations that may change substantially over time, e.g., Analyzing a circuit split issue when SCOTUS has already granted cert.

• Narrow: Limited in scope. It is better to thoroughly cover a narrow topic than to not do justice to a broader topic.

Research your area of interest in journals of other disciplines. A look outside your field of study can provide invaluable insight to a topic.

A few databases with broad topics include:

Browse through recent editions of high-quality law journals (including your own!) to get a sense of what other note authors have written. If interested in a particular area of law, locate subject-specific journals for that topic.

Listed below are of some of the more-cited journals in their respective areas:

*Online via HeinOnline database