The 2008 Write On Competition, mandatory for all first-year students seeking membership on a law journal, is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on May 16, 2008.

The annual Write On competition, overseen by the Office of Journal Administration (OJA), requires that all participating students signify their intention to compete by purchasing the rights to a special competition packet. This online packet contains printed material such as newspaper articles, reviews, and commentary relevant to a recent court case. The competition packet is a closed packet: students participating in the competition may only consult the packet materials (and a Blue Book) while writing their own competition paper. Some journals may also require a separate "personal statement" in which the candidate describes how the journal might benefit from his or her membership.

Although the competition itself does not begin until May 16, students will be able to purchase rights to the competition packet through the Write On website beginning on or about May 5, 2008. Once a student purchases these rights, he or she will receive a "Packet ID" number. This number, along with an "Exam Number" assigned to all first-year students by the Registrar's Office, will serve to identify competitors in the otherwise anonymous competition.

Beginning on May 16, participating students may log on to the Write On website to examine and download the competition material. The website will remain open until 8:00 p.m. EDT on May 27, 2008. At that point, participants will need to have completed and returned their competition papers to the Office of Journal Administration and the competition will be considered closed.

The Write On website will be open for preferencing after the all competition papers have been submitted, from mid-June through mid-July, 2008. Log on starting mid-June for more details.

Results should be announced in early August, 2008.

How many journals can I try to join?
There are currently 10 separate law journals published at Georgetown Law. They are: Georgetown Law Journal, American Criminal Law Review , The Tax Lawyer , Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics , Georgetown Journal of International Law (formerly Law and Policy in International Business), Georgetown International Environmental Law Review , Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy , Georgetown Immigration Law Journal , Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law , and Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy .

Participants in the Write On competition indicate the journal(s) for which they wish to be considered eligible by listing those journals on the Write On website in their order of preference. The preferencing area of the website will open in mid-June, 2008.

You may preference as many journals as you wish. The only journals you should leave off your list are those in which you have absolutely no interest in membership. The Write On system will attempt to match you with one of the journals on your list, starting with your most preferred and working down your list until you are either matched or all possibilities are exhausted. The journal editors will not know how you preferenced their journals.

Each journal will announce its criteria before the start of the competition. For example, the Georgetown Law Journal will only consider students who preference it as their first choice. Please attend one of the Journal Town Hall meetings this spring for more details. The dates of the Town Hall meetings are April 2 (3:30 - 5:30, Hart Auditorium) and April 21 (following Dean Purdue's last section 7 civil procedure class).

For more detailed information that may be useful while you are preferencing the journals, please download the Journals Comparison Chart, here (PDF). The current chart is for the 2007 competition; an updated chart will be available by the end of March.

What does the competition require me to do?
The Write On competition requires that you write a case comment using only materials provided in the online packet that you purchase rights to for $40. You must also complete a bluebooking test, and some journals require the completion of separate personal statements.

For a set of sample instructions and a list of the materials from a previous competition, please see here (PDF). Please note that these instructions are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to change.

During the Write On competition period, students must rely entirely upon the materials provided in the packet, plus the following sources: a dictionary, a law dictionary, a thesaurus, and the Eighteenth Edition of the Bluebook. Students may not refer to any law journal articles or materials during the Write On period unless those articles or materials are included as sources in the packet. Students may neither discuss the contents of the packet with anyone during the Write On period, nor may they receive editing or proof-reading assistance from anyone else. While writing, students may use a spell-check and grammar-check program as these programs are widely available.

How long will I have to complete the Write On?
The Write On packet is designed to be completed in five to seven days. The competition, however, runs for 12 days—from May 16 to May 27, 2008. This period includes two full weekends. Your completed packet must be returned to OJA by the competition's conclusion. The Competition database will close at 8:00 p.m. EDT on May 27, 2008. The Office of Journal Administration strongly advises competition participants to upload their completed papers early, in anticipation of potential server problems. Should a participant find him/herself unable to upload his/her paper, he/she may send it via Fedex, UPS, or Registered US mail; however, the paper will be considered late if it is sent after the 8:00 p.m. EDT deadline. Papers sent on the due date must be time- and date-stamped. Please note: Fedex and UPS do not actually stamp a time on your package; however, when they scan your package into their computer the time and date are recorded. Therefore, you must take your package to a UPS or Fedex office. Do not utilize a drop box unless you are certain the box will be collected and its contents scanned prior to the deadline. If you are mailing your paper from another time zone be sure you meet the Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -4) deadline. This means that it must either be hand-delivered to OJA, uploaded to the website or postmarked and shipped via Federal Express or UPS by 8:00 p.m. EDT on May 27, 2008 in order to be accepted into the competition.

Who judges the Write On papers?
The judges are rising third-year staff members from each law journal. Each paper is read by three different judges from three different journals. The judges score each paper on qualities such as analysis, structure, and creativity, and enter their scores directly into the Write On database.

Is my paper score made public?
OJA does not release Write On paper scores to anyone. All editors and judges involved in the competition will only be able to identify individual papers by their packet number. The competition is completely anonymous.

How does the Write On system match me to a journal?
Once your paper has been scored by three judges, the Write On system averages those scores and generates a final paper score. Your Blue Book score is added to the paper score, and then the score is scaled to produce a final Write On packet score. This Write On packet score is combined with a score based on your grades. In addition, some journals will factor in your score on their personal statement . The total of these scores is your raw score. Your raw score, however, will probably be different across several journals, since some of the journals weight the various components of the score at different levels. For example, one journal might value the paper score at 50 percent of the total raw score and your grades as the other 50 percent. Another might break the total raw score down as 40 percent paper, 40 percent grades, and 20 percent personal statement.

This raw score then becomes the main component in an algorithm that takes into account both how the journal ranked you (i.e., how your raw score compares to everyone else's) and how you preferenced it (i.e., if it was your first choice, you'll be more likely to place higher than someone with an equal raw score who preferenced it third). This is why you should be sure to preference highest the journals you want to be on the most.

How will I know if I made it onto a journal?
Once the final matching is run by OJA, results will be available on the Write On website. Results will also be posted outside OJA, with participants identified by journal and packet number. All Write On participants will receive an email alerting them that final results are available. We plan to announce results in early August.

Why don't you announce the results earlier? I want to take my journal membership into account in the Early Interview Week bidding process, and I want to put my journal membership on my resume before the EIW upload deadline.
We have chosen our release date in coordination with the Office of Career Services. Given the size and complexity of the competition - including the number of judges involved, most of whom are not in DC and many of whom are abroad - we have found it difficult to release results early enough for all students to have an opportunity to update their resumes for EIW. Releasing our results early enough to give all students time to take their journal membership into account in the bidding process is also an impossibility, since to be fair to all students who are participating in EIW, we would need to release the results in early July. Such an early date would shorten the time we give judges to evaluate the papers and would leave no room for unexpected circumstances.

Since EIW interview slots are assigned in a lottery system and employers have no opportunity to accept or reject interview candidates based on the content of resumes, a student's journal membership is not relevant for employers until the time of the screening interview. Finally, employers ask for an updated resume at the screening interview, so participants in EIW have ample opportunity to communicate their journal membership to prospective employers.

Is it possible for me to make it onto more than one journal?
The Write On system will match you to one journal. If, after being offered membership, you decide that you do not wish to be a member of that journal, you may decline membership. You will not, however, be offered any other journal memberships. Declining membership in the journal you are matched to will, in effect, be declining journal membership completely. This is why you should only preference journals in which you have a sincere interest. Remember as well that journal membership is a two year commitment. Please participate in the competition only if you are willing to commit to journal membership for two years.

What if I'm not matched to a journal? Can I try again next year?
Unfortunately, not everyone who participates in the Write On competition will be matched to a journal. There are limited spaces, and the competition for them is strong. If you are not accepted to a journal, there is no other opportunity to participate in the Write On competition. It is only open to first-year students, in order to ensure a level playing field among participants.

Keep in mind, though, that while the resume value of journal membership is certainly great, Georgetown Law offers many other activities that carry equal resume value. Career Services can provide excellent assistance in evaluating non-journal extracurricular options. The NALP guide also offers unique and valuable guidance specific to particular firms.

What if I am en evening student or a joint-degree student and want to defer membership in a journal until the following year?
Only first-year students are eligible to participate in the Write On competition. If you are an evening student or a joint-degree student, you may not delay your participation in the Write On competition, although if you are accepted for membership, you may defer your participation on the journal.

If we allowed some students to participate in the Write On after additional coursework or after they have had summer legal experience, they would be in a position of unfair advantage with respect to their co-competitors. Thus, our policy is that evening students and joint degree students must compete after their first year of law school but may defer membership, if they are offered it, for one school year.

If you plan to defer membership on a journal, please notify the Office of Journal Administration before the competition starts (i.e., before May 16). Deferral plans will affect neither your score nor how you are placed on a journal. We will use the information solely to facilitate coherent staff planning for the next two years. If you are offered membership and do defer, your slot will be held for you until the following year. If you have any questions about this process, please contact Brett Marston at bem29@law.georgetown.edu.

What if I want to study abroad?
Because of the time commitment involved in journal membership, participation in study abroad programs may affect your ability to hold editorial positions in your second year of journal membership and in some cases may preclude your ability to participate on a journal altogether. Because their editorial processes differ, journals have substantial autonomy in responding to requests for accommodation of study abroad opportunities. Some journals may be more accommodating, and some study abroad opportunities may mesh more easily with journal membership. Please inform yourself about the study abroad policies of those journals you wish to join.

Are there any strategies I can follow to increase my chances of being accepted to a journal?
Obviously, the best strategy is to write the best paper that you can and to have good grades. Every journal considers these two components in its ranking of prospective members.

You should, however, be honest with yourself about your scores. We extend the preferencing period so that you can take your first year grades into account in the preferencing process. If, for example, you know that your grades are poor, then it is probably unadvisable to preference as your number one choice a journal that weighs grades as 50 percent of its total Write On score. If you feel as though you did not put a great deal of effort into writing your paper, you probably should not preference as your number one choice a journal that places a high value on the paper score. Remember that the system calculates how highly you preference any given journal when generating your ranking on it. All other things being equal, the higher you rank a journal, the more likely you'll be offered membership on it.

If you're preferencing journals that require personal statements, be sure to spend time on them. It's quick and easy to create a "boilerplate" personal statement that you can send to each journal after only minor modifications, but this type of impersonal approach will rarely net you good scores. It's a much better idea to personalize each statement for the journal in question. OJA suggests that you write your personal statement at the start of the competition period, before you are heavily invested in writing your case comment. Students are often so tired by the time they finish the case comment that they have little desire to put any more time into crafting original, thoughtful personal statements.

Also, pay attention to your preferencing. Remember that you should preference as many journals as you have any interest in—the more you preference, the more chances you'll have to be offered membership.

What if I'm a transfer student? How do I participate in the competition?
Transfer students can become journal members. However, they do not participate in the regular Write On Competition. Instead, OJA runs a separate Write On Competition exclusively for transfer students after the main competition ends. Each journal reserves spots on its staff specifically for transfer students. Click here for more information about the transfer student Write On competition.

 

More specific information about the Write On competition will be available on the Write On website once it opens for packet purchases. If you have additional questions before then, you may contact the Office of Journal Administration at extension 9423, or you may e-mail Brett Marston, Director of Journals and Publications, at bem29@law.georgetown.edu.

Revised March 7, 2008 (BEM)