This document outlines the house style for Cooley Law Review. Editors and prospective authors are expected to follow these guidelines.
We follow the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation’s rules for academic citation form and The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style for usage and style.
The information below outlines additional house-style rules, which take precedence over all other sources.
Formatting Requirements
- Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers. These will be added by the editors.
- Write your article in English (unless we expressly permit a non-English submission).
- Submit your manuscript, including tables, figures, appendices, etc., as a single file. (We accept Word, RTF, or PDF files.)
- Page size should be 8.5 x 11 inches.
- All margins (left, right, top, and bottom) should be 1 inch (3.8 cm), including your tables and figures.
- Single-space your text.
- Use a single-column layout with right-ragged justification.
- Font: 1) Main Body: 12-pt. Century; 2) Footnotes: 10-pt. Times New Roman
- If figures are included, use high-resolution figures, preferably encoded as encapsulated PostScript (eps).
- When possible, no pages should be more than a quarter empty.
Article Title, Author, and Abstract
- Article Titles are 14 pt. Century font and centered.
- Author Names follow the title, with one space in between. They are 12 pt. Century font and centered.
- Abstracts are 12 pt. Times New Roman font, italicized and left justified/right-ragged justified.
Indenting, Line Spacing, and Justification
- Indent all paragraphs. An indent should be at least 2 em-spaces.
- Do not insert extra space between paragraphs of text except for block quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, etc. These should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below.
- Don't "widow" or "orphan" headings or text (i.e., ending a page with the first line of a paragraph or beginning a page with the last line of a paragraph).
- Main body text should be left justified/right-ragged justified. Block quotations should be fully justified (left and right).
Language & Grammar
All submissions must be in English. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases should be avoided. Authors should use standard English grammar.
Colored text
Set the font color to black for most of the text. Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup.)
Emphasized text
Whenever possible, use italics to indicate text you wish to emphasize rather than underlining it. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.
Font faces
Use Century (except for any special symbols that call for a different font).
Font size
The main body of text should be set in 12pt. Avoid fonts smaller than 6pt.
Foreign terms
Whenever possible, foreign terms should be set in italics rather than underlined.
Headings
Headings (e.g., start of new sections) should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below. They should follow this style:
- Level-One Headings Begin With Roman Numerals, Are Centered, And Are In Small Caps
- Level-Two Headings Begin with Uppercase Alphabetic Characters and Are Italicized and Centered. Capitalize Words That Would Be Capitalized in a Book Title (Per Redbook Rule 2.10)
- Level-Three Headings Begin with an Ordinary Numeral and Are Centered.
- Capitalize Words That Would Be Capitalized in a Book Title (Per Redbook Rule 2.10)
This style will also be followed in the table of contents, except for the centering.
Main text
The font for the main body of text must be black and Century.
Titles
Whenever possible, titles of books, movies, etc., should be set in italics rather than underlined.
Footnotes
Footnotes should appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced rather than at the end of the paper. Footnotes should be in 10 pt. Times. They should be single-spaced, and there should be a footnote separator rule (line). Footnote numbers or symbols in the text must follow, rather than precede, punctuation. All footnotes should be left justified/right-ragged justified.
Tables and Figures
To the extent possible, tables and figures should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text. Large tables or figures should be put on pages by themselves. Avoid overly small type in tables. In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file. All tables and figures must fit within 1.5" margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) in both portrait and landscape view.