Pre Law or Pre Nah. A look into the official style.

Pre-Law or Pre-Nah

            Three pages, and a four line and twenty-two-word title, the article written by Justice Gollob exemplifies the official writing style. The article, at first glance, doesn’t seem like the official style. The article holds the characteristics of a “regular” article: short, straightforward, clear, and concise. From looking deeper into the article for the official style, it leads to a ‘rabbit’s hole’ of seeing official style everywhere, such as in the previous sentence of this paragraph. While the article delves into determining if law school is the correct fit, it displays multiple official style strategies such as subordinate clauses, prepositional phrases, infinitive clauses, and many more. This paper is about breaking the article down to the bones of those strategies.

            Right off the bat, the title of the article has the official punctuation with a colon, “An Honest Conversation: An In-Class Tool to Help Pre-Law Students Determine Their Compatibility with Law School and a Legal Career.” Going into the abstract, there is a sentence that uses a combination of the official punctuations of colon and semicolon, “In this article, I present The Legal Career Compatibility Project; a tool to help students make an informed decision about pursuing a career in law.”

            The article holds many subordinate clauses. As the article begins, it starts with the prepositional phrase, “although,” without looking directly for it, one does not out-right see the subordinate clauses. Within the second and third paragraph, the subordinate clauses of “even if” are followed by the subject of “we” and finishes with the verb “define.” “When” is another subordinate clause that appears, and is used to describe, in detail, the research that was collected.

            Prepositional phrases are very prevalent within the article. There are multiple times that the article uses the prepositional phrase of “according to” and because of the discussion being had in the article, it makes sense to use that phrase often. Justin is using evidence and research from other people to support his claim.  

            The article itself reaches a smaller pool of people. The sphere of human activity would include the subject and communities, and more specifically students and political science majors who are looking to advance into a legal profession after their undergraduate study. It connects on a level with individuals who are looking to take their first steps into applying for law school and don’t know if it is right for them or don’t know where to begin. More likely than not, those individuals are juniors and seniors in their undergraduate degree program and looking at their next steps after graduation.  The mediating artifacts include the other research and studies being used to support the claims within this article, such as the phases Gollob uses that were designed by Bolles. The outcome is essentially giving potential law students the steps to take to decide if law school is compatible with them.

The research that is utilized and the new information gathered take the trial and error out of applying for law school, and level of compatibility with the specific student at hand. Taking a closer, indepth look at the article, it is not referenced in another paper, however, that does not take away from the message and substance that the article portrays. it is only reaching a small pool so the ability to reference it would be harder than using something more well-known and universally applicable. The article does use articles that have been regularly cited and uses a compatibility study that is well known.

The article is part of the Political Science & Politics Journal published by the Cambridge University Press in their 51^st volume. It was published on behalf of the American Political Science Association which is an organization supporting the study of political science and reaches over 12,000 members and 80 countries. The Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge, however, they have over 50 offices globally and are built on the mission to unlock research solutions.

The author himself, Justin Gollob, is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Colorado Mesa University and not only does he hold a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Idaho State University, he also has a Masters and his Ph.D. from Temple University. The article at hand is not the only research he has done, he has been published for “state and local government, legislatures, public policy, elections, federalism and public land management” (Colorado Mesa University). His profound knowledge of American Government gives him standing for writing this article, he knowns the process and is apt to help others through the process of deciding and applying to law school. The article also comes after giving his students face-to-face introductions with Secretary of State Williams. The students asked Secretary Williams personal questions about how he got where he is now, and how he knew it was right for him. 

            The official style is a series of long sentences and titles, usage of official styles strategies, and prominence in society. Something as narrowly drawn as compatibility for law school holds all tools that the office styles requires, it just requires a deeper look than what we see on the surface

Jamie L.