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Writing Notes and Comments for Journal Members

This guide is intended to assist journal members at Stanford Law School with writing and publishing Notes or Comments.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

For Mac:

  • Small caps: COMMAND + SHIFT + K
  • Italics: COMMAND + SHIFT + I
  • Section symbol (§): OPTION + 6
  • En dash (–): OPTION + HYPHEN
  • Em dash (—): SHIFT + OPTION + HYPHEN

For PC:

  • Small caps: CTRL + SHIFT + K
  • Italics: CTRL + SHIFT + I
  • Section symbol (§): [Create your own keyboard shortcut by pressing "Insert" then "Symbol", highlighting the section symbol, clicking on the "Shortcut key" button, then clicking "Assign" after entering your own]
  • En dash (–): CTRL + [minus sign on number pad]
  • Em dash (—): SHIFT + CTRL + [minus sign on number pad]​

Examples of regular and small caps typefaces

Footnotes and Cross References

Properly inserting cross-references for supra and infra citations will allow you to easily update all of these citations at any time while drafting your Note or Comment, even after you have added numerous additional footnotes. This is a much more efficient method of updating footnote numbers in supra and infra citations than manually changing each of them individually.

Example of footnotes containing "supra" references

Inserting a cross reference:

  • Place your cursor at the point in the footnote where you want the note number to appear.
  • Go to "References," then click "Cross-reference."
  • Change the “Reference type" dropdown to "Footnote" and leave the “Insert as hyperlink” box checked.
  • Select the footnote you are referring back to from the list of all the footnotes in the document ("For which footnote") and click "Insert."

Updating all cross references in a document:

  • Select "Edit – Select All" (or press CTRL + A) when your cursor is below the line (i.e., in the area where the footnotes are listed, not in the main body of the text).
  • Press F9 or right click and select "Update Field."
  • Any cross references that were improperly linked will indicate "Error! Bookmark Not Defined."

Non-Breaking Spaces

Non-breaking spaces should be used between the periods in ellipses ( . . . ), after section symbols (§), and after volume numbers in journal and book citations. Non-breaking spaces ensure that the text remains together on one line.

On Mac: OPTION + SPACE

On PC:  CTRL + SHIFT + SPACE