(Eugene Volokh)
I was asked to write a 3000-word entry on the First Amendment for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I think I came up with something suitable, but as usual it’s hard for an expert author to tell whether the product is clear to readers who are not experts.
I’d therefore love to have feedback from a few 11-to-17-year-olds who can read the draft and tell me whether it is clear to them, and how it can be made clearer. And if they can understand it, my hope is that a typical adult reader can understand it, too.
So if you know of a 11-to-17-year-old who might view reading and commenting on the draft as something fun rather than as a chore, please e-mail me at volokh at law dot ucla dot edu, and I’ll send either you or the 11-to-17-year-old a draft. I would prefer, though, readers who are not already constitutional law buffs (that’s in some tension with the “view reading and commenting … as something fun” requirement, I realize). I would also need feedback by next Monday, since the final draft is due July 15.
For whatever it’s worth, I have eight extra copies of my First Amendment casebook, which contains an outline of the law together with excerpts from leading cases. I would happily send a copy of the book to the first eight reviewers who can help me with this. Or if the reviewer is interested chiefly in the free exercise of religion and the establishment of religion, rather than in free speech and press, I’d be happy to send copies of my Religion Clauses casebook (I have a couple of dozen of those). And of course I would publicly thank the reviewers on the blog, if they so prefer (again, for whatever it’s worth) and if their parents agree.
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