Thank you so much for posting this! I used to do TOCs and TOAs all the time when I used to work as a legal assistant, but then I switched careers and forgot how to do them. Now that I'm trying to get back into the legal field, this a super helpful refresher, especially since you're doing it in Word 2010!
Thank you for this video! I'm a student w/ a research & writing prof. who knows the law books like she wrote them, but, she doesn't know the 1st thing about technology! Her fav saying was "You never know when there will be a blackout & you'll have to research by candle-light." (I'm thinking... or a flashlight!?) Anyway, she has produced research masterminds like me in dire need of an upgrade. Prior to this video, I was scouring through a 30-pg brief trying to handwrite every citation. THANKS!
No kidding, she introduced a lecture one day by telling us all how tedious it used to be to hand-write the symbols so the printing-press could know which text to italicize & so on haha. I def got the point, appreciate the technology that we students of today are so fortunate to have.
Glad you found it helpful. It's worth knowing the fast way, I think. Also, I know from your other post that there's no disrespect for the old ways--just an appreciation for the speed of more modern technology. Keep up your hard work and good luck with finals.
1=cases; 2 =Statutes; 3=Other Authorities; 4=Rules; 5=Treatises and 6=Regulations. Just simply change the \ c 2 to a \c 1 and then regenerate your TOA. That's it. Big time saver.
Glad you found it useful. I shared it because I think it is worth learning to do it this way, even if you are only writing one brief in your life. Feel free to share it around to friends or others working on a brief.
Just wanted to let you know that you do not have to delete the entire marked cite if you categorized it incorrectly. At the end of the code for the marked cite you just need to change one little number. Lets say you marked a case as a statute... at the end of the code there is a \c 2. The number repesents the category it will be in. When you click on the Category drop-down arrow in the Mark Citation dialog box it will list the categories as Cases, Statutes, Other Autorities etc....
@azbullmastiff, I bet that the style for ToA entries is set to single-spaced. When you fix it, are you selecting the text in the ToA and changing that, or are you changing the style? There should be a style for ToA in the list of all the styles.
Should you also clean up the Short Form section? It appears when you do the Id. marking, for instance, that it is picking up the case that has a pin mark and period punctuation still in it.
That really sounds like a great idea, though it won't be messing up the TOA that generates because the "short form" part isn't creating new lines in the table, just adding page references to the original listing. Does that make sense?
Also, it's best to turn off the show/hide button before you generate or regenerate your TOA because MS Word isn't smart enough to realize all that code that marking the cites has added to your document is actually shifting all the words around and throwing everything off by a page. So on the Home Tab click the show/hide button off and then generate the TOA so you have the correct pages listed. My little tricks of the trade after many painful days of working on briefs, LOL.
Hey John this is a very big help however I'm still trying o figure out something... Now I have a test brief and some things are edited in the rough draft copy so that I can make correction in the final what I am trying to figure out is how if a statute is not included in the brief how do I add it under the heading Statutes and Rules.
I'm sorry to hear you are having problems. When you pull down the list of styles in Word 2010, it normally only shows "recommended" styles. At the bottom of the style pane, though, is a clickable link to "Options . . ." If you click that, it opens a box that lets you chose from a pull-down menu "Select Styles to Show." That has "All Styles" as a choice. When you've done that, Table of Authorities should be a choice (for me, it's almost at the very end of the list). Does this help?
Thank you for this helpful video! I do have a question. If I need to change the TOA page numbers to Roman numerals but leave the page numbers on the brief regular numbers how do I do that? I inserted a page break after the TOA page, however, when I try to change the TOA to Roman numerals it doesn't seem to work. Thank you!
Katie Laaksonen Do you mean that you want the Table of Authorities to be on page ii, for example, and the body of the brief start at page 1? If so, use a "section break" rather than a "page break" and when you insert page numbers, choose a different style page number for the two sections. Also, make sure you unclick "continue from previous section" on the second section. Does that help?
I think you'd need to create new categories within your table. I never did that, as my jurisdictions only expected "Cases" rather than further breaking it down. It looks like this is simple to do, though. When you "Mark Citations" there is a button "Categories" on the right-hand side of the dialogue box. Click that. Then, it will let you replace some of the categories with other categories. Scroll through the ones that are there by default and you will see some that are just numbers. Mine starts at 8 and goes up from there. Pick one of those, type the new text that you'd want instead of the number, and then click "replace." You'll then have that new type of case as a choice in your Mark Citations lists. Does that help?
Thank you, the video was ver helpful, can you tell me if the table of authorities's page numbers are clickable? if they are how can update that to make them clickable?
My personal practice was always to use Mark, because I didn't have a lot of confidence in Mark All. But, that said, I would always be sure that when marking a subsequent entry of the same authority I used the "short form" part. I did it that way at about 3:00 in the video with Id., but it would work that way for any subsequent citation.
You probably found it by now, but ctrl-* will toggle that off and on. There's also a button on the toolbar with a paragraph symbol. Click that, and it should turn off the paragraph icons. Also, they just show on the screen, not on the page, normally.
Thank you so much for posting this! I used to do TOCs and TOAs all the time when I used to work as a legal assistant, but then I switched careers and forgot how to do them. Now that I'm trying to get back into the legal field, this a super helpful refresher, especially since you're doing it in Word 2010!
Thank you for this video! I'm a student w/ a research & writing prof. who knows the law books like she wrote them, but, she doesn't know the 1st thing about technology! Her fav saying was "You never know when there will be a blackout & you'll have to research by candle-light." (I'm thinking... or a flashlight!?) Anyway, she has produced research masterminds like me in dire need of an upgrade. Prior to this video, I was scouring through a 30-pg brief trying to handwrite every citation. THANKS!
This was the best tutorial ever!!!! Clear, precise, easy to understand! Thank you!!!👍🏼
Sindee Kaye glad you liked it.
Thanks! I just found this while working on my Legal Research & Writing finals for paralegal studies. VERY helpful!
Thank you. Wished I knew about this two days ago. Just appealed a case to the 14th Court of Appeal in Houston. I typed the citation.
No kidding, she introduced a lecture one day by telling us all how tedious it used to be to hand-write the symbols so the printing-press could know which text to italicize & so on haha. I def got the point, appreciate the technology that we students of today are so fortunate to have.
Excellent demo... clear, concise and full of tips
Glad you liked it, Monica.
Thank you so much for this! It's been a while for me, and I appreciate the easy brush up!
Glad you found it helpful. It's worth knowing the fast way, I think. Also, I know from your other post that there's no disrespect for the old ways--just an appreciation for the speed of more modern technology. Keep up your hard work and good luck with finals.
Excellent delivery and explanation. I had to cross reference a couple of times to an actual document but it works. Practice makes perfect.
legaladvocate71 glad you found it helpful.
Very informative video covering the common mistakes made and ways to correct them
Glad you liked it.
This was wonderfully helpful. Thank you!
1=cases; 2 =Statutes; 3=Other Authorities; 4=Rules; 5=Treatises and 6=Regulations. Just simply change the \ c 2 to a \c 1 and then regenerate your TOA. That's it. Big time saver.
Glad you found it helpful. Please feel free to share it with others at your firm or law school.
Glad you found it useful. I shared it because I think it is worth learning to do it this way, even if you are only writing one brief in your life. Feel free to share it around to friends or others working on a brief.
Thanks. Answered all of my questions.
Glad you liked it craigahenderson. Good luck with your brief.
Thank you! I had a general understanding, but this cleared up my final questions. Well done.
Glad you liked it.
Great tips Kmots118. Thanks for sharing those.
Please feel free to share with other law students, paralegals, or attorneys who might be interested.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
You are completely welcome, Jean-Marie. Thank you for sharing the video with others, too.
Good overview, thanks.
Just wanted to let you know that you do not have to delete the entire marked cite if you categorized it incorrectly. At the end of the code for the marked cite you just need to change one little number. Lets say you marked a case as a statute... at the end of the code there is a \c 2. The number repesents the category it will be in. When you click on the Category drop-down arrow in the Mark Citation dialog box it will list the categories as Cases, Statutes, Other Autorities etc....
Great video! Can you please tell me what software you used to zoom in and out of the screen?
@azbullmastiff, I bet that the style for ToA entries is set to single-spaced. When you fix it, are you selecting the text in the ToA and changing that, or are you changing the style? There should be a style for ToA in the list of all the styles.
Should you also clean up the Short Form section? It appears when you do the Id. marking, for instance, that it is picking up the case that has a pin mark and period punctuation still in it.
That really sounds like a great idea, though it won't be messing up the TOA that generates because the "short form" part isn't creating new lines in the table, just adding page references to the original listing. Does that make sense?
Also, it's best to turn off the show/hide button before you generate or regenerate your TOA because MS Word isn't smart enough to realize all that code that marking the cites has added to your document is actually shifting all the words around and throwing everything off by a page. So on the Home Tab click the show/hide button off and then generate the TOA so you have the correct pages listed. My little tricks of the trade after many painful days of working on briefs, LOL.
Thank you. When would I use passim?
thank you thank you thank you. great help. thanks!
Hey John this is a very big help however I'm still trying o figure out something... Now I have a test brief and some things are edited in the rough draft copy so that I can make correction in the final what I am trying to figure out is how if a statute is not included in the brief how do I add it under the heading Statutes and Rules.
I'm sorry to hear you are having problems.
When you pull down the list of styles in Word 2010, it normally only shows "recommended" styles. At the bottom of the style pane, though, is a clickable link to "Options . . ." If you click that, it opens a box that lets you chose from a pull-down menu "Select Styles to Show." That has "All Styles" as a choice. When you've done that, Table of Authorities should be a choice (for me, it's almost at the very end of the list). Does this help?
Question, how to mark citations that are mentioned repeatedly in different pages?
How do you change the order of the categories?
Glad you liked it.
hi sir, how to bring the text ascending or in descending order in table of authorities?
Thank you for this helpful video! I do have a question. If I need to change the TOA page numbers to Roman numerals but leave the page numbers on the brief regular numbers how do I do that? I inserted a page break after the TOA page, however, when I try to change the TOA to Roman numerals it doesn't seem to work. Thank you!
Katie Laaksonen Do you mean that you want the Table of Authorities to be on page ii, for example, and the body of the brief start at page 1? If so, use a "section break" rather than a "page break" and when you insert page numbers, choose a different style page number for the two sections. Also, make sure you unclick "continue from previous section" on the second section. Does that help?
how do you separate your cases authority heading by the level of the court (ie Supreme, Circuit, District)? Thank you
I think you'd need to create new categories within your table. I never did that, as my jurisdictions only expected "Cases" rather than further breaking it down. It looks like this is simple to do, though. When you "Mark Citations" there is a button "Categories" on the right-hand side of the dialogue box. Click that. Then, it will let you replace some of the categories with other categories. Scroll through the ones that are there by default and you will see some that are just numbers. Mine starts at 8 and goes up from there. Pick one of those, type the new text that you'd want instead of the number, and then click "replace." You'll then have that new type of case as a choice in your Mark Citations lists.
Does that help?
you should use advance software for recording you desktop screen
Thank you, the video was ver helpful, can you tell me if the table of authorities's page numbers are clickable? if they are how can update that to make them clickable?
When do you use "Mark" and when "Mark all"? I am having trouble with duplicate entries.
My personal practice was always to use Mark, because I didn't have a lot of confidence in Mark All. But, that said, I would always be sure that when marking a subsequent entry of the same authority I used the "short form" part. I did it that way at about 3:00 in the video with Id., but it would work that way for any subsequent citation.
What is a "pin site" and why isn't it ok to leave it on the table?
Rockstar!!!
Glad you like it, and thank you for sharing it around.
Sure, it was Camtasia by techsmith.
im having a problem with the TOA. could you help?
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL HOW TO GET THE PARAGRAPH ICON THINGS OFF OF MY PAPER.. PLEASE!!!
You probably found it by now, but ctrl-* will toggle that off and on. There's also a button on the toolbar with a paragraph symbol. Click that, and it should turn off the paragraph icons. Also, they just show on the screen, not on the page, normally.
when i can use passim?
table of authorities is not listed in styles....im having all sorts of other problems too.
Glad you liked it. You'll be ready when it's time for the reply brief. Feel free to tell friends and colleagues about the video.
Still dont understand! So confused and disapointed!
Glad you liked it. Feel free to share it with friends or colleagues.