Monday, December 2, 2013

Hey, Florida State: Forthcoming Articles Are Not “Recent Publications”

Going though a pile of recent law porn, I came across Florida State College of Law's recent “Faculty Additions (PDF)” mail -out. Semantically speaking, the definitions of the words “recent” and “forthcoming” are kind of mutually exclusive, but that doesn’t stop a lot of schools, like Florida State, from piling on whatever they can:

Florida State College of Law - Shi-Ling Hsu - Select Recent Publications

I.e., a “Recent Publication” coming out next year, and two that weren’t published (and thus weren’t “recent”) when this mail out went to press. Other examples from Florida State:

Florida State College of Law - Garrick Pursley - Select Recent Publications
and:

Florida State College of Law - Mary Ziegler - Select Recent Publications

Oh, and it’s a stretch to say that “recent” also includes articles that came out two, three or even four years ago:


Florida State College of Law - Courtney Cahill - Select Recent Publications

Or - JEEZ! - from 2007!?! -

Florida State College of Law - Bruce A. Markell - Select Recent Publications

And let’s revisit that last one:

Florida State College of Law - Bruce A. Markell - Select Recent Publications

A 2004 book that, in a 2013 mail-out, is said “to be translated into Japanese” (emphasis added) LAST year. Huh? And which - to confuse matter more - actually WAS translated into Japanese back in 2007:


Huh???

Sorry to pick on you, Florida State College of Law - a fine institution, I'm sure, with the highest caliber of law students - other law schools are similarly sloppy with their mail-outs, and few folks read these closely, but this was the most egregious offender I’ve seen in the batch of law porn that I’ve received this fall.

No comments: