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Faculty Scholarship Support

The purpose of this guide is to assist law school faculty in the production and promotion of their scholarly activities.

Uploading to SSRN

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a huge open-access repository for scholarly papers in law, the social sciences, business, and some other disciplines. Hundreds of thousands of authors have posted abstracts and papers. SSRN has over 750,000 abstracts and most of the papers can be downloaded for free. It is a great tool for research, for disseminating information, and for keeping up with new developments.

Watch this video explaining how to upload papers to SSRN.

Tips on Posting to Open Access Repositories

Here are some general tips on posting to platforms like SSRN:  

  • Craft detailed abstracts (at least 275 words)
  • Include descriptive keywords (at least 6 terms)
  • Favor specific keywords over general keywords (e.g., "First Amendment" is general, while "compelled speech" is specific)
  • Inserting keywords directly into the abstract can help search engines index the article; this also holds for keywords in titles
  • Make sure that your author agreement allows you to post preprints and the final version
  • Post preprints early and replace them with the final version shortly after publication
  • When posting preprints, encourage citation to the final version by including language like "Please do not cite to this preprint without the express permission of the author"
  • Verify that the metadata embedded within your article is accurate and exists for the title, author, and keywords
  • Link to articles on social media, especially Twitter/X; also consider linking from your blog, website, or email signature

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