Undergraduate Course: Advanced Legal Writing (Online) (LAWS10214)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course is intended to provide the skills and knowledge necessary to make the most of Honours study. It has a twofold purpose. Firstly, it will bridge the gap between the Ordinary and Honours methods of teaching and learning in the Law School, equipping students to deal with the shift from the lecture/tutorial to the seminar format, and to get the most out of the latter. Secondly, it will provide students with the full range of skills necessary to excel in their 4th year dissertations, a key component of the new LLB programme. The latter goal includes not only key elements of dissertation planning, but also essay-writing skills generalisable to all honours essays, along with general writing skills.
The aims of the course are as follows:
- To familiarise students with the move from lectures to seminars, the reasons behind this, and what is expected of them;
- To impart the necessary skills to allow students to get the full benefit of this transition;
- To teach students how to formulate and present arguments, and how to structure them in a coherent text, at an advanced level;
- To ensure students know the key elements in selecting and refining an appropriate research question, developing a research plan, and focusing study in the manner necessary to succeed in the dissertation;
- To develop students' ability to craft clear, concise and rigorous formulations of their own and others' arguments, and awareness of important pitfalls in writing.
|
| Course description |
The course will cover the following topics:
- The difference between Honours and Ordinary study
- Key skills for Honours study
- Argument analysis and evaluation
- Designing research questions
- Structuring essays
- Elements of academic writing
- Identifying and avoiding common writing errors
During the general lecture each week, a range of different skills will be introduced and discussed in detail - these lectures will be accessible to students online. From week 2 onwards, a set of materials and exercises designed to allow for more intense and focused skills work, each focusing on topics previously covered in the lectures.
Students will have ample opportunity to engage with, and provide peer feedback on, each others' work. They will be expected to demonstrate their achievement of the learning outcomes by marking and providing detailed feedback on a short essay written by the course organisers. They will be further invited to submit, as an extra, optional formative assessment, a short essay on a topic of their choosing. The essay-writing process will be 'scaffolded' at various stages, and many exercises will be designed to teach precisely what markers are looking for in different elements of the essay.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2017/18, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
78 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Essay marking exercise: 100% (pass/fail) |
| Feedback |
While regular students will be invited to submit a title, abstract and structure for the final summative essay, students learning online will be given the opportunity to submit the essay they will have been developing in these exercises as a further formative exercise, on which they will receive feedback. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Read, understand, and critically evaluate primary and secondary legal sources to an advanced level.
- Analyse and synthesise complex arguments.
- Structure and present a complex set of their own arguments as a single coherent text.
- Formulate, acting independently, a plausible essay question, write an abstract, develop a coherent and effective structure and ultimately write the essay.
- Present complex arguments in a clear, rigorous and elegant manner.
|
Reading List
| Under development. Reading will be kept to a minimum to allow a focus on skills-based exercises. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
By the end of the course, students will be able:
- To read, and to communicate effectively, in written and oral form, complex ideas and positions;
- To manage the change to the more independent and self-disciplined form of work required at Honours level study;
- To understand, through the use of formative and peer feedback mechanisms, the different elements of an excellent research essay or dissertation, and to interrogate their own work, and those of others, in the light of these elements;
- To reflect in detail on their own learning, to make use of feedback from both teachers and peers to improve their own performance, and to provide feedback to peers on aspects of theirs;
- To read actively and critically, and to respond creatively to the different texts that they will encounter in the course of the degree.
|
| Keywords | Advanced Legal Writing,Transition to Honours,Writing Skills,Essay Writing |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Luis Duarte D'Almeida
Tel: (0131 6)51 3781
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Danielle Page
Tel: (0131 6)51 4550
Email: |
|
|
University Homepage