units

LAW1104

Faculty of Law

18 September 2017 19 April 2024

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This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2016 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

Monash University

6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Law

Offered

Not offered in 2016

Notes

This unit is only offered to students who commenced prior to 2015. The new offering for students who commenced in 2015 and beyond see LAW1112.

Synopsis

There are two components taught concurrently. The Writing component will teach basic skills in legal writing, with an emphasis on the types of writing required for assessment in other law units, including research essays and answers to legal problems. The Research component will provide students with the essential skills to undertake research tasks required for their law studies. Students will learn to analyse a research problem into searchable components; locate and update Australian and foreign primary and secondary materials by using online and hard copy library research tools; use and cite references correctly, and evaluate the relevance and authoritative status of legal materials.

Outcomes

Upon completion of this unit, students will be able to:

  • design and implement an efficient research strategy to answer a legal research question, using the most appropriate online and paper-based research tools;
  • critically evaluate the relevance, quality, authority and currency of the materials that they find;
  • correctly use, attribute and cite the work of others and avoid plagiarism
  • identify the hallmarks of good legal writing, and use them to edit and improve their own writing; and
  • apply and develop their higher order thinking skills of evaluation, problem-solving, synthesis, and analysis in writing on legal topics.

Assessment

Assessment Task 1
Research Report, comprising the proposed essay structure (1000 words) and the preliminary bibliography 20%

Assessment Task 2
Research Essay (2,500 words) not including final bibliography 50%

Class attendance, preparation and participation in class discussion and formal exercises for Writing component 20%

Research Exercise 10%
In class research exercise for Research component (500 words)

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Gerald Nagtzaam

Prerequisites

LAW1101

Co-requisites

LAW1101