Lancashire Law School

Lancashire Law School – Coursework Guide

LANCASHIRE LAW SCHOOL

COURSEWORK GUIDE

Scope of the Guide

This Guide applies to all coursework assessment submitted for the LLB, Combined Honours, CPE and LLM programmes in Lancashire Law School. It covers both essay type courseworks and problem question courseworks.

It aims to give you consistent guidance on how to prepare, write and submit your courseworks. The preparation of this Guide was prompted by the observation that many students had a continuing weakness in referencing, presenting and structuring of courseworks. Much of the material covered in this Guide will have been addressed in other places, such as Lawyers’ Skills, personal tutor sessions or other skills courses that you have taken in the past. The problem seems to be that students do not consistently apply what they have previously learnt to their work in other parts of the course.

We regard this as unfortunate as many students who are putting a lot of effort into their work are losing important marks on these basic criteria.

Using the Guide

Apply it in your work - Your tutors will expect you to read and apply the guidance contained here. We will use the Guide both in advising you in advance of the assessment and to help feedback to you why you obtained the mark you did and how you can improve your performance in the future.

Fill in the checklist on page 3 – before you submit any coursework, go through the points listed there and make sure that you have addressed all the issues.

Use it for feedback – if you receive a marker’s comment on your frontsheet that, for example, ‘You do not cite sources accurately’ – refer back to this Guide. Look at what is expected of you and use the comment and guidance to improve your work for your next assessment.

Coursework Checklist

Fill this out in relation to each coursework you submit.

In this coursework;

□ I have followed any subject specific guidance

□ I have adhered to the word limit

□ I have presented my work properly

□ I have proof-read my work

□ I have used a good range of sources

□ I have cited material fully and accurately

□ I have included a bibliography

□ I have structured my work

□ I have answered the question set

□ I have attempted to analyse/evaluate the material

□ I have submitted the work in the proper form and kept an electronic copy

1. Subject specific guidance

This Guide only contains general guidance on e.g. writing and citation. In addition you may receive subject specific guidance in a particular module on e.g. the range or type of sources you will be expected to use or the structure to be adopted.

This guidance comes from the people who will be marking your work. At the risk of stating the obvious, this subject guidance is valuable information and you need to ensure that you have observed it in your work.

2. Word limit

2.1 We are sometimes asked the question, ‘How much over the word limit am I allowed to go?’ The answer is - not at all. Anything that you write that goes beyond the word limit will not be regarded as part of your assessment and will not be credited.

2.2 There is no minimum number of words that you need to write but bear in mind that the word limit is indicating your opportunity to show your knowledge. If you write significantly less than you are allowed to (e.g. only 2000 words for a 3000 word coursework) then you are not taking full advantage of that opportunity.

2.3 What counts as contributing to your word count? All quotations do. The bibliography does not. Footnotes do not, but only as long as you restrict their use to citation and very marginal comment. Do not try to circumvent the word limit by making substantive points in your footnotes.

2.4 Do not forget that you need to put the word count on the frontsheet, see section 10 below.

3. Presentation

3.1 It is required of you that you;

·  Word process the work

·  Use double line spacing

·  Use font size 12

·  Put all case names in italics

·  Number all pages

·  Put your Student ID number only on the work. Your name should be on the coversheet only.

3.2 In addition, you will find that your work looks neater and more professional if you;

·  Use a serif font (such as Times New Roman) rather than a sans-serif font (such as Arial).

·  Use the ‘Justified’ text alignment, rather than the ‘Left’ alignment.

If you don’t know how to do any of these things, the Help menu in Microsoft Word is very useful.

3.3 For short quotes (less than two lines), just include them in the body of your work. For longer quotes (more than two lines), add a space above and below the quote; indent the quote; use single line spacing, e.g.

‘Unquestionably, judicial review has caught the imagination of those affected by controversial public decisions (and perhaps more importantly their legal advisors) and the number of applications for judicial review continues to grow apace.’

4. Proof-reading

It is essential that the first draft of your work is not the version that you submit. A first draft is likely to contain spelling errors, grammatical errors, gaps in citation, incoherent passages of writing etc.

4.1 Spell-checking – the spell-check tool on your word-processor is very useful, but it will not pick up all mistakes, e.g. there/their. The grammar-check tool will pick up some mistakes, but is less accurate than the spell-checker. You need to supplement by carefully proof –reading and revising.

4.2 It is best to leave time after you have finished a draft to revise it.

·  You will proof your work more objectively if you leave time (even if it is just overnight) in between finishing writing and proof -reading.

·  You will need time to make any revisions.

·  This obviously relies on your time-management skills.

4.3 When proof-reading look out for mistakes or areas for improvement in all the issues covered by this Guide; spelling, grammar, structure, writing style, relevance and scope of answer, use of authority and citation, and analysis. Ask yourself if you have addressed all these issues.

4.4 A useful tip on picking up grammar, coherence and writing style mistakes is to read your work out loud. This tends to make absurdities, or style mistakes such as very long sentences, really stand out.

4.5 Common grammatical errors that crop up are;

·  misuse of apostrophes, e.g. ‘Judge’s often argue …’

·  failing to put proper nouns in capital letters, e.g. ‘the european commission’

·  mixing plural/singular, e.g. ‘Defendants, in some cases, gives evidence of …’

·  mixing past/present, e.g. ‘In the past, the House of Lords provides guidance…’

4.6 Common style errors that occur are;

·  overlong paragraphs

·  overlong sentences

·  incomplete sentences (with no main verb)

·  contractions, e.g. wasn’t rather than was not

·  slang/colloquialisms

·  generalisations, e.g. ‘many people argue …’

·  use of the first person – e.g. ‘… therefore I think …’ (N.B. you should not avoid expressing opinions – see section 9 below)

5. Using sources

5.1 You need to read a good range of sources. There is no magic number of sources that you need to look at to feel that you have done ‘enough’. You do need to consider as a minimum;

your textbook; material identified as key reading for your seminar on the subject; material identified as key reading for the assessment; primary sources that are central to answering the question; some further reading that in your judgment puts you in a position to effectively answer the question.

5.2 Once you have read a good range of sources you need to use them effectively to gain credit for all that work. This means using authority to support your assertions. Do not limit your use of authority to quotations. There are three main ways of showing the reader that you have used an authority in your work.

[N.B. these examples use the footnote method of citation. See section 6 below for the alternative Harvard method].

Reporting - As Professor Smith argues, conventions regulate important constitutional relationships.[1]

Referencing - Conventions regulate important constitutional relationships.[2]

Quoting – It has been argued that ‘Conventions, regulating as they do fundamental relationships within the UK constitution, are key to understanding that constitution’.[3]

5.3 You always need to provide a full bibliography at the end of your answer. This includes everything that you have read as preparation for the assessment (and nothing that you have not looked at yourself).

·  Have separate lists for cases, statutes and weblinks. Books, journals and reports may be in the same list.

·  Authored works should be listed in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.

·  Use the OSCOLA system (see below) for details of the sources you reference in your bibliography.

5.4 Plagiarism (the practice of passing off other peoples’ work as your own) is a serious academic offence. If you are suspected of plagiarism you will be subject to an investigation. If found guilty there are a range of sanctions that the University can impose on you, including terminating your degree.

Plagiarism has been identified as a major problem in higher education across the world. Universities have therefore invested heavily in techniques and applications to detect plagiarism

So, it is serious and cheats are increasingly likely to be caught; how can you make sure that you avoid any allegation of plagiarism in your own work? The simple answer is to reference your sources every time you have used them to make a point and to cite your sources accurately (i.e. just follow the instructions in sections 5 and 6 of this Guide).

6. Citation

There are two aspects to citation

a)  the form in which you insert the citation into your work, and

b)  the format in which you provide details of the publication you have used.

6.1 Footnotes v Harvard method

There are two principal methods of inserting citations in to your work; the footnote method and the Harvard method. The footnote method has been the traditional method used in legal writing. The Harvard method is used in most criminological and socio-legal writing. Your module tutor may indicate which of the two methods you must use in your coursework. It is important that you do not mix the methods.

6.1.1 Footnotes

This method is illustrated in the examples from section 5 above. A superscript number is inserted into the text and the detailed reference appears at the foot of the page.

To do this using Microsoft Word - click on ‘Insert’ – click on ‘Reference’ – click on ‘Footnote’, and then write your detailed reference.

6.1.2 Harvard method

This involves putting the name, date and page number of the reference in brackets at the end of the section where you have used the authority, for example;

As Professor Smith argues, conventions regulate important constitutional relationships (Smith, 2002, p.61).

It has been argued that ‘Conventions, regulating as they do fundamental relationships within the UK constitution, are key to understanding that constitution’, (Smith, 2002, p.61).

The full details of the reference are then found in the bibliography.

It is not appropriate to cite your module handbook or lecture notes as a source.

6.2 Citation Format

You need to cite fully and precisely, each time you use a source. The School has adopted the Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Resources (OSCOLA). You can access the full guide to citation, plus online tutorial and frequently asked questions at

http://www.competition-law.ox.ac.uk/published/oscola.shtml

The following gives you a summary of the OSCOLA approach to citing the most common types of materials that you will use within your work. You should refer to the full guide if you are using other sources (e.g. Law Commission reports, statutory instruments etc)

Citation of Acts. Title, year of publication

Children Act 1975

Citation of Cases. Names of Parties in italics (sometimes only one name is given if the case is a criminal one), year, volume number, publication abbreviation, page number.

Fox v Chief Constable of Gwent [1985] 1 WLR 1126

Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20

Citation of Journals. Name of author, title of article, year, volume number, publication abbreviation, first page number, page number of the particular section you are referring to.

P. Craig, ‘Constitutional Foundations, the Rule of Law and Supremacy’ [2003] PL 92, 96

Citation of Books. Author, title in italics, (edition publisher, place of publication date), page numbers if only a part of the text is being referred to.

J. Holder & M. Lee, Environmental Protection, Law and Policy (2nd edn Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007), 40-55.

Internet sources. Name of the site, date of issue (if available), web address, date of access

Ministry of Justice – About the UK Supreme Court (2008) http://www.justice.gov.uk/about/supreme-court-about.htm , accessed 23/05/09.

6.3 Secondary citation

If quoting or referencing a work you have not read yourself, the footnote should read (eg):