LAWS348-17W (C) Whole Year 2017

Research Project

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 19 November 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 8 September 2017

Description

Note: Students must have a B average in LAWS courses in order to enrol in this course.

The research project consists of a 7,000 word research essay on an agreed topic supervised by a member of staff.

Students considering enrolling for this option should consult the School of Law Academic Administrator before enrolment. Following this they should consult with a suitable supervisor (must be a member of the continuing academic Law staff), complete and return the Record Form to the Academic Administrator. This must be completed prior to the commencement of the course.

Research projects are required to be your own unassisted original research and may not duplicate work done for research papers or essays in other courses, including work done in earlier years.

There are no scheduled lectures for this course. However, at the beginning of the course a session "Introduction to Research" will be held, attendance of which is a must.

In any event, students are advised to make an appointment with Sara Roberts from the Law Library. In one-on-one sessions Sara will give tips on how to find sources for the respective topic. Besides, students are recommended to use reference management software, such as EndNote.

Subject to the approval of the course coordinator and in coordination with the paper supervisor and the Master of Moots, submissions to moot courts, notably international moot courts, may form the basis of research papers for credit.

Note:  A 'B' average required in order to be eligible to enrol in this course. Students must have completed, or be completing, LAWS200 level/LAWS301 and have undertaken at least one Group B 300 level course.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students will be expected to gain a solid knowledge of the relevant legal framework of their research topic and to develop their capacity to critically analyse issues and developments in their field of research.  

    Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
  •  Carry out independent research;
  •  Communicate the findings of their research;
  •  Understand, explain and apply relevant legal instruments;
  •  Understand and explain the relationship between different legal instruments;
  •  Relate the knowledge acquired to current matters of legal discourse;
  •  Locate primary materials relevant to the research project;
  •  Subject those primary materials to critical analysis and use them to create a legal argument;
  •  Read, understand, interpret and critique primary sources and the rules relating to their operation; and
  •  Identify legal issues in factual scenarios and to construct legal responses to those issues.

Prerequisites

(i) LAWS101; and (ii) LAWS110

Restrictions

LAWS379 (prior to 2006)

Co-requisites

Course Coordinator

Lynne Taylor

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Draft Research Project 18 Sep 2017
Final Research Project 16 Oct 2017 100% Research Project


A draft of the research essay is due by 12noon, Monday 18 September 2017. Your supervisor will then provide you with feedback by Monday 2 October 2017.

The final research essay is due by 12noon, Monday 16 October 2017. The paper copy must be submitted to the Academic Administrator. with a copy uploaded to LEARN at the time of submission. The uploaded copy must be a word document (not pdf, etc).

Please Note: This research paper word count of 7,000 words, EXCLUDES footnotes, provided they do not include large amounts of explanatory text.

Textbooks / Resources

Recommended Reading

Mary-Rose Russell (Gen Ed); Legal Research in New Zealand ; LexisNexis, 2016.

Course links

Library portal

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $775.00

International fee $3,525.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Faculty of Law .

All LAWS348 Occurrences