Advanced Legal Research and Writing (712M3)

15 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Autumn teaching

Advanced Legal Research and Writing has two purposes:

• to ground students in the conventions of advanced academic writing in law (a specialised form of discourse with many non-obvious conventions and norms)
• to ground students in the leading traditions or approaches in academic legal research.

The module covers modern standards for the citation of legal authorities (such as OSCOLA), as well as the justification for them. Legal traditions covered include:

• doctrinal exposition and analysis
• critique of doctrine, institutional design and practice
• researching the dynamics of law.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 10 hours of contact time and about 140 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.