Law School
Assessment Guide
General Information on Assessments
• You can find your assessment deadlines in the module handbooks
• As a general rule, assessments need to be handed in before 2pm on the due date
• You need to submit an electronic copy via Turnitin
• The penalty for a late submission is 5 marks per day, a submission later than
5 days after the deadline will result in a mark of Zero
• You can normally expect your assessment back within 3 weeks after submission.
Formatting
• Begin the assessment with the cover sheet available on the ‘LLB
Programme’ Blackboard (under ‘Programme Info’ - ‘Assignments’)
• Use a nice, readable font and 12 pt size
• Use at least 1 1/2 line spacing, better would be 2
• Justified alignment makes the text easier to read
• Make sure there are page numbers on the pages so it is easier for the lecturer to
refer to specific points in the feedback
• Print your paper copy on single sided A4 paper
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• Take some pride in your work and make sure the paper copy is presentable
• Make sure the pages are stapled together, there is no need for ring binding,
document wallets or similar things
Essay
Preparing your essay
• Read and answer the question
• Do your research – and use proper sources
– Do not use weak sources like Wikipedia, Law Express, LawTeacher etc
– Do not just rely on textbooks and the internet
– It is much better to look at journal articles, monographs and cases
• Consider both sides of arguments
• Structure your essay
• Have an argument – the main task of any essay is to convince the reader
Writing your essay
• Show arguments and your opinion clearly (but there is no need to qualify
your opinions – eg ‘I believe that. . . ’)
• Be careful with spelling and grammar
• Proof reading – if possible, let someone else do it.
• Make it look pretty – impressions count
• Do your referencing!
Legal Problem Questions
• Legal problem questions require a reasoned application of the law to the
facts.
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• This requires detailed reading of the question and understanding of the is-
sue(s) raised, good knowledge of relevant statute/case law, before carefully
applying the law to the issue (s) identified and then concluding.
• A recommended technique is to use the IRAC rule. IRAC is a mnemonic
which stands for Issue, Rule, Application and Conclusion.
– Issue: Identify the issue(s) to be answered
– Rule: State the law/rule that enables the issue(s) to be answered
– Application: Apply the law to issue(s) identified & work out how the
law should operate in relation to issue(s) identified
– Conclusion: Reach a likely conclusion that answers the question.
References
Importance of references
• It is important that you show where your arguments are from!
• Having many references means that you did your research well (but don’t
squeeze text in just to get another reference)
• You want to prove your arguments relying on someone else’s work and au-
thority
• Taking someone else’s thoughts without referencing can amount to plagiarism
Plagiarism
• Plagiarism is ‘the act of presenting the material, ideas, and arguments of
another person/persons as one’s own. To copy sentences, phrases or even
particular striking expressions without acknowledgement, in a manner which may
deceive the reader as to the source, is plagiarism; to paraphrase, in a
manner which may deceive the reader, is likewise plagiarism’
• Changing a few words will not make it better
• While you are allowed to do the research for essays with friends, you are not
allowed to submit identical parts. If you collaborate on an essay, make sure you
write separately.
• Reference your sources and always indicate direct quotations!
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• Common, but unacceptable excuses
– Not sure about the rules
– Stress, ran out of time
– Personal problems, illness, family issues etc. You can and should apply for
exceptional circumstances before the submission deadline if you are
having any of these issues.
– Confusion, bad note taking etc
– Listing the source in the bibliography but not indicating a direct quote and a
reference is also plagiarism.
• It is easy for us to detect it – through experience and with the help of text
matching software like Turnitin
• The consequences can be quite severe – better not to risk it in the first place
• There is a Turnitin draft bucket where you can have a look for problematic parts
on the study skills tab of Blackboard. Make use of this before you submit
an essay!
The University’s plagiarism rules can be found under http://www.canterbury.
ac.uk/support/learning-teaching-enhancement-unit/plagiarism/
Referencing Style
You need to indicate your references with footnotes. It is essential that you give the
page (or paragraph) number of the source you are citing, unless you want to point to
the book/article as a whole. The page number should be at the end of each
reference.
If you have two articles that are references for the same argument, only use
one footnote and separate the articles with a semicolon. And all footnotes should end
with a dot.
As the referencing style for the Law programmes at Canterbury Christ Church
University we use the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OS-
COLA). If you need to check how to cite special sources, please refer to the full OS-
COLA guide, available at http://www.law.ox.ac.uk/publications/oscola.php. This
document only gives you a small selection of the sources you will most likely need.
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Literature
Generally, the OSCOLA style avoids punctuation unless necessary. When the
source only gives initials for an author, do not use dots:
Michael J Glennon, Limits of Law, Prerogatives of Power – Interventionism
after Kosovo (Palgrave 2001) 152.
Journal Articles
For journal articles, you need to give the author’s (or authors’) full name, the title of
the article in single inverted commas, the year of publication in brackets, the
volume and title of the Journal and the page number the reference was from.
Steven Wheatley, ‘The Security Council, Democratic Legitimacy and Regime
Change in Iraq’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 546.
Books
For books, you will need to write the name of the author(s), the title of the book in
italics and then in brackets the details of publication: publisher and year and, if
applicable, details on the translation and the edition. Contrary to older versions of
OSCOLA, the city of publication is not necessary any more.
Thomas G Weiss, What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It
(Polity Press 2008) 5.
Chapters in edited books
For books with chapters by separate authors, you have to show the chapter author and
title first and then specify the book the chapter is in, using ‘ed’ (for one editor) or ‘eds’
(for multiple authors).
David Miller, ‘The Responsibility to Protect Human Rights’ in Lukas H Meyer
(ed), Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law (Cambridge University
Press 2009) 249.
Websites
For websites, you need to follow more or less the format for journal articles, showing
clearly who wrote the post on the website, how it is called and where the reader
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can find it. This example is an article on the ‘EJIL Talk!’ blog. In addition to
that, you also need to show when you last accessed the website, as websites can
change.
Francesco Messineo, ‘The “left-to-die boat”: whose responsibility for the death of
63 migrants in the Mediterranean?’ (EJIL Talk!, 31 March 2012) <http://
www.ejiltalk.org/the-left-to-die-boat-whose-responsibility-for-the-death-of-63-
migrants-in-the-mediterranean/>accessed 26 August 2014.
Cases
Neutral citation
Since 2001, all cases decided in the High Court or above have been given a
so- called ‘neutral citation’. This enables you to cite the case even if it has not been
reported. The neutral citation of the case is the name of the parties, the year it was
decided, in square brackets, followed by the abbreviation of the court and the case
number.
Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42
In the above example, UKSC stands for the Supreme Court. So, the case of
Radmacher v Granatino was decided in 2010 in the Supreme Court and given case
number 42. The following court abbreviations are also used:
EWCA Civ - Court of Appeal Civil Division EWCA Crim
- Court of Appeal Criminal Division EWHC (Admin) -
High Court (Administrative Court) EWHC (Ch) - High
Court (Chancery Division)
EWHC (QB) - High Court (Queen’s Bench Division)
EWHC (Comm) - High Court (Commercial Court)
EWHC (Admlty) - High Court (Admiralty)
EWHC (Fam) - High Court (Family Division)
EWHC (Pat) - High Court (Patents Court)
EWHC (TCC) - High Court (Technology & Construction Court)
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UKHL - House of Lords
UKPC - Privy Council
Law reports
As well as the neutral citation, the case you are using will probably have been
reported by one of the law reports. In that case, you also need to include the law report
citation. This is the name of the parties followed by the year the case was reported in
square brackets, the volume of the law report, the abbreviation of the law report and the
page number.
Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582
So, the case of Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee was decided in
1957 and reported in Volume 1 of the Weekly Law Reports at page 582. Please note
that not all years will have multiple volumes.
To check the meaning of a law report abbreviation, see http://www.legalabbrevs.
cardiff.ac.uk
A case may have been reported by more than one source. If that is the case, you
need to cite the most authoritative report. The hierarchy is as follows:
1. The Law Reports Appeal Cases (AC), Queen’s Bench (QB), Family (Fam)
or Chancery (Ch)
2. The Weekly Law Reports (WLR)
3. The All England Law Reports (AllER)
4. Any other series of subject-based reports. For example, the Family Law
Reports (FLR)
If a case has both a neutral citation and a report citation, use both with the neutral
citation first:
Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42, [2011] 1 AC 534
Or if it does not have a neutral citation, use the law report citation with the
abbreviation of the court in round brackets at the end.
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 (HL)
It is usual to put the name of the case in italics.
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Works cited above
If you have already cited something before, only use the last name of the author and
point to the first reference of this work. To avoid complications when you edit the text
later and note 3 becomes note 2, use the ‘Cross-Referencing’ function of your word
processor. Here an example where the book was first referenced in note
23:
Kelsen (n 23) 50.
For the footnote directly above (and only for that one), you can also use ‘ibid.’,
specifying the page number if it is not the same as the one above
Bibliography and Table of Cases
• Your essay needs to end with a bibliography and a table of cases (if appro- priate)
• Those should contain all sources you referenced in the essay and no more
than that
• Bibliography and table of cases should be sorted alphabetically
Bibliography Style
While cases keep their style in the table of cases, the style in the bibliography is slightly
different from the style in the references. Here, you begin the authors with the last
name and only give the initials of the first name. And when it comes to journal articles
or chapters in edited books, give the page number of the first page of the article/chapter.
Books
Morgenthau HJ and Thompson KW, Politics Among Nations, The Struggle
for Power and Peace (McGraw-Hill 1985).
Articles
Franck TM ‘The Power of Legitimacy and the Legitimacy of Power: Interna-
tional Law in an Age of Power Disequilibrium’ (2006) 100 American Journal of
International Law 88
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Chapters in edited books
Bodansky D, ‘The Concept of Legitimacy in International Law’
V (eds), Legitimacy in International Law (Springer 2008).
