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© Debra Austin, PhD, JD |
Advanced Legal Research |
| Somewhere,
something incredible is waiting to be known. |
University of Denver Sturm College of Law |
| Home Course Materials Administrative Sources Cases & Digests Library Databases Online Resources Practice Materials Research Strategy Secondary Sources Statutes Technology Training |
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You will receive grades on the following:
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Project 1 - Legal Research Guide - 100 PointsYou will explore the resources on the Required Resources list and create a Research Guide, which will instruct a researcher on what resources to consult on a topic you select. You must submit your topic in class on June 2. Your Research Guide must be produced in Word. Projects are due on June 9 by 8pm and are required to be submitted to me via email attachment to daustin@law.du.edu. The subject line of the email should read: ALR Project 1. You may submit your project early. For each week or portion of a week that the project is overdue, I will deduct 10 points. For every administrative requirement that is disregarded (such as labeling your email), I will deduct 5 points. I will not accept submission of Project 1 after June 16 at 8pm and the student will be awarded 0 points for the assignment if not submitted by this deadline. The goal of this assignment is to present information on your chosen topic. You must do research in all the Required Resources. You must include all the Required Research Guide Components. You may include additional resources. Anything you would like to do to enhance your project beyond the scope of the assignment is perfectly acceptable, but will not be considered during the grading process. For each resource, you must determine the appropriate format for summarizing/citing to the type of information that is available on your topic. At a minimum, please include appropriate titles, authors, and cites to sections or page numbers. Bluebook citation format is not required. If you find no information in a required resource, you do not need to include it in your project. I will assume you found no relevant information if the resource does not appear in your project. However, it you leave something out of your project and I locate relevant information in that source, a point deduction will be the result. Required Research Guide Components
Project 1 Required Resources
Class Presentation based on Project 1 Research - 50 PointsYou will do a short (5 minute) PowerPoint presentation summarizing your Project 1 Research Results for the class on June 8 or 9. You are strongly encouraged to utilize images and a theme to tell your research "story." You will bring your presentation to class on your presentation day on a USB drive. If you fail to show up for your presentation, I will deduct 10 points. For every day you fail to schedule a presentation makeup, I will deduct 10 points. No presentations will be scheduled after June 15 and if a student has failed to give a presentation by that date, the student will be awarded 0 points for the assignment. Class Presentation Components
Project
2 - Library Purchasing Plan - 50 Points
For each week or portion of a week that the project is overdue, I will deduct 10 points. For every administrative requirement that is disregarded (such as labeling your email), I will deduct 5 points. I will not accept submission of Project 2 after June 25 at 8pm and the student will be awarded 0 points for the assignment if not submitted by this deadline. The goal of this assignment is to present information on your chosen area of practice regarding the applicable legal research resources necessary to practice. Information on publishers and pricing are required for each Required Resource listed below. You may include additional resources. Anything you would like to do to enhance your project beyond the scope of the assignment is perfectly acceptable, but will not be considered during the grading process. You can use the ALR web page to help you in 2 ways. Many of the Required Resources have a Publisher Information link in the topical outlines on the ALR page. This will link you directly to the publisher book store and provide both publisher and pricing information. Resources that are unique to your project include treatises, looseleafs, and legal periodicals. For these resources, you could:
With regard to legal periodicals, try to find the subscription price for 1 or 2 for your practice area. You would likely not subscribe to a law review published by a school to keep you updated in your practice area. Try to focus on topic specific legal periodicals and bar journals that you would want to review each month. LawTrio is a good source for finding legal newsletters. You will include either a Westlaw or Lexis online price plan. The representatives will give you ballpark pricing during the in-class presentations and that is acceptable for inclusion in your project. You will include resource, publisher, and pricing information for each of the Required Resources. You will begin with an introduction to your project. You will write a conclusion about which resources you would purchase and why, the total cost of your selected purchases, and which format they would be in (print, WL-Lexis-Loislaw, free Internet). You must do the analysis (get the publishers and pricing for each resource on the Required Resources list) in order to make a conclusion. The conclusion is the most important component of this project. You can organize your Library Purchasing Plan using the 4 major resource groups: Primary Authority, Secondary Sources, Practice Materials, and Online. Formatting for this project will be fairly simple. For example:
Library Purchasing Plan Components
Project 2 Required Resources
Quiz - 100 Points On June 17 there will be an in-class quiz on the materials covered in the course. The quiz will be conducted on TWEN using your laptops. It will consist of 38 multiple choice questions and 2 short answer essays. Topics covered will be Research Strategy, Online (Internet) Resources, Library Databases, Cases, Statutes, Administrative Materials, Secondary Sources, and Practice Materials. You should use the ALR Course Web Page and notes you took during class to prepare for the quiz. If a conflict arises where a student cannot take the quiz on June 17, the student must arrange a date and time to take the quiz prior to that date. No quizzes will be scheduled after June 17. Sample Questions (answers below) 1. ____________ are the best for learning the basic principles and vocabulary of a topic.
2. Law review article citations can be found in this library subscription service
3. A special study commissioned by Congress to assist in the evaluation of legislation is called a
Sample Quiz Questions Answers
Grade
Curve The curve in ALR is based
upon a 300 point scale. The scores for the 2 projects, the in-class
presentation, and the quiz are added together for each student.
All the student score totals for the section are sorted from highest
point total to lowest point total. Law school policy specifies 2
requirements as to the curve: the median (middle score of the group)
must be a B and the mean (average of all scores) must be a B or
3.0. Potential
Project Topics
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