LS498 – Session 1
Professor Elizabeth Warren
Usual Seminar Format
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Start on time; get centered and focused
Finish early?
Check email and pick up slides before class
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Tech Support ASAP
Expectations
• Seminar
• Discussions
• Assignments
– naming
• Questions
– Course number
• Timeliness
“See, the thing is, no one at Kaplan cared if I
turned my papers in late and I got into that
habit and well…”
Help with the Writing Process
BSLS 498
Part 1
Choosing a topic
Choose your subject
• Write down any and all ideas.
• Brainstorm – alone or with others.
• Ask yourself the six questions that journalists
always use: Who? What? When? Why? Where?
How?
• Stay in the legal arena.
• A few of many areas to think about:
– Public policy decisions
– Legal ethics: outsourcing, advertising, billing.
– Constitutional issues
– Paralegal regulation
– Legal technology
– Legislation
– School law
Narrow it down
• How can you restrict your topic and limit the
broad subject to a small and more manageable
topic?
• Focus, focus, focus (this is not your life’s work!)
• Do your research.
Narrow it down, example
• Student A has an interest in adoption.
• She looks at some adoption statutes in her state.
• She writes for about 10 to 15 minutes just jotting down her thoughts about
adoption rights.
• She investigates further and looks up articles, writings, and legislation on the
subject.
• She looks at the statutes that surround this issue. As she investigates further,
she starts to narrow her search.
• She investigates statutes and finds that mothers can retain their identity when
they give up their child for adoption.
• She comes up with this topic, “Should mothers who give their children up for
adoption be allowed to keep their identity secret?”
• This may not be her final thesis statement, but she has a very good start, and
has narrowed down her topic.
Investigation
• Your topic will be some specific aspect of a
general subject.
• You may have a special interest in the topic or
have special knowledge or experience in an area.
• You will want to do some investigation about
your topic to help narrow it down.
• Your investigation may involve going to the
library, using the Internet, perhaps even doing
an interview to try to obtain information about
the subject.
Resources
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Look at the paralegal organizations: NALA, NFPA, AAfPE
Check out any of the legal public policy websites. Here is a list:
http://www.policyalmanac.org/directory/General-Organizations.shtml
ACLU has debated legal topics: http://www.aclu.org/
Government Agencies:
http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml
Center for Constitutional Rights: http://ccrjustice.org/
American Bar Association:
http://www.abanet.org/public.html?ptc=global_publicresources_legaltopicresources
http://www.legalrebels.com/ http://www.abanet.org/tech/ltrc/
First amendment center
- firstamendment center.org
Start as you mean to go on.
Two Parts to APA
• Part I: Style and format
• Part II: Citations and References
• Go to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_a
pa.html.
– This site contains a simulated APA journal article, a sample
paper in APA style, a FAQ about APA style, and examples of
various citations.
Part I: Format
• Serif type style
– Times Roman is one; Arial is NOT one
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12 point type
Double spaced
Margins – one inch all sides
Do not justify - ragged right margin
Numbers 10 and higher are represented as numerals.
Nine and lower are spelled out (with exceptions).
• Use a numeral and percentage sign unless at the start of
a sentence or if you’re quoting directly from a source.
Part I: Format, slide 2
• Only one space is used after period, commas, colons,
and semicolons.
– Also exclamation points and questions
• Seriation goes vertical if
1.
2.
3.
– In paragraph use (a), (b), (c)…
• No space appears before or after the hyphen
• Header and page numbers - Pagination: top right
Making a Header
• Before you begin your document (blank page)
• In Word 2003 - Click on View and then click Header and footer.
– A dotted box will come up.
– Type about 2 words of the title of your paper in the box then
hit your space bar.
– Then look at the bar. It has an icon of a piece of paper with
this (#) in it. Click on it. It will number your page.
– Put your curser to the left of your title in the header. Hit the
tab twice. It will move everything to the right.
– Click close in the bar. All done!
• In Word 2007 – Click on Insert and then click Header and
proceed
Part I: Style
• Report literature in past tense: Freud (1917/1980)
explained
• Use secondary sources carefully
• Data and media are plural
• Avoid contractions
• Do not use first person
• Use active voice (focus on the actor, not the action)
• Be concise
Part I: Style, slide 2
• Insert a serial comma in a series of three or more
nouns or noun phrases before the words and or
or
• Possessives of proper nouns ending in s get ’s
added
• It’s vs. its (it’s means it is ) (its shows
possession).
• Plurals of numbers should avoid the apostrophe,
such as "1950s" as opposed to "1950’s.“
• Do not boldface
Part I: Style, slide 3
• Most pieces of writing are divided into three
sections: an introduction, discussion, and a
conclusion.
• Introduction
– Provides sufficient background of topic and
previews major points.
– Identifies what will be “studied” or “discussed.” The
major points of the introduction should match the
assignment.
Paper Structure
• Body of the paper : Delivers what is described in the
introduction.
• Organize your ideas to flow in logical sequence.
• Major points are organized using headings and
supported with references. Ideas are stated clearly and
concisely.
• Each paragraph has a topic sentence and sentences to
support the topic.
• Transition sentences bridge topics. One topic; one
paragraph.
• Conclusion flow logically from the paper and
summarizes major points
Writing
• Choose you words carefully…be aware of the
discrepancy between the meaning you attribute
to a term and its dictionary definition… feel
does not mean think !
• Use declarative statements rather than questions
to present information and avoid asking the
reader questions in the text.
• Do not use slang or irony
Economy of Expression
Things to avoid:
• Jargon: continuous use of technical vocabulary.
• Wordiness: e.g. based on the fact that >
because.
• Redundancy: Use no more words than necessary
to convey your meaning
• Colloquial expression
• Undefined pronouns “ this, that, it, those”
cause ambiguity unless the referent of each is
obvious. APA 2.03 p. 34
Verbs
• Use active rather than passive voice.
• Examples:
– Passive (poor): The land was stripped of timber
before the settlers realized the consequences of their
actions.
– Active (better): The settlers stripped the land of
timber before realizing the consequences of their
actions.
Verb Tense
• Use the present tense to argue your position,
discuss the results, and to present the
conclusion.
• Past tense should be used to describe previous
research such as “Blanchard and Blanchard
(2001) wrote…”
• Avoid unnecessary shifts in verb tense within
the same paragraph (most of them are not
necessary)
Reduce Bias in Language
• Constructions that might imply bias against
persons on the basis of gender, sexual
orientation, racial or ethnic group, disability, or
age should be avoided.
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The elderly === elderly people
Subjects === participants, colleagues, students
Homosexuals=== gay and lesbians
Sexual preference=== Sexual orientation
Plagiarism
• If it is not your original idea, then you must
give credit to the source of the information.
For example, whether you are writing a direct
quote, paraphrasing, or supporting an argument
with information you researched, you must then
give credit to the source of the information in
the main body of your paper.
Plagiarism
• Is using someone’s words, ideas, charts, graphs
without giving them credit.
• Using your old work for a new assignment.
• Changing a few words here and there is
considered plagiarism.
• Paraphrasing is putting it in your own words
without looking at the original. Think what the
passage is really about, think critically. How
important is the specific paragraph?
Part II: Citations and References
• Use citations and references to give credit where
credit is due.
• The material you may find actually belongs to
the author. It is his/her work and you must
acknowledge that you are using it.
• You should also include citations in your text to
give credibility to your writing and to give your
readers a place to go for more information.
Citation
• When you rely on and use legal sources and legal
authorities in your own work.
• The citation follows the discussion from the source: It
is clear that only personal rights that can be deemed
"fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered
liberty” are guaranteed personal privacy Palko v.
Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937).
• In-Text Citations: Supply page numbers for direct
quotes from print sources or ¶ number for electronic
ones.
• If you use the words or ideas of others and don’t cite
PROPERLY, you are guilty of plagiarism.