Fall 2008 Syllabus

                  To Be Determined

Course Policies and Procedures

Legal Research and Writing I

Fall  2007

This class is designed to provide you with the writing tools you will need to work as a lawyer.  The following components will be essential to your success.

Quality work
            Timeliness
            Participation
            Attendance

If you find you must miss a class because of illness or a personal emergency, please contact your LR&W faculty member before the absence whenever possible.  Then plan to make up any work you missed.  The course follows the University's Religious Observance Policy.

Deadlines

            Literal adherence to deadlines is crucial to the practice of law.  For Legal Research and Writing, all assignments, unless otherwise noted, are due at the beginning of the class hour on the due date, even if you do not have class that day.  Grades will be lowered one level (e.g., B to B-) for every day or portion of a day that the assignment is late, unless your LR&W faculty member approves the late submission before the deadline.

Avoiding Academic Misconduct

The Legal Research and Writing Program recognizes that the learning experience is enhanced through discussing ideas and strategies.  There is, however, a difference between exchanging ideas and exchanging work product.  Thus you may talk to each other about assignments but, outside of classroom work, do not view another student=s actual work or allow another student to review yours.  When a student submits assignments to legal research and writing personnel as his or her own, the student is stating that he or she has complied with this collaboration policy.  Violations of this policy constitute academic misconduct.

The University of Wisconsin Law School views its students as prospective members of the bar and expects them to maintain the same high level of integrity that is expected from a member of the practicing bar.  Moreover, students are obligated to conduct their academic work according to the University standards of academic honesty and integrity.  Academic misconduct is defined in Chapter 14 of Wisconsin Administrative Code.

Academic misconduct is an act in which a student:                    

• seeks to claim credit for the work or efforts of another without authorization or citation;

• uses unauthorized materials or fabricated data in any academic exercise;

•  intentionally impedes or damages the academic work of others; or

•  assists other students in any of these acts.

Examples of academic misconduct include, but are not limited to:

• cheating on an examination;

• collaborating with others in work to be presented, contrary to the collaboration policy of the course;

• submitting an assignment as one=s own work when a part or all of the assignment is the work of another;

• plagiarizing;

• hiding, marking in, or otherwise altering research sources; or

• assisting another student in any of the above, including an arrangement where any work is performed by a student other than the student under whose name the work is submitted.

Plagiarism is defined as the taking of someone else=s words or ideas and presenting them as one=s own without attribution to the original source.  While lawyers in their briefs and memoranda often make reference to other sources, it is critical, from the standpoint of both integrity and style, to document appropriately or otherwise credit any quotations or paraphrase of concepts from another source.  A change in language or the order of language does not make the idea one=s own.  Attribution is still required.

When a student submits an assignment to a Legal Research and Writing faculty member, teaching assistant, or citation grader, the student represents that he or she has complied with the University standards of academic honesty and integrity.  For further information about avoiding plagiarism, please read the article titled AQuoting, Paraphrasing, and Acknowledging Sources,@ which is attached to this syllabus.

Grades

Legal Research and Writing I

Fall 2007

Your one credit of Legal Research and Writing in the first semester is graded by letter, as are the rest of your first-year courses.  Grades will be curved across the Legal Research and Writing sections, not section by section.

Final grades for the course will be computed as follows.

Closed Memo first submission:  35%

Closed Memo second submission:         45%

Participation:                                         20%

The participation portion of your grade includes (1) participation and exercises in the Writing and Analysis classes, (2) participation and exercises in the Research labs, (3) participation and exercises in the Citation labs and grades on the out-of-class citation exercises, and (4) your draft of the Closed Memo Discussion Section.

As is the case in other law school courses, the average Legal Research and Writing (LRW) grade is a B.  Each teacher first determines grades for assignments and final grades for his or her section.  However, to maintain consistency in grading across LRW sections, representative samples of each assignment from the various sections are reviewed for grading consistency by the Director and Assistant Director before final grades are given. 

This process takes time, and it may mean that you do not receive your grades as soon as you would like.  But the process is important because it provides assurance for the teachers, the Law School, and you that grading standards are consistent across the sections.   None of this is to say that the average course grade for a particular section of twelve students might not be somewhat higher or lower than the overall average.  Such a small section might include students who are particularly skilled or otherwise when compared to other sections.  This process is meant to assure that where grades differ between sections, it is because of the quality of the students’ work, not the vagaries of the students’ section assignment.

 

Qualities of Good Legal Writing

Legal Research and Writing I

Fall  2007

Note:  The bulleted sub-points below each heading in this list are representative items. They are not meant to include all the topics a teacher may address in written or oral comments.

ACCURACY IN ANALYSIS

·  Does the document

o discuss the correct issue?

o synthesize the rules of law?

o discuss the law before the rules are applied to the facts of the writer’s case?  (rule explanation before rule application)

o use the relevant rules of law?

o reach a conclusion that is supported by the analysis?

·  Is the discussion/argument logical?

·  Is the discussion/argument supported with legal authority?

·  Is the document appropriately analytical (memo) or persuasive (brief)?

THOROUGHNESS

·  Does the document

o include all relevant legal authorities?

o include all relevant facts?

o adequately support al legal conclusions drawn?

o explain reasoning adequately?

o address counter arguments, if any?

o distinguish unfavorable law and facts?

ORGANIZATION

Large-scale organization

·  Does the writer

o organize the document around issues?

o use sub-issues when necessary?

Small-scale organization

·  Is there generally one idea per paragraph?

·  Does the argument move forward?

·  Does the writer

o use topic sentences?

o generally avoid one-sentence paragraphs?

o use connecting and transition words that make sense in context?

USE OF FACTS

·  Does the Statement of Facts

o contain the relevant facts?

o omit unnecessary facts?

·  Does the writer

o use relevant facts when stating the issue presented?

o use the facts of a cited case to illustrate the legal rules?

o compare the facts of a cited case to the facts of their case?

o apply the rules of law to the facts of their case to reach an appropriate conclusion?

PRECISION IN WRITING

·  Does the writer

o Use complete sentences?

o Prefer the active voice?

o Generally use short sentences?

o Omit surplus words?

o Avoid chattiness?[1]

o Write simply – e.g., say “use” instead of “utilize”?

o Avoid sexist language?

o Use a tone that meets the document’s purpose?

o Maintain the tone consistently throughout the document?

·  Does the writer use proper

o Grammar?

o Spelling?

o Punctuation?

o Citation?

o Format for the document?

·  Does the writer avoid typographical errors in the document?

Your LR&W teacher may recommend the book(s) listed below.  During the first class, your teacher will tell you which, if any, additional book(s) he or she will use.  All of these books are available on Reserve in the Law Library.

Linda H. Edwards, Legal Writing and Analysis (2003).

Twenty-one copies of this book are on LR&W Course Reserve.

Mary Barnard Ray & Jill J. Ramsfield, Legal Writing: Getting It Right and Getting It Written (4th ed. 2005).

Two copies of this book are on permanent Reserve.

This book may be purchased at the Law School Bookmart.

William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White, The Elements of Style (4th ed. 2000).

Two copies of this book are on LR&W Course Reserve.

This book is available in the General Books department of the University           Bookstore and in commercial bookstores.

Richard C. Wydick, Plain English for Lawyers (5th ed. 2005).

                        One copy of the 5^th edition is on permanent Reserve.

                        One copy of the 4^th edition is on LR&W Course Reserve.

The 5^th edition may be ordered through the Law School Bookmart.

Ring Binder or Accordion File

Throughout the semester, you will receive handouts that explain various legal research and writing tasks.  You will benefit from keeping all of the handouts in a binder or folder.  Eventually, this binder or folder will become an extremely useful resource for you to use in later semesters of law school and in your law-related jobs.

An Article from the UW Writing Lab

The Writing Lab

6171 Helen C. White Hall

UW-Madison

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Acknowledging Sources

                        College writing often involves integrating information from published sources into your own writing.  This means you need to be careful not to plagiarize: “to steal and pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one’s own” and to “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”[1]  The University of Wisconsin takes very seriously this act of “intellectual burglary,” and the penalties are severe.  Paying attention to the following should help keep you honest.

What Must Be Documented

  Quotations                             1.      If you use an author’s specific word or words, you must place those words within quotation marks and you must credit the source.

  Ideas                                       2.      If you borrow an author’s specific ideas, you must document their source.  As Birk and Birk explain, it is plagiarism

when the writer presents, as his [sic] own, the sequence of ideas, the arrangement of material, the pattern of thought of someone else, even though he expresses it in his own words.  The language may be his, but he is presenting as the work of his brain, and taking credit for, the work of another’s brain.  He is, therefore, guilty of plagiarism if he fails to give credit to the original author of the pattern of ideas.       

This aspect of plagiarism presents difficulties because the line is sometimes unclear between borrowed thinking and thinking that is our own.  We all absorb information and ideas from other people.  In this way we learn.  But in the normal process of learning, new ideas are digested; they enter our minds and are associated and integrated with ideas already there; when they come out again, their original pattern is broken; they are re-formed and rearranged.  We have made them our own.  Plagiarism occurs when a sequence of ideas is transferred from a source to a paper without the process of digestion, integration, and reordering in the writer’s mind, and without acknowledgment in the paper.[2]

  Common Knowledge              3.      It is not necessary to document certain factual information considered to be in the public domain: e.g., birth and death dates of well-known figures, generally accepted dates of military, political, literary and other historical events.  In general, factual information contained in multiple standard reference works can usually be considered to be in the public domain.  If, however, you use the exact words of the reference source, you must credit the source.  If in doubt, be cautious and cite the source.

To Create a Successful Summary or Paraphrase

  1.      When reading source material, treat each passage as a discrete unit of thought to be assimilated into your own thoughts.  Try to understand the passage as a whole, rather than pausing to write down ideas or phrases that seem, on first inspection, significant.  Read purposefully, with a larger conceptual framework in clear view, and integrate each reading into that controlling purpose.

  2.      After reaching a clear understanding of the ideas contained in the source, summarize that information in your own words.  Remember that you are taking notes, not copying down quotations.  Your task is to extract, distill and compress essential content that will be useful in creating a paraphrase.  Occasionally you may find it useful to quote words or phrases directly from the source, but limit yourself to very brief quotations, and be sure to use quotation marks and to record page numbers in your notes.

Sample Paraphrases - - Unsuccessful and Successful

Based on paragraph A below, consider two improper ways of handling source material: (B) word–for-word plagiarism and (C) “The Mosaic.”  Finally, paragraph D provides a model of a legitimate paraphrase.

A.  The Source

“How important is our power of nonanalytical thought to the practice of science?  It’s the most important thing we have, declares the Princeton physicist historian Thomas Kuhn who argues that major breakthroughs occur only after scientists finally concede that certain physical phenomena cannot be explained by extending the logic of old theories.  Consider the belief that the sun and the planets move around the earth, which reigned prior to 1500.  This idea served nicely for a number of centuries, but then became too cumbersome to describe the motions of heavenly bodies.  So the Polish astronomer Copernicus invented a new reality that was based on a totally different ‘paradigm’ or model – that the earth and the planets move around the sun” (Hoover, 124).

B.  Word-for-word Plagiarism

Non-analytic thought is considered very important to the practice of science by Princeton physicist historian Thomas Kuhn who claims that major breakthroughs happen only when scientists finally concede that some physical phenomena defy explanation by extending the logic of old theories.  One idea which served nicely for many centuries but then became too cumbersome was the belief that the sun and planets revolved around the earth.  This was held prior to 1500 until Copernicus invented a new reality: the earth and planets move around the sun.

The underlined words are directly copied from the source.  Notice that the writer has not only “borrowed” Hoover’s ideas with no acknowledgment, he or she has maintained the author’s method of expression and sentence structure.  Even if the student-writer had acknowledged Hoover as the source of these ideas, this passage would still be plagiarized because much of its exact wording comes from Hoover with no quotation marks to indicate that the language is Hoover’s.  It’s not that using a single phrase such as “prior to 1500" without quotation marks constitutes plagiarism; it’s the repeated use of exact wording and sentence structure without any quotation marks.  If, for example, you used just that one phrase without quotation marks – a phrase whose language isn’t particularly distinctive – and acknowledged the source of the ideas, that would be fine.

If quotation marks were placed around all material taken directly from Hoover, this paragraph would be so cluttered as to be unreadable.  If you like the ideas and the wording of the original this much, if it is important to your paper, and if it is stated more concisely in the original than it would be in your paraphrase or summary, then quote the original.

C. The Mosaic    

Intuition plays an important role in scientific progress.  Thomas Kuhn believes that nonanalytical thought allows scientists to break through the logic of old theories to formulate new paradigms to explain a new reality.  Copernicus’ invention of one such model (a reversal of the Ptolemaic view which reigned prior to 1500) claimed that the earth and planets rotate around the sun.

Note the underlined phrases which have been borrowed from the original and shifted around.  Hoover’s structure has been modified to a certain extent by the writer, but numerous key phrases have been retained without quotation marks, and the source has not been credited.

D.  A Legitimate Paraphrase

In “Zen: Technology and the Split Brain,” Hoover suggests that the power of intuition – that suprarational half of our intelligence – is more important to scientific advancement than the function of the left hemisphere of our brain – the rigidly logical and process-oriented portion.  He cites the revolution in thinking created by Copernicus’ new paradigm of cosmic movement, a leap in understanding made possible only by the creative invention of “a new reality” after rational consideration of the old reality had exhausted itself (124).

Hoover’s ideas and specific language have been documented (by direct references to the author, by citations to his article, and by quotation marks where specific language has been used).  Notice too that Hoover’s language and structure have been modified to fit this student-writer’s own purpose.

Introducing Quotations

Introduce a quotation by signaling that it is coming and perhaps by indicating your purpose in using it.  You may name the title of the source and the author in a signal phrase: In her book Contemporary Feminist Thought, Eisenstein warns against a “false universalism that addresses itself to all women.”  Or you may wish to name only the author: In a discussion of Enlightenment political philosophy, Eisenstein asserts that while “liberal theory contested the divine right of monarchs and aristocrats to political rule . . . ,” women questioned the “divine” right of men to deny suffrage to half the population.[3]  There are many graceful ways to integrate a quotation into your text, but try to keep in mind that quotations are confusing if they appear to “drop from the sky.”