Legal Systems

EdgarAllenPoo

Twould seem to be the easiest subject that you can do in law but I'm having a wee bit o trouble with my first assignment (I'm not a TCD student but my college has no forum here). We've been given a quote (the first paragraph of chapter one in Casey), we were told to discuss the historical development of the legal system.

I did what I thought was a decent assignment after all I'm only in the course four weeks but now I'm having second thoughts.

I need a bit of advice on how best to discuss the 1922 and 1937 constitutions and I've no idea how to approach them, the assignment is due on Tuesday. What would you do in my position?

fade

copy

EdgarAllenPoo

fade wrote:

copy

That would be plagerism;)

xeduCat

For a start, don't read Casey, it doesn't have enough detail. Read the introductory/historical stuff in 'The Irish Constitution' (i.e. the book edited by Hogan & Whyte, originally by Kelly). I'm biased (cause I edited and checked the footnotes on it, one of the most mundane tasks known to man, yet strangely fulfilling), but it's a better survey, if you have to write an essay.

Additionally, if your lecturer in your college (and I'm presuming it's at least Griffith or Portobello if I'm lucky, and God knows what dodgy outfit if I'm not) has any sense, she/he will have given you a reading list / outline, with references to books, articles etc that can give you further pointers.

First year essays are a lot more about expression than coming up with new or obscure references, though. Don't sweat it.

Thirdfox

I'm doing first year law right now (in TCD) and I find that Casey is great for a general overview on the subject (and so is Ryan for a two day read!)

Kelly is great but there's just sooo much (and the professionals use it!) Us students can start off easy and read the more student oriented ones...

Educat you edited the footnotes? All 2043 pages??? Wow, you must have got paid huge amounts of money (or at least get a free copy )

xeduCat

It took about a month of working every day, plus an additional bit before publication. Basically, what I had to do was find all the case references (e.g. [1989] IR 204*), and then find the pinpoint reference for every single quotation in the book (i.e. if there was a line from a judgement, I had to find what page it was on, i.e. [1989] IR 204 at 256*).

And yes, I got paid, and got a free copy. Which a final year classmate stole on me and never returned


* don't be scared, non-lawyers. It means Irish Reports (which is a series of reports of cases), 1989 volume, page 204. 204 at 256 is just like used by other academic citation stuff, an article/case starting at p. 204, but specifically referring to p. 256.

Thirdfox

Hmm do we need to pinpoint pages in our essays too? I've just been taking down the general citation... don't tell me I need to go back if I want to use quotes

Johnee

Thirdfox wrote:

Hmm do we need to pinpoint pages in our essays too? I've just been taking down the general citation... don't tell me I need to go back if I want to use quotes

Yes. Havent you been listening in Legal Writing? - it must have been mentioned. The Law Review rules for essays are on the law school website.

xeduCat

Yeah, you need to pinpoint. Be a good lawyer.

Thirdfox

How do we pinpoint a website? Do we just give the paragraph number?

And the essay rules on the law website deals with dissertations at the end of fourth year... oh well, back to the drawing/writing board then.

What style is the pinpointing then?
e.g. [1988] 1 IR 587 (if the quote was taken from page 587...) Do we not need to put the first page of the case in too i.e. that it began on page 575?

Thirdfox

EduCat wrote:

Be a good lawyer.

A good lawyer, I thought they didn't exist ...maybe good at earning money I suppose...

xeduCat

If the case/article starts on p. 10, and your quote is on page 18, say [1989] ILRM 10 at 18. And if you're just referring without direct quotation, it's OK to say [1989] ILRM 10. NEVER say [1989] ILRM 18 in this situation - it's just wrong.

In terms of style, if you copy the law review / dissertation style, you'll get everything (style-wise) correct, learn a useful skill for your future writing, and pick up some brownie points. For all I know, you might have already been told to do this though....

Thirdfox

I think that we haven't (yet)... I do take good notes (in my opinion anyway!) erm (sorry to keep on asking questions) but what if you're quoting a quote? Do you use the original article or the article where you found the quote?

Thanks for your advice so far...

xeduCat

If you are quoting a case that was quoted in a book, which I think is what you are asking, you can:

a) use the exact quote, and footnote it as (for example)

Snorlax v Cuckoo [1982] All ER 203, as quoted in Smith, Agent, "What is Boards.ie For Anyway?" at p. 203

or

b) look up the case for yourself, find a relevant quote, and then quote it directly.

If you 'lift' a case-quote from an article without referring to the article, you're on the plagiarism slope...

Thirdfox

Thanks once again.

For first year essays do we need to have references to hundreds of books/articles? So far I've only managed to read a dozen articles... and the deadline's in three weeks...

And however do you balance seminar/lecture/essay work???

xeduCat

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