Critical Analysis of a Legal Issue: Literature Review Structure and Guidelines

Literature Review Structure

Which critically analyses a legal issue of your choosing.

The following is a basic structure for the literature review:

Students will be expected to make full use of the formative assessment opportunity in order to support and improve their summative assessment submission.

A good literature review evaluates a wide variety of sources (academic articles, scholarly books, government/NGO reports). It can also evaluate literature reviews that study similar topics.

When reviewing sources, be mindful of:

• Their authority: Who is the author? what is his/her credentials--what university he/she is affiliated? Is his/her area of expertise?
• Their usefulness: How this source related to your topic? How current or relevant it is to your topic?
• Their reliability: Does the information comes from a reliable, trusted source such as an academic journal?

Summative (100%)

• You must state the number of words you have used.   
• You should write no more than 3,500 words.
• Excessive length will be penalised. Footnotes and bibliography will not be included in the word count unless it is apparent that you are including text in footnotes as a means of artificially disguising excessive length.
• Penalties for exceeding the word limit are as follows:

There will be no penalty for exceeding the word limit by no more than 10%.  

Students who exceed the word limit by more than 10% will have their mark reduced by 10 percentage points.

• Literature reviews must be produced in proper word-processed form. You must keep a copy of your work.
• Literature reviews must follow the basic structure provided above.
• There should be no indication of your student name on the document only your student number.

Literature reviews must be submitted by 12 noon on 04 June 2021.

Submission will be via the online submission portal on the ALRM Moodle page.

The assignment has a submission window of approximately 2 weeks with a very strict final deadline at the end. You should consider missing a coursework deadline in the same way that you would consider missing an exam – extremely seriously.

Work submitted before the published deadline will receive the full mark available. Late work will be subject to penalties.

• Work submitted up to 1 hour late will not be subject to a penalty.
• Work submitted between 1 hour and 24 hours late will have the mark reduced by 5%.
• Work submitted between 24 hours and 5 working days late will have the mark reduced by 10%.

If any of the above would take the final mark below the pass mark, the pass mark will be awarded. Any work submitted after 5 working days after the deadline will not be marked and will be recorded as ‘Fail through non-submission’. If you have an extension for exceptional circumstances this will be taken into account and you will receive the full grade. Information regarding extenuating circumstances can be found here – Complaints and Appeals

Marks with feedback will be published 20 working days following submission.

Additional feedback can be obtained from the tutor who marked your work.

Please contact that tutor by email to make a mutually convenient appointment.

You have been issued with a number of sources of information that you should use to help you draft a literature review. A good starting point is the reading list provided for each of the seminars, available in the Module Guide on Moodle.

However, as an LL.M. student, you are expected to have engaged in additional reading and research on research methods and methodologies in law.

You will be provided with the opportunity to discuss issues concerning this subject area throughout the teaching programme. Outside of this opportunity, no assistance will be given by staff and should not be sought, save for the designated lecture sessions outlined in the lecture programme. In particular, staff will not look at nor pre-mark any notes, nor drafts of a literature review. Assessed coursework must be distinctively your own effort. You are reminded of the University’s Regulations on cheating which are explained in your Student Handbook.   

You are reminded of the University’s Disciplinary Procedures which refer to Cheating, details of which may be found in the Student Complaints, Appeals and Conduct web page:

Except where the assessment of an assignment is group-based, the final piece of work which is submitted must be your own work.  Close similarity between assignments is likely to lead to an investigation for cheating. It is not advisable to show your work, completed or otherwise, to your colleagues nor to share or exchange disks.

In addition, please note the following (approved by the University’s Senate):

You must also ensure that you acknowledge all sources you have used.  Work which is discovered to be the result of collusion or plagiarism will be dealt with under the University’s Disciplinary Procedures, and the penalty may involve the loss of academic credits.

If you have any doubts about the extent to which you are allowed to collaborate with your colleagues, or the conventions for acknowledging the sources you have used, you should first of all consult module documentation and, if still unclear, your module tutor.