Académique Documents
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I.
COURSE GOALS
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Ernest Hemingway
II.
COURSE MATERIALS
A.
Textbook
I encourage you to purchase the book Academic Legal Writing (Third Edition) by Eugene Volokh.
This is available on Amazon as an e-book for US$28.80. That is roughly Php1,200.00. Money
well spent to hone your tools of the trade. I never regretted buying this book. It helped me in
writing a piece which, I am proud to say, was accepted for presentation and publication in a multidisciplinary conference in Conflict Resolution held at and organized by the University of
Massachusetts, Boston.2 It may just do the same for you.
You may also be interested in purchasing Bryan Garners Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text
with Exercises, also available on Amazon as an e-book.
B.
Additional Materials
If you are not inclined to buy these books, you may of course rely on the materials that I shall be
providing you from time to time. Reading materials may be picked-up at the ISS between 9AM5PM, Monday through Saturday from the ISS office manager, unless sent electronically. I will
send out an email to your class beadle when a material is available for pick up.
As this is a writing course, instruction on research skills will be limited. Researching the
applicable law fully is, of course, essential to the substance of your final paper (the Final Writing
Project). Hence, you may coordinate with the ITC department in groups of 8-16 people at a time
to have at least one advanced legal research session led by the ITC Head and covering
advanced techniques and sources. If you need my assistance to reserve a slot for your group, let
me know so I can coordinate with the ITC Head.
III.
COURSE METHOD
A.
Assignments
The writing assignments include writing from scratch, editing your work and colleagues writing,
and rewriting. The lessons from the short assignments contribute to the work on longer, full
documents, i.e. the Final Writing Project. The course involves writing assignments to be
completed on your own time, although it is hoped that you shall make good use of your allotted
class schedule as your exclusive writing time and editing sessions. These Mondays may just be
life-changing for some, if not all, of you.
Most of the writing assignments will be done individually. You will find a partner for each session
who will then be your editor and vice versa. After making your corrections of each others work,
redlined writing assignments should be submitted/uploaded on the class FB page (to be created
by the class beadle) every Monday until 12 midnight. Late submissions will not be evaluated and
will not get the full credit, if at all.
These go toward your individual grading points. Individual assignments are to be typed, single
space, using Arial 12 font, maximum of 5 pages (unless otherwise instructed), and minimum of 2
pages.
(Assignments are to be turned uploaded, every Monday, as assigned)
B.
There is no final examination in the course, but there is a group Final Writing Project to be in
progress throughout the semester, including submission of parts of the paper and full drafts. The
final paper will be due on the date of the final exam for this course.
Divide the class into groups of [8 each, depending on the size of the class][ N.B. Beadle to
inform me of class size]. This is a democratic process so I leave it to you to decide who will be
your group mates. Choose well. You sink or swim with the group. If you cannot find a group and
need assistance in this regard, please inform me soonest through the class beadle.
Group members list should be in by August 11 2014 (through your beadle). Appoint a group
leader for each group.
C.
Consultations
I am available for consultations at the ISS by prior appointment one week before the intended
consultation. My consultation hours are Saturdays 1-2 PM (not regular); and Sundays 46PM.
IV.
GRADES
A.
B.
50%
30%
(3) Presentation
20%
The course grade is based substantially on the Final Writing Project. You are expected to have
University level reading comprehension and writing skills. This means that you are expected to
demonstrate good grammar, readable and comprehensible writing style, and a professional voice
in your writing technique. If these instructions do not make sense to you, you are in deep trouble.
Read up and take the exercises to heart. These will greatly help you though the course. The final
project is designed to give you the opportunity to show that you have mastered the writing
principles and skills expected in the course. To pass the course, you must not exhibit any serious
writing deficiencies in the final project. But to pass with flying colors, you must show mastery of
the techniques and skills covered.
There are deliverable milestones for the Final Writing Project. These deliverables are to be
prepared as a group, which account for the 20% of your grade, but will also be accounted for
individually.
The mark that the Final Paper receives will be a group grade, regardless of how each of the
members performs. You sink or swim together. See above.
C.
Assignments
There will be both individual and group assignments. You may wish to work with the same
editing partner for all individual projects. All writing assignments throughout the course
whether as individuals or as a group are required. If you fail to turn in assignments on time and
completed satisfactorily, your final grade in the course may drop. Also, late assignments may
receive no written comments or other evaluation, as earlier indicated.
Group Assignment: Choose a topic and write your basic thesis, as a GROUP. Debate on
this. Participate. Everyone must have a voice.
Taking cue from the guidelines prescribed by Volokh, identify a legal problem and write
the descriptive and prescriptive parts of your thesis or claim.
This work should contain the following parts:
1. The problem identified
2. The tentative solution
3. Demonstrate why it is novel
4. Demonstrate why it is non-obvious
5. Demonstrate usefulness, soundness
6. Demonstrate that the public sees your claim as novel, non-obvious, useful, and
sound
Individual Assignment: On your own, prepare the same material on a topic OTHER than
the topic chosen by the group. You may consult with each other on this individual work. If
you have asked another to review/edit your work, I will give extra credit to the editor.
You must then submit both the original and the revised versions as edited by your
editor.
This work should contain the following parts:
1. The problem identified
4
-nothing follows-