Model Essay

MODEL ESSAY

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MODEL ESSAY

HOW TO WRITE A LAW ESSAY
Depending on the required work length, writing a law essay can be a long and involved process. START AS EARLY AS
POSSIBLE! Many students develop their own style of attacking an essay topic. Generally however it is useful to break the essay-writing process down into the following steps:
1.Analysing your essay topic
Before you can create an effective argument, you must determine exactly what you are being asked to answer. Your lecturer would have chosen his/her words carefully when setting the essay topic so avoid making generalisations and interpreting the question to suit your interests or level of knowledge. Seek clarification from your lecturer where necessary. It is often a good idea to highlight key words in the essay question and use them to structure your essay.
2. Researching
Be thorough in your researching and try to locate as wide a variety of sources as possible i.e books, journals, texts, internet articles. Make extensive use of austlii and the AUSTROM database for tracking down journal articles (see the lawskool.com.au research guide). Many law journals are available online these days and you’ll find that printing out web articles is much cheaper than photocopying from the hard-copy journals.
3. Reading/note taking
This will no doubt be the longest part of the essay-writing process. You should have a tentative essay plan in mind at this stage.
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Firstly skim through your sources and try to work out some categories for your notes.
Now read through each source thoroughly, highlighting your printouts and tabbing your books, as you go.
Record extensive dot-point notes for each category (either on paper or on your word processor). Write/type out direct quotes verbatim.
Ensure that you record all of your references as you go (trust us, this will make your life so much easier later on).

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MODEL ESSAY

4. Planning

Bibliography: Bennet S, The Making of the Australian Commonwealth, 19971, Cassell Australia, Canberra. Booker K, Glass A and Watt R, Federal Constitutional Law: An Introduction, 1998, 2nd ed, Butterworths, Sydney Crave G, ‘The Crisis of Constitutional Literalism in Australia” in HP Lee and G Winteron (eds) Australian Constitutional Perspectives, 1992, Law Book Co, Goldsworthy J, ‘Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation’ (1997) 25 Fed LR 1. Kennet G, ‘Constitutional Interpretation in the Corporations Case” (1980) 19 Fed LR 223. Kirk J, ‘Constitutional Interpretation and Evolutionary Originalism” (1999) 27 Fed LR 333. Sir A, Mason, ‘Interpretation and Evolutionary Originalism” (1999) 27 Fed LR 333. Simmons, RL, “The Commonwealth cannot Incorporate under the Corporations Power: New South Wales v The Commonwealth (1990) 20 University of Western Zines, L, The High Court and the Constitution, 1997, 4th ed, Butterworths, Sydney.