Law 2031 Law in Action Project – guidance
1. The Law in Action project is a practical assignment, as it involves you finding out answers to the questions that your focus group has, so that you can best advise them on their issues. Unlike other assessments that you will have done, it does not involve detailed academic analysis of the law. So you do not need to look at academic journals, though you will need to identify and explain the relevant law in an accessible way for your target audience/focus group.
2. As with any assessment, you are looking for a range of sources relevant to your project topic. Suitable sources for this assignment may include Law Commission Reports, Government material, Parliamentary material, material from charities and third sector organisation websites, material from pressure groups, investigative journalistic sources, statistics and other appropriate reports relevant to your project topic, to help you provide the information your focus group has requested. Your Mentor is the best person to discuss any issues relating to sources relevant and appropriate to your project topic.
3. The material must relate solely to the law in England Wales. You should not take a comparative approach with other jurisdictions although appropriate reforms from other jurisdictions might be relevant.
4. You must include relevant and up to date law from England and Wales. Please be selective in the law that you include and chose the material carefully – remember what your focus is and what your task is with the project.
5. This Law in Action project is a desk based online research activity. It does not involve carrying our research with people in any format. You must NOT therefore interview anyone in any way as part of this project even if they are friends or family. If you do you will be liable for academic misconduct for breach of the ethical requirements.
6. You must reference your sources in the usual way and provide a bibliography, using OSCOLA.
7.To identify the overall value and relevance to your project of the various materials that you find through your research, you will find it useful to carry out a ‘source analysis’ exercise.
This helps you identify the currency, reliability, and purpose of your sources, so helping you utilise them as effectively as possible.
In engaging in such a ‘source analysis’ exercise you may consider, for example:
Who wrote/produced the source?
When was the source written?
Is it a primary or secondary source?
Who was it written/produced for?
Why was it written/produced?
What effect did the author want to create?
Is the source reliable? Does it contain a high degree of bias or is it objective?
Why is the source important? What was going on at the time the source was written?
Note that this is not an exhaustive list of questions that you can use to evaluate/comment on/analyse your research material, but it is a useful starting point.
For further information and guidance on finding sources, the types of sources to use and source evaluation, see the Skills Hub section on ‘Evaluating Sources’, under the ‘How to Research’ tab.
See eg: videos on ‘Finding information on-line’; ‘what are academic sources’; ‘evaluating information’; ‘evaluating sources for credibility’ and pdf documents on ‘evaluating sources’ and ‘critically evaluating sources’.
