Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Course Rationale:
I. The first part will take you through the essential steps such as identifying a
researchable problem, searching for relevant literature, choosing an appropriate
methodology and framing a coherent research proposal.
II. The second part will emphasize the important considerations for the writing
process, especially in the context of doctrinal as well as empirical legal research.
There will also be some coverage related to the use of comparative sources.
1(a) Understanding research: This introductory module focuses on the transition from
an intuitive understanding of research to a more scientific form which entails a more
rigorous, intentional and theory guided process of conducting systematic investigation.
Essentially, we explore the idea of what constitutes research and what is not research?
How is it done? What are the overlapping interests that guide structured enquiries? For
this purpose, this part of the course will include a diverse set of pedagogical materials
such as handouts, videos and readings in order to illustrate the following:-
(i) What is Research? Meaning and Objectives
(ii) Legal Research - Meaning, scope and purpose.
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(iii) Relation between law and society and Research for legal reform
(iv)Types/kinds of research:
Doctrinal and Empirical;
Applied, fundamental; Library research, field research and laboratory
research, analytical, descriptive, conceptual
Participatory and NonParticipatory
Comparative, Historical, Statistical, Critical, Socio-Legal; Mono
disciplinary, trans disciplinary, inter-disciplinary (multi- disciplinary)
research
Quantitative and qualitative and the Delphi one-time, longitudinal and
cross-sectional
Readings:
Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K. (2006). The nature of enquiry, in Research
methods in Education, Routledge: London. (pp. 1-47).
Cooper, H., Hedges, L. V., and Valentine, J. C. (2009). Searching the literature:
Using Reference Databases and Grey Literature, in Handbook of Research
Synthesis and Meta-Analysis.(2nd edn.). Russell Sage Foundation: New York.
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(i) Research Design
(ii) Various Steps in conducting Research: Research Process
(iii) Literature Review
(iv)Research Problem: Identification and Formulation
(v) Hypothesis
(vi)Tools and Techniques for Collection of Data (Primary and Secondary Sources)
1. Observation Method
2. Questionnaire
3. Interview
4. Case study
5. Sampling
6. Analysis and Interpretation of Data
a. Quantitative (statistics)
b. Qualitative (coding)
Readings:
Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K. (2006). The ethics of social research, in
Research methods in Education, Routledge: London. (pp. 51-75).
In the second half of the course, we will focus on the norms of legal scholarship.
We will begin by asking whether legal writing can be clearly distinguished from creative
writing (novels, poems, short stories and essays) and other forms of non-fiction writing
(such as journalism, biographies and travelogues). The next step will be an introduction
to the different forms of legal writing that can be broadly grouped under the heads of
academic legal writing (law review articles, comments on judicial decisions, book
reviews, opinion pieces and legislative analysis to name a few) as opposed to
professional legal writing (office memos, case briefs, advisory memos for clients,
documents submitted to courts as part of litigation). Since this course is closely tied to the
preparation of your seminar papers and the dissertation, the emphasis will clearly be on
academic legal writing.
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The discussion will then turn to the accepted categorization of sources in legal
scholarship (primary, secondary and tertiary) and strategies for prioritizing amongst them
during the research and writing process. This will be followed by an emphasis on the
norms of academic integrity and the prominent legal citation styles such as The Bluebook
(Harvard), The Maroon Book (Chicago) and OSCOLA (Oxford) among others. The
students will be required to prepare short notes based on doctrinal materials such as
statutory provisions, administrative rules and judicial decisions, so as to familiarize them
with the referencing styles as well as the strictures against plagiarism. We will also build
on the earlier coverage with respect to searching for relevant literature in a law library
(textbooks, commentaries, reports of judicial decisions and scholarly articles) as well as
through online sources [paid databases such as Westlaw, JSTOR, HeinOnline, LexisNexis
and Manupatra as well as freely available databases such as the Cornell Legal
Information Institute, the Avalon Project, the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN),
IndianKanoon and Shodhganga to name a few]. In recent years, some collaborative blogs
devoted to specific sub-fields have also become a useful source for tracking the latest
legal developments and publications.
Readings:
Ruggero J. Aldisert, Stephen Clowney and Jeremy D. Peterson, Logic for Law
Students: How to Think Like a Lawyer, 69(1) University of Pittsburgh Law
Review 100-121 (2007).
Terry Hutchinson and Nigel Duncan, Defining and Describing What We Do:
Doctrinal Legal Research, 17(1) Deakin Law Review 83-119 (2012).
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Ran Hirschl, The Question of Case Selection in Comparative Constitutional
Law, 53(1) American Journal of Comparative Law 125-155 (2005).
Evaluation Scheme: