LLB Law

A dissertation, not exceeding 8,000 words in length (excluding footnotes, headings titles, contents and table of cases), on an approved topic. The field chosen must fall within the ambit of subjects taught within the law school (including socio-legal topics).

Restricted to: Final Year Students only on the LLB (Law), LLB (Law with Criminology); BA (Law with Politics) and LLB (Law with Politics) students.

Pre-requisites: The compulsory course units taken by LLB, BA (Law with Politics); LLB (Law with Politics) and LLB (Law with Criminology) students in years one and two. Timetable

With confirmed Supervisor - pre arranged meetings

The dissertation course unit aims

• to enable a student, guided by a supervisor, to organise his/her work over a period of several months,
• to seek out essential materials and
• to organise a greater amount of material on one theme than s/he would otherwise have to cope with during his/her degree programme.
• It thus offers the opportunity to study a topic in greater depth than is otherwise possible and also offers the chance to study subjects which might not be available as options during that session.

Knowledge and Understanding Students should be able to:

• identify and analyse the issues and concepts relevant to their research question.

Skills

Students should be able to:

• develop a suitable research question;
• utilise an appropriate research methodology;
• utilise appropriate electronic and paper sources to support argument;- to organise independently and plan the production of written work; and - to produce a coherent and well presented written work.

Supervision sessions are arranged between student and supervisor, not exceeding four one-hour individual sessions or equivalent. The Course Director will approve an individual supervisor for each dissertation, but students are expected to approach prospective supervisors and together complete a form (signed or approved electronically) confirming the topic of the dissertation and agreement to undertake the role of the supervisor/supervisee.

Formative: Draft chapter/extract from dissertation of 1000 words 

Summative: Dissertation of 8,000 words. Deadline for submission as publicised in Law School

NO PRELIMINARY READING REQUIRED

This course is not available to incoming study abroad students.