LAW 534 – RESEARCH ESSAY (Winter 2014)
DESCRIPTION OF ESSAY: You are to write an essay which discusses at least one of the legal issues studied in our course. Your essay topic must meet all the criteria below.
1. Applies Law 534 principles and concepts. Your essay must relate to one or more of our course topics and you must apply principles and concepts from our course;
2. Uses current Canadian issue(s). Your essay must discuss a current Canadian issue (i.e. a topic reported in the general media within the last 7 years, and please note that it is not acceptable to simply analyze case law);
3. Relates to government regulation of business. Your essay must be related to the general theme of our course – government regulation of business; and
4. Has a minimum of SIX references. Your essay must make reference to various outside sources such as books and articles (ex. academic journals, newspapers, magazines or internet articles). YOUR ESSAY MUST CITE AT LEAST SIX SOURCES OTHER THAN THE TEXT OR LECTURE.
LENGTH AND FORMAT:
Length requirements. The essay must be between 1500 – 2000 words in length. 1500 words is the minimum length required in order to be considered for grading.
Format. Page format is to be: 8.5” x 11” paper, double spaced, 10-12 point font with 1 inch borders. The essay must be stapled. Footnotes Required. You are to provide references for all materials in proper footnote format. Footnote format is required and you may use any generally accepted reference format (ex. MLA, APA or McGill Guide). You are encouraged to reference the course text where necessary. I must be able to easily look up your source by merely reading the reference. Your reference cannot simply be a website address or link to a Ryerson library portal. There must be sufficient bibliographic information including author name, name of publication, date etc. in addition to any link you provide.
Title page must have word count. The title page of the essay must include your name, course name, instructors name and date of submission. It must also include the word count for your essay.
Spelling and grammar. Students are expected to use proper spelling and grammar.
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Bibliography Required. Your essay must also include a bibliography. The bibliography does not count towards the minimum or maximum word length. Your bibliography must only include references that were cited in your essay.
PERCENTAGE OF FINAL GRADE: This essay is worth 35% of your final grade. The essay itself will be graded out of 100 marks.
DUE DATE:
A hard copy of your essay must be submitted to the instructor in class on March 18th, 2014 by no later than 1 pm. Essays received between 1 pm March 18th, 2014 and 11:59 pm March 19th, 2014 will be subject to a 10 mark penalty. There will be an additional 5 mark penalty for every 24 hour period thereafter. For example, essays received between 12 am, March 20th to 11:59 pm, March 20th, will be subject to a 15 mark penalty; essays received between 12 am, March 21st to 11:59 pm, March 21st will be subject to a 20 mark penalty.
If a hard copy of your essay is not received on time as indicated above, it will be counted as late.
Late essays must be emailed to the instructor at [email protected]. It is the student’s responsibility to confirm that the email and late essay has been received by the instructor. It is not acceptable to simply leave the essay in the instructor’s physical mailbox as it is not possible to track the time of delivery when delivered in this fashion.
TURNITIN
You are required to submit your essay to Turnitin on the Law 534 Blackboard website. All essays, regardless of whether they are on time or late, must have a Turnitin receipt attached to them PRIOR to being submitted to the instructor.
Essential nature of this assignment (in a nutshell)
In this assignment, I am trying to evaluate how well the student is able to apply our class materials, discussion and concepts to a real life situation (examples from newspapers, magazines and scholarly articles) and support her/his view with some research (using at least 6 references outside of the text). I want to see how well the student understands the Canadian legal system, particularly government regulation of business, as discussed in our course. I also want to see how well the student can apply that understanding to a chosen legal issue.
CAUTION: It is very important to have a thesis (stated at the beginning of the essay) and to develop the thesis throughout the paper. A paper that merely summarizes what others have written with no coherent thesis throughout will likely receive a low or failing grade.
