WRITING A LEGAL ESSAY
Law and civil students are often asked to write law essays while addressing a legal example. Essays and assignment writings sometimes becomes tricky as a law student is evolved by laws and only laws. And to secure good grades, students are expected to write a legible and well researched essay.
Though all essay writing types contain the sections like introduction, content or body and conclusion, there exist some difference in writing styles in each profession. Also, if your essay doesn’t have any link between paragraphs or sentences, then the inconsistency of your writing can force the lecturer to not give good grades. Each and every heading or sub heading needs to be presented in a way that it succeeds in grabbing the attention of the reader. If you succeed in doing that, the reader will straightaway mark you as a good writer without going through the full essay. Everything that matters is the way of presenting. The structure or the frame of the essay writing should be planned cautiously. An unplanned structure of the essay writing creates no effect on the mind of the reader even if the content is ‘up to the mark’.
Law assignment or essay is a matter of opinion and no two lawyers can have same opinions or the sets of opinions. Even if two legal writings are identical, then also the content, contradiction used and the language or linguistic ability of the writers will be quite different. Considering these things, a standard and fair structure of the essay should be followed. Lecturers look for precise and unique content, and they also closely inspect the format or the terms used.
Following are some of the tips that can help law students to write their legal essays in a coherent way:
Presenting the title in a specific way:
The title or the legal question should be in such a form that it can provide a straightforward or clear idea of upcoming discussion in the form of content.Title of the essay is the main reason that compels the reader to continue with the reading. If you are allowed to select the topic on your own, then try to select a topic which can be discussed more in the light of laws and not just in the general sense. Even if a ‘general topic’ is there, then try to analyze the depth of the topic with the help of real life examples. For instance, topics like education, family and children’s right are very common in today’s scenario, where almost every citizen understands the importance of education. In such topics, the knowledge of legal rules & constitution as well as self-opinion matters a lot. Such topics, if explained in the light of reality, can help the writer to create a path of success.
Introduction:
Introduction portions present an overview of the whole writing, provide a direction for answering the question asked, develop a topic of argument within the topic of the essay and provide an outline for further topics going to be discussed in later sections. It, therefore, sets a parameter for the discussion. The introduction is a way to provide guidance to the reader about the matter of discussion. It is obvious that the reader would be an experienced person. It is much easier for interviewers or the reader to judge the whole content by just having a look at the kind of introduction. By just reading few lines of introduction, the reader can easily understand the level of discussion used by the writer. So it is highly important to make an introduction that speaks about your knowledge and skills.
An essay is not just designed to answer the question; in fact it is more than that. Sometimes, questions seek the answers that can provide a clear view to the reader about the writer’s way of thinking, or the level of thinking and implementing the knowledge.
Body:
It is important to give a heading for the paragraph to make the reader understand what is going to be discussed in the paragraph. This can be achieved by using an appropriate topic sentence. It is important to use the topic sentence as it reflects or summarizes the approaches highlighted by the essay writer.
Appropriate or careful use of transition words should be there. If a writer wants to highlight an additional issue related to the previous one then the words like ‘in addition to’, ‘moreover’ etc. can be used. And if you want to have alternative arguments, then the transition words like ‘in contrast’, ‘however’ etc. creates a good impact on readability.
Each topic or the paragraph of a particular subtopic should be concluded in a way that it looks interlinked or connected with the main topic as well as the subtopic.
Conclusion:
This section is used to extract the whole assignment work. Introduction to any new topic of knowledge should be avoided. Here you can express your views and ideas. Moreover, it the last section where you can make the reader understand your final arguments, what was there in the question and how you proposed your answer. It is just like an introduction part where you try to give a direction to your answer and in this section, you can talk about the achievements that you gained starting from the argument till the end. Conclusion should present a general view of the discussion carried in the body section. It is used to recap the points that have been used as the main headings or sub heading of the discussion.
