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Tackling Questions Questions on a law course will demand a response either in essay form or in a problem-solving style. An outline is given below of the techniques that should be used in answering both types of question. The key is structure: it not only makes the job of the person marking your paper easier, but will also allow you to focus on specific issues raised in the question. A well prepared, structured answer will have the appearance of a ‘flow’, with your academic arguments leading to a logical conclusion. This will greatly assist the overworked assessor, rapidly reading through possibly hundreds of scripts, who will be able to recognise easily your well organised and relevant points of significance. Before going into detail about essay structure, a little about legal reasoning. Legal reasoning With essays, legal reasoning is largely confined to the main body of the answer (see below), but for problem questions there is no need for an introduction and a conclusion. Legal reasoning is the central part of the answer. Some basic guidelines Don’t re-write the question posed, either verbatim or as you (in your own words) understand the question to be. This will gain you no further marks and may in fact act to your detriment in that it wastes valuable time and space, which is particularly important in the exam situation and assignments with a word limit. Don’t regurgitate factual and legal material which is ultimately irrelevant to answering the question. Never assume that one true, definitive answer exists. Limiting yourself to only one argument in your essay can be dangerous. You can safely assume that a question would not have been posed if there was an easy answer to it. There is often some ambiguity contained within the question, which provides an opportunity for you to be imaginative, creative and critical in your response: your task is to demonstrate that the law is capable of differing interpretations. These alternatives should be made clear and then evaluated. Good lawyers are supposed not to see black and white but merely shades of grey! You’ve heard it a million times, but it’s still true even when you arrive at university: presenting your work well is important. Use spell-check facilities on computers, and take extra care over the spelling of legal terms and phrases: all you need to do is check in the dictionary. Write legibly. If you use a computer for essays and coursework, do make sure that you still know how to write before you enter an exam hall! And it goes without saying that examiners or whoever marks your essay will hate illegible handwriting. Avoid a subjective style of writing. Rather than saying ‘I think’, try to phrase your answer objectively: for example, ‘it would appear from the arguments presented ...’. Also, avoid slang expressions and clichés. No matter how bright their case seems to be, never advise Mr and Mrs X that they are ‘on to a winner’. Don’t steal other people’s work: plagiarism (ie passing off the words or ideas of another as your own) is a dangerous game. If you use the words or ideas of another, acknowledge the source. Essay questions Read the question! Seems obvious, but read on. You must find out exactly what you’re required to do. Essay questions usually require you to ‘target’ the answer precisely. How many times have we heard that exam candidates are often criticised for failing to address the question asked … Think in terms of the difference between the ‘shotgun’ and the ‘marksman’ approach. Sometimes, a word or phrase in the question, such as ‘consideration’, might trigger a response of regurgitating everything you know about that subject, in the hope that part of the information fired at the question will strike home. The ‘marksman’ type of approach calls for a precise targeting of the answer, focusing all the information on hitting the target. But in the stress of the exam or deadline for a weekly essay, being the marksman can be easier said than done! So it’s important to be disciplined: simply read the question for what it is, not what you hope or think it might be. Dissect the question, identify the issues and then answer that question. The introduction Essay structure has no doubt been rammed down your throat for years, so we’ll pass quite swiftly over this point. Just remember that the introduction should whet the reader’s appetite for what is to follow. Often, this requires you to put the question in perspective – possibly a historical one. Also, take the opportunity in the introduction to define any terms in the question that need clarification. Marks awarded for the introduction may be limited, but be aware that a poor introduction can reflect badly on the rest of the essay. Don’t attempt to answer the question in the first paragraph: you might change your mind about the answer halfway through the essay. There really is something to be said for the classic essay structure of introduction – setting out arguments for and against – conclusion, based upon the weight of the evidence presented. The answer It’s often useful to underline all the relevant words in the question and then identify the main elements of the question that need to be addressed. This part, the main part of your essay, should contain the bulk of your factual information and your legal reasoning. Often, the assessor will not necessarily be concerned with your answer but rather with how you have arrived at it. It can be difficult to let go of essay approaches learned for AS and A Level, where emphasis was often on demonstrating facts. As an undergraduate, you are required to use this factual information to answer the question through criticism, comparison and evaluation. Conclusion The rounding off stage: present your findings and give a view as to likely future developments in the area covered by the question. A good approach is this: open the conclusion by answering the question targeted, and then move on to the future of the area. This will enhance the structured flow of the essay: you have moved from a historical perspective at the beginning, through current considerations in the main body of the essay, to a view about the future. Problem questions As with essay questions, there is an inherent danger that you may fail to address the issues raised in the question. The following is an outline of the procedure that you can adopt when answering a problem question in business law. Read the question! Again, the first step entails a careful reading of the rubric to define precisely what the assessor wants. This is usually to be found at the end of the problem scenario and consists of ‘Advise Mr and Mrs X’ or the curt ‘Discuss’, a command that can be interpreted to mean ‘advise all the parties referred to’. Read the scenario It is important to read through the whole scenario in order to gain an overview of the issues raised. Once you have a general feel for the problem, you can turn to the specific sentences to see what issues of law arise. If you are asked in the rubric to advise more than one party, then read through the problem scenario again looking for the specific issues which relate to the particular party in question. Identify the relevant legal issues Make a checklist of all the issues that you’ll need to address in your answer, and tick them off as you deal with them. Define the issues If you have been asked to advise more than one person, you might find it useful to use subheadings to distinguish between the respective parties.
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