How to do the Human Rights First Element of Assessment:

How to do the Human Rights First Element of Assessment:

Starting

Read the assignment question carefully and think about the issues it raises.

ASSESSMENT INFORMATION: Human Rights First Element of Assessment: 3,000-word assignment submitted by deadline.

Assignment Title:

The essay title for this summative assessment is as follows:

Human rights have long received some protection from the common law, and they have become increasingly important since the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 2 October 2000. The Human Rights Act 1998 gives effect in domestic law to most of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and it has had an impact upon the decision-making processes of courts, legislatures, and a wide range of executive and administrative bodies.

Peter Leyland and Gordon Anthony, Textbook on Administrative Law (8th edn, Oxford University Press 2016) 61

On the twentieth anniversary of its coming into force, is it true to say that the Human Rights Act 1998 provides strong protection of human rights to the population of the United Kingdom?

In your analysis discuss relevant legislation, cases and articles.

Guidance. You should begin by considering the assignment question carefully. You should also consider the scope of the title. Basically, this is asking you to analyse whether the Human Rights Act (which incorporated European Convention rights into UK law) provides strong protection of human rights to the population of the United Kingdom. Research on case law concerning key sections of the 1998 Act will yield information on the extent to which there is protection of human rights. You will have to research sources which you have considered during the module, as well as wider reading and the fruits of your own enquiry. The question requires some further reading beyond your textbook - please see lecture materials and module handbook for suggested reading.

You will need to assess some aspect(s) of the 1998 Acts provision of protection of human rights. There is, of course, also opportunity to engage with inter alia some part(s) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It will not be possible to look at many parts of the 1998 Act, nor many parts of the Convention. You need to write the essay placing the focus on some parts of one, or both, of these documents. You have the freedom to choose which parts of the Act and / or Convention that you select for use.

You are helped in doing this by the materials provided by the lecturer during the module, as well as the results of your own independent enquiry.

Assignment Assessment Criteria please consider the Assignment Assessment Criteria, below.

Assignment Assessment Criteria

Assignment Assessment Criteria Hints

Relevance Your assignment should be a direct answer to the question. One of the things we are assessing is your ability to recognise what is relevant to the question and what is irrelevant. Therefore, you should not include material which clearly has no bearing on the question. Just because a question falls within a certain broad area of law does not mean that everything you have learned about that area is relevant.

Structure Your answer should be structured in a logical way that shows that you have thought about what the question means and developed your argument around it. Your answer should begin with an introduction which gives a concise and accurate description of what you are going to do. It should end with a conclusion which sums up your main arguments and which is more than a token two-line ending. Marks will be awarded for clear, concise and well-planned pieces of work. Do not be afraid to use subheadings if they help you to structure your answer.

Try writing your introduction after you have written the main part of your assignment. This way, it will be a genuine reflection of your arguments rather than a piece of wishful thinking. Then see if your introduction bears any relation to the assignment title. If it does not, it is likely that you have not answered the question.

Analysis You should be able to demonstrate an awareness of the structure and content of Human Rights Law and show that you are aware of alternative analyses where appropriate. This requires reading more than just the textbook in your preparation and using alternative viewpoints where appropriate. Do not use the assignment as an opportunity to summarise lecture notes or chapters from the textbook.

Illustration Examiners will be looking for evidence that you have thought about and chosen suitable examples to illustrate your answer. Avoid making sweeping generalisations you cannot justify. Re-read your assignment when you have finished to make sure you have supported arguments.

Research You should be able to demonstrate evidence of independent legal research in writing your assignment. If you can show that you have sought out and found useful sources of information on your own initiative and used them appropriately you are more likely to get a higher mark.

You should list the material you have read in a bibliography at assignments end. Before starting your research, make sure you know what the question is asking. You can then focus your research on the question and use your time efficiently. Keep quotations reasonably short and make sure that you place them in context by using them to support your own arguments. If you do not do this, you give the impression that you do not understand what you have read.

Referen-cingCorrect legal referencing is important in formal pieces of assessment. Try to avoid poor, incomplete or incorrect referencing. It is in your own interests to learn how to reference correctly before writing your assignment. You should use the OSCOLA referencing system.

Presentat-ion Your assignment should be well-presented and easy to read. It should also be within the word limit.

It should be typed or word-processed. You should proof-read the essay several times to ensure that it is well presented.

Further considerations Introduction

Dont leave the assignment until the last minute because you need to think about this work and do reading around the area of the posed question before you can even start a decent answer.

Read the assignment carefully first and decide how to tackle it - what focus will you give your response to this assignment? You need to think about the question before you start to read around it, BUT you need some reading around it before you decide on your focus in your answer.

Structure your answer this may seem really obvious, but often students begin by writing an introduction which then bears no resemblance to the remainder of their assignment, or write a really promising introduction whose themes are not then reflected in the assignment, or unsupported by any evidence throughout the assignment. Similarly, conclusions which bear little resemblance to material which has gone before in the individual assignment often spoil a very promising piece of work. Therefore, before you start writing you need to organise your information into appropriate sections that relate to how you want to focus the assignment. You then write your assignment answer (or the first draft anyway) and then draft your introduction to be appropriate to your proposed answer, and your conclusion which should relate to what has gone before. Your introduction may need to be amended at the end of your assignment if the gist of your argument or research happens to change as you write your answer, or as your drafts change. Redrafting of conclusions (as you read and write) may also become necessary.

The Body of Your Arguments

You need logical progression of argument(s)

It is helpful to think of each section and paragraph as a mini-chapter and link them together as you go from one to the other. It is up to you to balance the emphasis of your arguments and research within the word count.

The most common mistake students make is simply to write all they know about a topic and hope for the best. Writing all you know or can find out about human rights and the 1998 Act is not going to get you the best mark.

Your information must be directed to the question and must answer the question that is posed and reflect the focus you give it and that focus must be a reasonable and sustainable argument or set of arguments with supporting evidence.

This assignment is non-Google-able! You will not find the answer to this on Google or any other website and if you do, we will, too. This brings us to another point you must reference your information - beware of your sources. The internet is useful but often inaccurate anyone can have a website and put material on it how do you know it is accurate?

The best sources of information remain those to which the Law Department subscribes. It goes without saying that if you use an idea from a book, article or website you must reference it accordingly.

The assignment is not asking for a general synopsis of the law relating to the Human Rights Act. Please focus your answer. The question is asking you whether it is true to say that the Human Rights Act 1998 provides strong protection of human rights to the population of the United Kingdom.

So, the question is suggesting that you consider what level of protection the 1998 Act provides to the population. You need to consider some of the areas studied during this module.

Students who obtain very low marks will probably be those who write all they know about this and simply then re-hash their course notes or use one single source and think that activity constitutes research for the assignment. This will be inadequate as you need to read widely, there have been plenty of reading suggestions provided throughout the course and in the Module Handbook.

In contrast, the students who will gain the higher marks are those who focus their writing on the issues raised by the question and decide the focus, which they sustain in their assignment by use of researched materials, properly referenced, which they use in their argument(s), ensuring that their arguments are cogent and balanced.

Critical Evaluation

Importantly, at undergraduate level, although you are not being asked to formulate full solutions or legal theories (although this might form part of an answer), you are being asked to demonstrate evidence of being able to independently research and analyse and evaluate the existing situation, using your materials to formulate your argument(s) in answer to the posed question in a sustained and sustainable assignment for which you provide evidence.

Independent research

This is critical and wide research is essential to score highly in this assignment. Check with the recommended journals for relevant articles on these issues and make careful use of appropriate websites. Read your lecture materials which also suggest some wider reading and there will be others, so do a search on the library electronic resources in your research.

Finally, THINK about what you have researched and how it is related to the posed question. You will need to manage your information as you go along by keeping it in separate piles on your desk/sub-folders on your computer. It goes without saying that if you have your material in electronic format, you need back-up to avoid potential disaster.

Your Conclusion

Your conclusion is an important part of your assignment and should not constitute a few sentences tacked on the end because you are delighted to finally have written 3,000 words. Your conclusion sets out a summary of the main points that you consider form the assignment answer. It must relate to what you have researched and argued in the body of your work and follow from your argument and relate back to the posed question.

Additional matters - Bibliography, Footnotes and Quotations and References Generally

A bibliography is a list of all the materials used in writing your assignment textbooks are an obvious source and should appear in the bibliography of your assignment. The information in your bibliography is likely to form the source of references in your footnotes. You may be noting in the bibliography something which you read but did not need to footnote because you do not quote from it or use the actual ideas within the essay. What you refer to in your assignment should appear in the footnote as a reference so that the reader can find it as you did.

The bibliography should include everything that you read, but not everything in the bibliography will appear as a footnote, because the footnotes will send the reader to something you have quoted, used, specifically referred to etc.

Beware of passing off the words or ideas of others as your own by failing to reference properly.

Footnotes are specific references referred to throughout the body of the assignment telling the reader where a specific idea or quotation has come from and must cite the page (or paragraph) or section of the document or text to which you are referring. The idea of a footnote is that the reader can go to the document or text you have referred to and find what you found.

The bibliography and footnotes do not form part of the word-count. Neither does the title to the assignment. If you use headings within the essay, they do form part of the word count. Do NOT use your footnotes to avoid the word count. If you misuse footnotes, then you are not following the guidance.

Using quotations can be useful, but do not pad out your answer with them unnecessarily, since you should use them where you cannot express something so well yourself. If you use an idea from what someone said or has written, then you still need to use a footnote to say where that idea came from, as otherwise you are giving the reader the impression that it is your own idea when you really need to identify your source. Passing off someone elses idea(s), words or whatever as your own (by not referencing them properly) is cheating. It is better to say where all your ideas come from and show that you have researched. Quotations do form part of the word count. Quotations are not a substitute for analysis and evaluation in your own words or using the material in assessing validity of an argument or idea.

You may use figures and tables IF you think this adds to your assignment answer (note it is not something you have to do). Consider carefully, though, because you can quote figures (giving exactly where they came from) without pages of figures or lots of tables. You cannot present your answer using only figures without explanation, analysis and comment. They are difficult to count, but note will be taken of them as material adding to your argument. It is not easy to be specific about the word count in such situations, but you may not use figures / tables and then still expect to be able to submit exactly 3,000 words. Tables or figures without comment are worth nothing. Be sensible about this.

The word limit is just that. Even one word over is OVER the limit. There is NO 10% allowance. For the sake of fairness, if you go over the word limit account will be taken of that since you are not following the rules set out for everyone. Someone else may have kept WITHIN the limits and endeavoured to make their argument within that limit. You should do the same. It would not be a limit if you could go over it.

It is unlikely to be exactly 3,000 words, so it is likely to be a little under that figure.

Submission

It is your responsibility to ensure that you know about the submission deadline date and time. It is your responsibility to get your assignment in on time and have proper confirmation of submission.

The Assignment should be 1.5 line spaced using font size 12 and should be proof-read carefully (spell-checker does not always produce accurate work)

GOOD LUCK