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How to get through jurisprudence?

suffocation1992

I absolutely loathe this module. Anything I read for this module I can't seem to take in or understand. It's like I am reading another language. I find it utterly boring and impractical and really don't understand why I'm forced to study this at my university.

Anyhoo, is this normal? It's very different from the other modules I have taken. Can I get a 2:1 by doing the bare minimum reading for it? Can you pass by not really referencing academics? My seminars so far have been quite weird and useless, mainly people sitting around chatting and making things up about why we do x.

Reply 1

Forum User

Well, I'm sure you're going to need to understand whatever the key books you have been asked to read are - whether that be Hart, Dworkin, Rawls, Finnis, whatever (I suppose they are the most likely ones). You are certainly going to need to reference those academics whose books you have read. Whether you need to mention journal articles and display much wider reading I suppose depends on the uni, I only mentioned two articles outside the core reading in my written exam, one by Raz and one by Kramer but I'm at a comparatively low-ranked uni.

If you aren't taking much in then try a basic book to start with - 'Central Issues in Jurisprudence' by Neil Simmonds. It's pretty good at explaining what the arguments and theories are, then you can go from there and read the books that are relevant to your syllabus. And Simmonds is definitely no mug, he teaches Juris at Cambridge.

And yes, it is completely different to every other area of law :smile: