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How to score well in jurisprudence?
Hello everyone! Is there anyone who can suggest me how I can score very high in Juris. For info., I am currently doing my LL.B 3rd year under the University Of London Internatinal Programmes. Any advice would be highly appreciable. I am looking forward to it...
Original post by FMQ
but you " have had finished my LL.B." (sic) so why are you asking this?
Sorry "almost" was missing!!! It was not done on purpose.
Thanks for pointing out.Original post by asuraiya84
Hello everyone! Is there anyone who can suggest me how I can score very high in Juris. For info., I am currently doing my LL.B 3rd year under the University Of London Internatinal Programmes. Any advice would be highly appreciable. I am looking forward to it...
I generally find that learning and understanding the main ideas, concepts, thought processes, and arguments of whoever you studied (I'll take a wild guess here and list the usually subjects [ deep breath] - Marx, Weber, Schmitt, Hobbes, Foucault, Locke, Kant, O.W. Holmes, Smith, Justinian, Plato, Descartes, Hegel, and a few more I've probably forgotten), and the criticisims of their arguments.
All of that, plus being a talented BSer couldn't hurt
I was looking back through the thread - I don't know whether you still need an answer to this question.
The first thing to bear in mind is that getting a high mark in jurisprudence is going to be different to other aspects of legal studies as it is essentially legal philosophy. You are going to need to do more than to learn a bunch of theorists and reel off their theories and criticisms of them.
Philosophy is a holistic discipline. People who get the highest marks on it tend to take an essay question, focus on what the essay question is asking them, and then synthesise a *few* ideas and theories into a strong argument that answers the question, whilst dealing with objections and criticisms along the way. You need to be brave and commit to a viewpoint, and argue for it consistently throughout.
You also need to be wary of the tendency (I often see this with law students) to 'dump' everything that they know about on the topic on the paper in order to impress the examiner. It is likely that your examiner is a legal theorist, and they will not be impressed by this. They're looking for evidence of highly critical thinking, especially if you want a 1.1, which is so obviously informed by a knowledge of the literature you barely need to express it in the paper. Do not overload your paper with facts, theories and criticisms where it doesn't serve your purpose. Feel free as well, to be creative- come up with your own ideas and criticisms of existing philosophers. That always goes down well. Remember that if you argue from too many different angles you risk not being able to go into enough depth and developing contradictions in your own argument.
Message me if you have any other questions on this!
The first thing to bear in mind is that getting a high mark in jurisprudence is going to be different to other aspects of legal studies as it is essentially legal philosophy. You are going to need to do more than to learn a bunch of theorists and reel off their theories and criticisms of them.
Philosophy is a holistic discipline. People who get the highest marks on it tend to take an essay question, focus on what the essay question is asking them, and then synthesise a *few* ideas and theories into a strong argument that answers the question, whilst dealing with objections and criticisms along the way. You need to be brave and commit to a viewpoint, and argue for it consistently throughout.
You also need to be wary of the tendency (I often see this with law students) to 'dump' everything that they know about on the topic on the paper in order to impress the examiner. It is likely that your examiner is a legal theorist, and they will not be impressed by this. They're looking for evidence of highly critical thinking, especially if you want a 1.1, which is so obviously informed by a knowledge of the literature you barely need to express it in the paper. Do not overload your paper with facts, theories and criticisms where it doesn't serve your purpose. Feel free as well, to be creative- come up with your own ideas and criticisms of existing philosophers. That always goes down well. Remember that if you argue from too many different angles you risk not being able to go into enough depth and developing contradictions in your own argument.
Message me if you have any other questions on this!
Further to what's been said above, I'd say it's important to focus on the basics, i.e. show you have a sound working knowledge of the exact stuff they tell you to read. I say this because it can be very tempting to read around the subject by going beyond the syllabus (it's quite interesting, after all!), but examiners are looking to see that you understand the material they gave you and any extra reading is likely to lose you marks for being "Irrelevant(TM)". It's an undergrad degree at the end of the day, you're not going to get a nobel peace prize.
Thank you everyone!!!
Original post by TimmyJ
Further to what's been said above, I'd say it's important to focus on the basics, i.e. show you have a sound working knowledge of the exact stuff they tell you to read. I say this because it can be very tempting to read around the subject by going beyond the syllabus (it's quite interesting, after all!), but examiners are looking to see that you understand the material they gave you and any extra reading is likely to lose you marks for being "Irrelevant(TM)". It's an undergrad degree at the end of the day, you're not going to get a nobel peace prize.
I think it highly unlikely that mentioning extra material is simply going to lose marks for being irrelevant. Mentioning irrelevant material, from the required reading or from another source, will unquestionably lose you marks. But showing depth of knowledge and broader reading--while focusing laser-like on the particular question--is probably the only way to get top marks in a paper.
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