Writing a research paper in law

Theoretical overview

Legal research experience starts with legal writing on our own topics. A research paper is an expanded essay that presents your own interpretation or evaluation or argument. When you write an essay, you use everything that you personally know and have thought about a subject. Research papers require students and academics to locate information about a topic (that is, to conduct research), take a stand on that topic, and provide support (or evidence) for that position in an organized report.

The term research paper may also refer to a scholarly article that contains the results of original research or an evaluation of research conducted by others. Most scholarly articles must undergo a process of peer review before they can be accepted for publication in an academic journal.

Steps for making research paper

• Selection of Research area

Selecting a research area is the very first step in writing your paper. It is important for you to choose a research area that is interesting to you professionally, as well as, personally. Experienced researchers note that “a topic in which you are only vaguely interested at the start is likely to become a topic in which you have no interest and with which you will fail to produce your best work”. Ideally, your research area should relate to your future career path and have a potential to contribute to the achievement of your career objectives.

• Writing an abstract

An abstract is a short summary of your (published or unpublished) research paper, usually about a paragraph (c. 6-7 sentences, 150-250 words) long. A well-written abstract serves multiple purposes:

• an abstract lets readers get the gist or essence of your paper or article quickly, in order to decide whether to read the full paper;
• an abstract prepares readers to follow the detailed information, analyses, and arguments in your full paper;
• And, later, an abstract helps readers remember key points from your paper.

Abstracts contain most of the following kinds of information in brief form. The body of your paper will, of course, develop and explain these ideas much more fully. As you will see in the samples below, the proportion of your abstract that you devote to each kind of information—and the sequence of that information—will vary, depending on the nature and genre of the paper that you are summarizing in your abstract. And in some cases, some of this information is implied, rather than stated explicitly. 

• Literature review

Writing a literature review in the pre or post-qualification, will be required to undertake a literature review, either as part of a course of study, as a key step in the research process. A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. It demands a range of skills, such as learning how to define topics for exploration, acquiring skills of literature searching and retrieval, developing the ability to analyse and synthesize data as well as becoming adept at writing and reporting, often within a limited time scale. The aim of this article is to present a step-by-step approach to writing a literature review research paper to facilitate student and novice reviewers’ understanding. A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.

• Formulation of research hypothesis

A research hypothesis is a statement of expectation or prediction that will be tested by research. A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. For some research projects, you might have to write several hypotheses that address different aspects of your research question.

A hypothesis is not just a guess – it should be based on existing theories and knowledge. It also has to be testable, which means you can support or refute it through scientific research methods (such as experiments, observations and statistical analysis of data).

You need to make sure your hypothesis is specific and testable. If your research involves statistical hypothesis testing, you will also have to write a null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is the default position that there is no association between the variables. The null hypothesis is written as H₀, while the alternative hypothesis is H₁ or H_a.

• H₀: The number of lectures attended by first-year students has no effect on their final exam scores.
• H₁: The number of lectures attended by first-year students has a positive effect on their final exam scores.

• Research methodology

The methodology in a research paper, thesis paper or dissertation is the section in which you describe the actions you took to investigate and research a problem and your rationale for the specific processes and techniques you use within your research to identify, collect and analyze information that helps you understand the problem.

The methodology section of your research paper allows readers to evaluate the overall validity and reliability of your study and gives important insight into two key elements of your research: your data collection and analysis processes and your rationale for conducting your research. When writing a methodology for a research paper, it’s important to keep the discussion clear and succinct and write in the past tense.

Quantitative and qualitative methodologies

There are two main approaches to methodology; quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research methodology relies on concrete facts and data-driven research, and qualitative research methodology relies on non-data-driven research, such as surveys and polls, to identify patterns and trends.

Data collection process

The methodology also includes an explanation of your data collection process. For instance, if you perform experimental tests on samples, conduct surveys or interviews or use existing data to form new studies, this section of your methodology details what you do and how you do it. Several key details to include in this section of a methodology focus on how you design your experiment or survey, how you collect and organize data and what kind of data you measure. You may also include specific criteria for collecting qualitative and quantitative data.

Data analysis process

Your data analysis approaches are also important in your methodology. Your data analysis describes the methods you use to organize, categorize and study the information you collect through your research processes. For instance, when explaining quantitative methods, you might include details about your data preparation and organization methods along with a brief description of the statistical tests you use. When describing your data analysis processes regarding qualitative methods, you may focus more on how you categorize, code and apply language, text and other observations during your analysis.

Finding results

The results section of a research paper tells the reader what you found, while the discussion section tells the reader what your findings mean. The results section should present the facts in an academic and unbiased manner, avoiding any attempt at analyzing or interpreting the data.

Conclusion & suggestions

A well-written conclusion provides you with several important opportunities to demonstrate your overall understanding of the research problem to the reader. These include:

1. Presenting the last word on the issues you raised in your paper. Just as the introduction gives a first impression to your reader, the conclusion offers a chance to leave a lasting impression. Do this, for example, by highlighting key points in your analysis or findings.
2. Summarizing your thoughts and conveying the larger implications of your study. The conclusion is an opportunity to succinctly answer the “so what?” question by placing the study within the context of past research about the topic you’ve investigated.
3. Demonstrating the importance of your ideas. Don’t be shy. The conclusion offers you a chance to elaborate on the significance of your findings.
4. Introducing possible new or expanded ways of thinking about the research problem. This does not refer to introducing new information [which should be avoided], but to offer new insight and creative approaches for framing/contextualizing the research problem based on the results of your study.
5. Recommendations are arguably the most important part of the analysis phase—this is where you’ll suggest specific interventions or strategies to address the issues and constraints identified in the assessment.
6. Recommendations should directly respond to key findings arrived at through data collection and analysis. A process of prioritization is essential to narrowing down findings, and once this is done, recommendations should be developed that align with the most important finding

• References

In the context of writing a research paper, a reference, also called a citation or source, identifies a source of information used by the essay’s author. References are essential for any piece of academic work because they allow readers to verify the accuracy of the information in the essay by locating the information’s source. Textual works, data sets, audio visual media, and online media may all be used as references. Some examples include:

• journal articles and other periodicals
• chapters in books
• images, graphs, and charts
• tables and diagrams
• podcasts
• videos
• social media posts
• websites

Sources that should not be included in a reference page include personal communication information (such as names of people interviewed for an essay), quotations from study research participants, and general mentions of websites, software, or apps that are familiar to most readers.

Points to remember

• The term research paper may also refer to a scholarly article that contains the results of original research or an evaluation of research conducted by others.
• Selecting a research area is the very first step in writing your paper. It is important for you to choose a research area that is interesting to you professionally, as well as, personally.
• An abstract is a short summary of your (published or unpublished) research paper, usually about a paragraph (c. 6-7 sentences, 150-250 words) long.
• A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis.
• A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find.
• The methodology in a research paper, thesis paper or dissertation is the section in which you describe the actions you took to investigate and research a problem and your rationale for the specific processes and techniques you use within your research to identify, collect and analyze information that helps you understand the problem.
• The results section of a research paper tells the reader what you found, while the discussion section tells the reader what your findings mean. 
• A well-written conclusion provides you with several important opportunities to demonstrate your overall understanding of the research problem to the reader.