Tutorial Letter 102/2/2018

Legal Research Methodology

LME3701

Semester 2

Department of Criminal and Procedural Law

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

This tutorial letter contains important

information about this module.

Define tomorrow

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Contents
1 INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE ............................................................................................ 2

2 FEEDBACK ON ASSIGNMENT 02 ........................................................................................... 2

3 NATURE OF ASSIGNMENT 03 ................................................................................................ 2

4 SUBMISSION OF ASSIGNMENT 03 (PORTFOLIO OF EVIDENCE) ....................................... 3

4.1 Weighting of Assignment 03 ............................................................................................... 3

4.2 Due date for Assignment 03 ............................................................................................... 3

4.3 How to submit Assignment 03 ............................................................................................ 4

4.4 Unique number for Assignment 03 ..................................................................................... 4

5 REQUIREMENTS FOR ASSIGNMENT 03 ............................................................................... 4

5.1 Content of Assignment 03 .................................................................................................. 4

5.2 Layout and formatting ......................................................................................................... 5

6 SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATION ......................................................................................... 6

7 ACADEMIC HONESTY DECLARATION .................................................................................. 6

8 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 6

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Dear Student

1 INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE

The purpose of this tutorial letter is to clarify the requirements for Assignment 03 – your portfolio
examination – which is your final assessment in this module.

This tutorial letter also contains information about the supplementary examination for those of you
who qualified for a supplementary examination after submitting Assignment 03 for the first
semester of 2018. Please read the section under “supplementary examination” carefully if you are
writing a supplementary examination.

2 FEEDBACK ON ASSIGNMENT 02

You may expect feedback on Assignment 02 in two formats: First, Tutorial Letter 202/2/2018,
containing general feedback on Assignment 02, will be made available on myUnisa; secondly,
you will receive brief individualised feedback on Assignment 02 from the marker to whom your
Assignment 02 was allocated for marking.

You are required to consider both the general feedback AND the individualised feedback
for purposes of finalising your Assignment 03. Do not expect the marker of your Assignment
02 to repeat what is said in Tutorial Letter 202/2/2018 when providing individualised comments.
Ultimately, the responsibility for ensuring that you comply with ALL the technical requirements and
guidelines provided in the study material for LME3701 lies with you.

3 NATURE OF ASSIGNMENT 03

You will recall that Assignment 02 was a draft research proposal.

Assignment 03 is your FINAL RESEARCH PROPOSAL on the same theme that you chose for
Assignment 02. Whilst Assignment 03 is basically an improved version of Assignment 02,
there are at least two aspects in which it differs from Assignment 02:

 A list of preliminary sources (with a short summary of each) was required for Assignment
02, whereas no such list of preliminary sources is required for Assignment 03. Why
is this? You were not expected to have fully incorporated your sources in Assignment 02,
because you were still in the early stages of your research. You merely had to convince
us that you had done some initial research and that you had a basic idea of what each of
the sources that you had found could contribute to your research. By the time you do
Assignment 03, you ought to have already studied the sources that appeared on the list of
preliminary sources in greater depth and detail, and you should have incorporated
whatever you have learnt from those sources in the text of your research proposal. Since
you are expected to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas contained in your
work, the sources consulted (including those on the list of preliminary sources) will
inevitably be cited in the footnotes to your research proposal as well as the bibliography.
All citations should comply to the letter with the referencing style set out in section C of
the study guide.
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 Assignment 02 had a length restriction of 10 pages, whereas Assignment 03 may not be
more than 12 pages in length. The increased length provision applies to accommodate
the writing up of the information that you gathered from the sources that you consulted.

You will use the feedback that you received on Assignment 02 to finalise Assignment 03. See
section 2 above.

Please note that the mark that you obtain for Assignment 02 is NOT an indication of the mark
that you will receive for Assignment 03. Assignment 03 is assessed afresh, as if it is a final
research proposal that is submitted to a study leader for consideration. If you submit an
unmodified copy of your Assignment 02 as Assignment 03, you should expect to get a lower
mark for it than you got for Assignment 02. When marking your Assignment 03, the marker will
take into account that you have had the benefit of comments and feedback when writing the final
research proposal, and that you have had the opportunity and time to improve the quality of your
work. Your Assignment 03 is therefore expected to be of a higher standard than Assignment 02.
Moreover, sources consulted are expected to be more fully and sensibly integrated in your final
research proposal.

4 SUBMISSION OF ASSIGNMENT 03 (PORTFOLIO OF EVIDENCE)

4.1 Weighting of Assignment 03

Note that, in this module, you will not write an examination at an examination venue. There is
no examination paper consisting of questions to which you have to provide answers. This
module uses a non-venue based method of examination; the summative assessment for
LME3701 takes the form of a portfolio of evidence. Assignment 03 constitutes a
portfolio of evidence for purposes of summative assessment.

Assignment 03 will contribute 60% towards your final mark for this module. Your year mark will
contribute 40%.

Remember that if you obtain less than 40% in the examination (i.e., Assignment 03), your year
mark will not be taken into account when calculating your final mark for this module.

4.2 Due date for Assignment 03

Assignment 03 must be submitted by no later than 12 October 2018.

Please note that NO LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED. Do not contact us with
requests for extension, as it will not be granted under any circumstances.

Having regard to the above, it is imperative that you plan the submission of your assignment
carefully and aim to submit it a day or two before the due date. Bottlenecks may be experienced
on the due date.

Note further that you have to take full responsibility for what you submit as Assignment 03.
MAKE SURE THAT THE DOCUMENT YOU SUBMIT IS INDEED THE PORTFOLIO FOR
LME3701 AND NOT WORK RELATING TO ANOTHER MODULE. If you submit the wrong
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document for purposes of the LME3701 portfolio examination (i.e. anything else than your final
research proposal, for instance an assignment intended for another module) you will get 0% for
your portfolio. NO EXCEPTIONS WILL BE MADE.

4.3 How to submit Assignment 03

Please submit your Assignment 03 via myUnisa. Note that we ONLY ACCEPT PDF-FORMAT
assignments for online marking purposes. Do not lock or otherwise disable the editing functions
on your PDF assignment, because it prevents us from marking and commenting on your
assignment.

The submission tab on myUnisa for Assignment 03 will open on 5 October 2018.

Please only use the postal service if it is not possible for you to submit Assignment 03 via
myUnisa. If you do submit via post, note that Assignment 03 must still be typed and must REACH
US by the due date set for Assignment 03.

This is an individual assignment to be completed by you without the help of other students or
study groups. Academic dishonesty and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Refer to Unisa’s policy on
plagiarism. Plagiarism by a student is considered serious misconduct which could result in
sanctions such as failing of the assignment or module, or being barred from the institution.

4.4 Unique number for Assignment 03

The unique number for the assignment for this semester is reflected below. Please ensure that
you use the correct unique number when you submit Assignment 03.

PORTFOLIO: DUE DATE AND UNIQUE NUMBERS

Assignment description Due date Unique number
Assignment 03 (examination portfolio) FRIDAY 12 October 2018 748980

5 REQUIREMENTS FOR ASSIGNMENT 03

If you registered for the second semester of 2018, you would have completed Assignment 02
based on one of the research themes set out in Tutorial Letter 101/3/2018.

You would have received commentary and feedback on your draft research proposal that you
submitted as Assignment 02. For Assignment 03 (your portfolio examination), you now have to
use the commentary you received for Assignment 02 and submit a final research proposal based
on the same topic selected for Assignment 02 in the correct format. See section 2 and 3 above.

5.1 Content of Assignment 03

Your Assignment 03 must contain the following:

 Prescribed title page as per section D of the study guide

 Working title
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 Content page as per section D of the study guide
 Academic honesty declaration

Your research proposal must contain the following headings:

1 Introduction
2 Problem statement
3 Hypothesis
4 Points of departure and assumptions
5 Conceptualisation of central research themes
6 Proposed chapter outlay
7 Projected time-frame for submission
8 Description of research methodology
9 Conclusion
10 Bibliography

5.2 Layout and formatting

Your Assignment 03 (portfolio examination) must comply with the following requirements in terms
of layout and formatting.

 Your assignment must be typed. No hand-written assignments will be accepted.

 The text must be typed in font type Arial and font size 12.
 Footnotes must also be in Arial, but in font size 10.
 The text of the document must be justified, in 1.5 spacing and with 12 pt after each
paragraph.
 Footnotes must be justified and in single spacing, with a "hanging indent" of 1.25 cm.
 There should be no space between footnotes.
 The left margin must be 3 cm, and all other margins must be 2.5 cm.
 The title of the document must be centred and in ALL CAPS and bold.
 All headings must be aligned left, in Arial font size 12 and numbered numerically (i.e. 1,
1.1, 1.1.1, etc.).
o Main heading are in bold and ALL CAPS AND BOLD.
 Example: 1. MAIN HEADING
o Secondary headings in bold and sentence case.
 Example: 1.1 Secondary heading
o Tertiary headings in bold, italics and sentence case.
 Example: 1.1.1 Tertiary headings
 Insert pages numbers – bottom right hand corner of the page.
 The assignment is limited to a maximum of twelve (12) typed pages, cover page, content
page, bibliography and academic honesty declaration EXCLUDED.
 Your assignment must contain proper referencing by way of footnotes and a bibliography
of sources. You must provide evidence that you can cite a variety of sources (e.g., case
law, legislation, books, journal articles, etc.).

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6 SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATION

If you were registered for LME3701 in the first semester of 2018 and qualified for a supplementary
examination, you will now submit your portfolio in the second semester.

The supplementary examination in this module entails the submission of an corrected and
improved research proposal. You will submit your portfolio (the final research proposal) on the
same topic that you chose for the first semester.

You have to comply with the same format and layout requirements as set out in section 5 above.
Please note the unique number below that you have to use if you are submitting a portfolio for the
purposes of a supplementary examination. Note that if you use the incorrect unique number
your portfolio will not be registered as a supplementary examination and your portfolio will
not be marked.

SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATION PORTFOLIO: DUE DATE AND UNIQUE NUMBERS

Assignment description Due date Unique number
Assignment 03 (examination portfolio) FRIDAY 12 October 2018 778314

7 ACADEMIC HONESTY DECLARATION

Please ensure that you attach the academic honestly declaration that you find on the last page of
this tutorial letter to your Assignment 03.

You will lose marks if you do not attach the academic honesty declaration.

8 CONCLUSION

We remind you to consult the discussion forum on myUnisa for this module as many questions
about the content and format for the research proposal have been posted and addressed there.

We wish you all the best with your final research proposal.

Kind regards

Dr L Pienaar
Adv LC Coetzee

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ACADEMIC HONESTY DECLARATION

1. I understand what academic dishonesty entails and am aware of Unisa's policies
in this regard.
2. I declare that this assignment is my own, original work. Where I have used
someone else's work, I have indicated this by using the prescribed style of
referencing. Every contribution to, and quotation in, this assignment from the
work or works of other people has been referenced according to this style.
3. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the
intention of passing it off as his or her own work.
4. I did not make use of another student's work and submitted it as my own.

NAME: ……………………………………………………………………….
SIGNATURE: ………………………………………………………………….
STUDENT NUMBER: ………………………………………………………
MODULE CODE: ...............................................................................................
DATE………………………………………………………………………….
MARK RECEIVED FOR ASSIGNMENT 01: ……………………………………….

MARK RECEIVED FOR ASSIGNMENT 02: ………………………………………..

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