since this essay are Australian-focused, you are strongly encouraged to use and work around Australian sources including high quality secondary sources (journal articles, reports, regulatory guidance) and primary sources (cases and legislation). Please keep online newsletters, law firm commentaries, blog posts etc to a minimum
Organisation and Structure – A research essay has five broad parts:
1. Introduction: An introduction should be a succinct summary of the essay. Introductions should be 400-600 words in length. The marker should, after reading the introduction, have a clear understanding of the topic and a broad overview of the problems/issues and the student’s methodology used to address those problems/ issues.
2. Background: Depending on the topic, setting out relevant background may be necessary, for example, defining key terms or concepts, identifying and briefly discussing relevant law or industry practice or government policy, identifying and summarizing published materials in the area, etc.
Discuss what is significant, necessary and relevant to your analysis. Avoid irrelevancies.
3. Identify the problems/issues: Clearly set out and discuss the problems and issues identified. The use of subheadings for each distinct problem is useful.
4. Resolving the problems/issues; methodology: Having identified the problems/issues you should identify the methodology used to analyse/discuss/consider/resolve the problems/issues. In Parts 3 and 4 (the key components of any essay) an examiner will look for various features including: your arguments; identifying and critically discussing other published works in the area; identifying the significant and important problems/issues; consistency and logical development of argument; consideration of the concepts applicable to solving the problem; original research/ideas; how you use existing knowledge and relate that to new knowledge; the application of theoretical ideas to industry practice; critical evaluation of existing case law (where relevant); etc.
