Purpose: This assessment is designed:
1.to expose you to court procedures and to allow you to develop a better understanding of how the law is enforced in Australia;
2.to give you experience in researching for information for use in a report on your findings in respect of the conduct of criminal and civil proceedings in the Australian court system.
3.to give you experience in organising and structuring a report on your findings in respect of the conduct of criminal and civil proceedings in the Australian court system.
At the completion of this assessment you should have a better understanding of the Australian legal system and in particular how the courts operate within that system. This assignment is linked to the Learning Outcome which seeks to develop a knowledge and understanding of the legal system and sources of law in Australia. You should also have a better understanding of how to research for information for a report and how to utilise that information to provide an organised and structured report.
Researching the Assignment
Basic information will be provided in tutorial 1 and this can also be obtained from chapter 2 of the prescribed text book, Understanding Business Law (9 ed) by Graw and others.
Further information can be obtained from the internet. It is suggested that you search words such as civil proceedings in Australian courts and criminal proceedings in Australian courts or other combinations of these key words. The results from these searches will give you more than adequate information to complete this assignment.
Additional information may be obtained from your local library or you may be able to visit a local court, if there is one close to where you reside. You do not need to pursue either of these avenues to do this assignment. The basic information and material from the internet as suggested in the paragraph above will more than suffice. If you do decide to visit a local court then tips on court etiquette are provided at the end of this document. Please read these carefully before attending your local court.
Writing the Assignment
Your assignment should be no more than 1000 WORDS. As you are not law students, you are not expected to produce a legal assignment. Difficult legal terminology is to be avoided. Instead, you should pay particular attention to punctuation, spelling, grammar and expression, as these will be a focus for the marking. Assignments should be double line spaced in essay form (not in point form).
You should write in the third person. Ensure you construct full sentences and that you set your spell-check on your computers to ‘English’ and NOT ‘American’ spelling. Marks may be lost for the American version of spelling. Subheadings are encouraged and these do not form part of the word count. You must reference the material, which you use in your assignment by providing a bibliography at the end of your work. For those students, who require assistance in preparing a bibliography the following link will help:
https://www.sac.sa.edu.au/Library/Library/Bibliography/bibliography.htm
Referencing in the essay assignment may also be necessary because it is important to attribute words, thoughts and ideas to their author. If you do not do this you may be seen as claiming the words, thoughts and/or ideas as your own. This is called plagiarism.
Here are some very basic rules for referencing in your court essay assignment.
You need to distinguish between paraphrasing and quoting. Paraphrasing is when you use another person’s ideas or thoughts but not the same words. Using the same words or very similar words is quoting.
If you are paraphrasing then at the end of the paraphrase you need to place the author’s surname and year of publication of his work in brackets. Example – (Dunbar, 2013)
If you are quoting then if it is a short quotation of less than 40 words, you need to use double quotation marks and also add a page reference. Example – (Dunbar, 2013 p. 5)
If the quotation is more than 40 words then DO NOT USE quotation marks. You should set the quotation in an indented (about half an inch) free standing block of text. You should use double line spacing to separate the quotation from the text of your work.