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Cyberspace
Law Seminar, Spring 2009
Writing
Timeline Mileposts
[revised 20081213]
NOTE:
What
you need to have prepared by each of these mileposts is laid out more fully
in the "Writing
Assignments" Web page. This page merely refers to the mileposts
(deadlines) by which those drafts need to be submitted. (The reason for
the 11:30 a.m. deadlines is that my assistant, Lisa Schomberg, only works
half time, 8:00 a.m. until noon, each day.)
-
The first two weeks -- from
the time you first see this Web page until January 28 -- are the most important
and demanding period for your seminar paper. This is the time during which
you should be doing a substantial amount of "pre-research" and research
each day, exploring on the Internet and elsewhere the range of possible
topics, discussing your options with me (in person or by e-mail), perhaps
changing or refining your choice, and ultimately settling on your actual
topic. Clearly, it is not something that can be done the night before it
is due.
-
Wednesday, January 28, at
11:30 a.m.
is the final deadline to conclude your two-week-long topic selection
process, including your research, conferences or other exchanges with the
instructor, your many revisions, and final selection. By the 28th you are
to have settled on a sufficiently narrowed topic, and turn it in to my
assistant before she leaves that day -- a topic that you and I have
already tentatively agreed upon. Once I have formally approved and
signed off on your topic . . .
-
The next two weeks –
January 28-February 11 – is the two-week period during which you should
do enough research that you are able to hold a conference with me during
the week of February 16th to discuss how your topic is holding up and your
research is coming along. See "Conferences"
for more insight as to what that involves.
-
The outline. (See
"Outlines.")
This will then give you
three weeks to put together either
(1) a detailed (at least three-level, i.e., I, A, 1) outline of
how you propose to organize your paper, or (2) if your hatred of
outlines is so severe that it interferes with your doing your best work,
and with my prior permission, a rough draft of your paper [with the possibility
of a – very limited – option of indicating, within brackets, what
will be inserted at those places where there are brief omissions]. The
outlining option is very highly recommended.
Note the relative
amounts of time allocated for outlining (three weeks) and "writing" (10
days to three weeks). This is premised on the assumption that you will
have completed something like 80 percent of the tasks of research and "writing"
during your process of "outlining" -- if the latter includes much-to-most
of your research, thought and analysis, organizing and re-organizing your
structure and flow, and even some early stabs at writing some of the sub-sections
of the paper. Based on past experience, If you don't take the outlining
seriously, and give it this kind of time and attention, you will find it
very difficult to turn out a quality paper in the time allocated for "writing."
-
Outlines are due March 4
by 11:30 a.m.
This will give us some additional time for our . . .
-
Conferences March 6, 9 and
10 that are
designed to enable you to get me committed to the approach you are taking,
as represented in your detailed outline.
-
Spring break is March
16-20.
-
First final draft preparation,
additional research. You will then have from March 23rd (or from March
11th if you choose to use spring break week that way) until April 3rd
to do the additional research and writing necessary to prepare your formal
"first final draft." Hopefully, most of the work is already behind you
as a result of your detailed outline. If you've done that, the "writing"
is little more than a "fill in the blanks in your outline" exercise --
plus re-writing, and re-writing again, polishing your prose, checking citations
and Blue Book form, and so forth.
Recall that a "first
final draft" is a final, not a "rough," draft. It should be the
best work of which you are capable, something you would be proud
to show a potential future employer. This draft is solely your work product
and is, therefore, the major part of the research paper process for purposes
of assigning a grade. (Subsequent drafts may include such direct input
from me and the Writing Center as you may find useful and are, therefore,
less representative of work uniquely yours.) If you've done your research
early, and have a sufficiently detailed outline, writing your first final
draft should be the fun part: putting into prose what you've already thought
through and organized, revising and rewriting as you go, tweaking here
and there with your words the way a potter does with her clay.
First final drafts are
due April 3rd by 11:30 a.m.
[20081213]