An Overview of the Challenges Facing Law Student in Research Writing Process: A Guide towards Good Research Writing

Abstract

Legal research is a demanding activity requiring legal researchers to be curious, persistent, flexible and serious. These attributes are not universal to all lawyers or law students; rather it depends on different background and individual ability in research writing process.[1] The legal research is under immense pressures especially in the aspect of writing process. The quality of research papers written by most of law students has raised many doubts to stake-holders on the aspect of the contents and standard. It is apparent that research writing is a tedious process which requires wide knowledge of writing skills. The writing process is considered to be the core activity in research preparation which involves systematic procedures to be followed by the researcher. The major challenge in research writing process is on how to present the assembled relevant information in a single document known as a research paper or dissertation or thesis.

This article intends to reveal various stages involved in research writing process which ought to be known by the law students in order to improve legal research writing. These stages if are not well known to law students and may lead to poor research writing which cannot contribute significantly in improvement of law.

This article further explores, the challenges facing law students in research writing process. These impediments include but not limited to, lack of systematic guidance on writing the research, poor writing skills, weak data analysis knowledge and in-adequate references or guidance on part of students on how to go about with their research.

Finally, this work aims at laying down a systematic guide for good research writing to law students which will act as a point of reference to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is the positive expectation of the author that, this article will reduce the current challenges facing law students in legal research writing process.