Expository Writing Requirement

All students must successfully complete a substantial research paper under faculty supervision. The paper should be clearly written and substantially free of grammar and citation errors. Normally, the page length should be a minimum of 20-25 pages.

To fulfill this requirement, students should write a research paper in which they (1) identify a problem or question they believe to be important and demonstrate that importance to the reader; (2) research and analyze the response or relationship of the legal system to the issues or similar issues, with the research to include primary sources; (3) if appropriate, evaluate the success or failure of efforts to deal with the problem or respond to the question; and (4) propose and defend a solution to the problem or present a sensible way of thinking about the question.

Normally, this requirement is fulfilled by completing a course in which such a paper is required. The Expository Writing Requirement also may be satisfied through Directed Research (993) or by a comment or other article written for the Tennessee Law Review (996) or Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law (995) if these projects are approved by a faculty member as meeting the standards above. The Expository Writing Requirement may be fulfilled by a paper assigned in a course also used to fulfill another graduation requirement. The Expository Writing Requirement may not be fulfilled in conjunction with non-law courses approved for College of Law credit.