PAPER PRESENTATIONS

HOW DO PAPER PRESENTATIONS WORK?

The paper presentation competition helps you build up both your written and oral communication skills in a legal context. Two components are involved: a written paper on a legal issue and a presentation of that paper to an audience and a panel of judges.

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Competitors are required to submit a paper of 2000-3000 words in length – this does not need to be written specifically for the competition, and can be a modified essay from an assessment. As with all tertiary papers, the word limit is exclusive of the bibliography, footnotes, titles and subtitles. However the use of any and all explanatory footnotes does count towards the word limit. In terms of referencing, the paper is to conform to the most current edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation.

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The oral presentation is limited to 15 minutes; the primary aim is to communicate the paper’s arguments in a logical and succinct manner. There will be no questions from the bench during the presentation; however, there will be a ten minute questioning session with the judges at the conclusion of the presentation. Students may opt to utilise a whiteboard, overhead projector or a customised power point to assist or supplement their presentation.