Media Law Report

The Media Law Report (MLR) is an annotated bibliography that you will produce on a team of five students. You will work on the report for the entire semester, guided by a step-by-step process. The entire MLR will count about 40-45 percent of your final grade. Although you work in teams and are graded by your teammates, the grade you receive on the MLR is almost entirely under your individual control.

Individual Points:
	Team Evaluations		50
	Case Report		50
Team Points:	Abstracts checks (2)		20
	Oral Presentation		30
	Final Report		20

I. Choose your MLR topic.

• By the date listed on the deadline , MLR Topics for the list of reports that you can choose from.
• As soon as you decide, e-mail me a first, second and third choice on topics.
• In class, the day you are told who's on your team, you will appoint a team reporter. The reporter needs to be very reliable and someone very comfortable with using e-mail.

II. Case Report

• The first assignment for your MLR topic is done individually, by you without your team's help.
• See Writing the Case Report . DON'T try to do this assignment without the guidelines. Follow the directions precisely.
• Next, you will meet in class with your group to discuss what each of you has found.
• Your team will confer to develop a query list that you all can use to do your research.
• The reporter must send the query list to me and to the other team members via e-mail.

Note: The query list is just an exercise to get you to think about what search terms you can use for your research. DO NOT feel "tied" to this list. It could be that everyone on the team will use the same query, or you might find a new query term through your early research that will give you good results. You are not bound by this list.

III. Abstracts

CHECK LIST: You must check and turn in the Abstracts Checklist with your abstracts. Click on the link and print it out.

• At the case report meeting, make abstract assignments.
• Team assignment: 20 abstracts, due in groups of 10 (see Deadline Schedule).
• Abstracts are a team project; if one member fails to do his work, the whole team suffers.
• By the end of the semester:
  • At least 10 of your 20 abstracts must be of law review articles.
  • At least 2 of your abstracts must be of books.
  • At least 5 of your abstracts must be of Web sites. (Web sites abstracts must include a printout of two pages of the site referred to.)

IV. First 10 Abstracts Check

• Turn in your first 10 abstracts
• Turn in a list of all the citations for those resources.
• Be sure to follow the correct citation form.
• ONE ABSTRACT TO A PAGE.
• Attach checklist (checked off accurately)

 Find the sources for your abstracts.

V. Plan Oral Presentation and Completion of MLR

• Prepare for the oral presentation
• See the guidelines for Oral Presentation.
• Complete any other team business you have.
• Team Reporter: Send a proposal for the Oral Presentation by the 3 p.m. the next day.

VI. Oral Presentation

A 10-minute team presentation in class. Team grade based mostly on the handout.

VII. Second Abstracts Check

• Submit 10 NEW abstracts
• Submit a new citation list.
• ALSO submit the citation list from the first abstracts check -- the one that I marked.
• Attach checklist (checked off accurately)

VII. Compile the Final Report

• Synopsis: As a team, you will write a synopsis of the research you have done, including a review of some of the more important resources you used, a synopsis of the cases you have read and an argument presenting all sides of the issues you have identified.
• Citations: Combine the two citation lists I've already marked into a new one, arranged by type of resource (Web, law review, book). ALSO, include your first two citation lists, the ones that I marked.
• Annotated bibliography: You will arrange your abstracts, edited as needed, in some logical way.
• Case Reports: Revised versions, if revisions are called for. Otherwise, the originals.

How to submit:

• Combine all into a notebook or bound book.
• Do not submit them "loose"
• Use a binder that will hold the pages together well and will allow easy turning of pages.
• DO NOT enclose any of the pages in plastic sleeves.

***SAVE all your papers. It's really smart to keep all your classwork on a disk or jump drive because you may need to revise papers.

Neatness counts -- it shows that you value your work.

All assignments MUST BE TYPED.

Double-space the paper and use a font not larger nor smaller than 10 or 12 points.