1. With data is now one of the most valuable commercial assets in sport, critically evaluate the use of copyright, database rights and “trade secrets” as means of legal protection.

ESSAY INSTRUCTIONS

2500 words including references (10% more or less will not affect your grade negatively but anything over it will decrease your grade).

Referencing

  • Every piece of information you provide that is not your own has to be attributed to certain source – use footnotes (not endnotes, not in-text references).
  • Do not provide just the source, but also add the precise information about page number (or nr. of paragraph, or article, etc).
  • Have your web links take me exactly to the page where you found the information cited, and not to the general home page. It is your responsibility that your links work.

Sources

  • Do not use Wikipedia, Youtube, and similar sites as your sources.
  • Do not use a source if there is a better source available. So the rule is that you should use the best available source. For example, if there is an academic article or a book, do not use blogs or newspaper articles to support your statement.
  • Sources of best quality are academic articles (you can find them in Westlaw database or law journals), books (pay a visit to the library), judgments of the courts and arbitral tribunals, legislation, regulations and official documents, academic commentaries, studies and research by any institution, etc.

Direct citations

  • Avoid direct citations and use them only when absolutely necessary and to the extent necessary.
  • If you use direct citations, enclose them in quotation marks and give a reference to a source.
  • Copy-pasting too many sentences from your sources and putting them in quotation marks will reduce the quality of the paper.
  • Do not quote the entire articles from the legislation, a reference is usually enough

Structure

  • First write Introduction or Background. It should start as a broader intro to the topic, explanation of what the essay is all about, and give your reader a map of the paper. This should not take more than 10% of your paper or so.
  • Body of the essay. This is up to you and your writing style. Use subtitles to provide structure and clarity. Your line of thoughts and arguments has to logically flow one after another, do not jump from one issue onto another but connect it logically to the preceding text.
  • Lastly, write Conclusion. Do not introduce any new points and do not use references in conclusion. Provide a general summary of the paper and make some concluding remarks about it.

*Keep in mind that this is a legal paper and that regulation and law should be the dominant aspect of the essay.

Writing tips

  • Clarity is important. Structure your thoughts and have one argument logically lead to another. Make sure your paragraphs and sections/subsections have a good flow between them.
  • Express yourself with “mathematical precision”. One word can change the meaning of your entire argument.
  • Have your paper proofread by a law student who doesn’t know much about the topic you are writing about. If they cannot understand it, it is probably lacking in clarity. So you will not write for your academic lecturers and presume that you don’t need to be clear – you will write for your fellow student who studies law.
  • Number your sections and subsections, but do not use more than two levels.

For example:

  • FIRST SECTION
    • 1 First subsection
    • 2 Second subsection
    • 3 Third subsection
  • SECOND SECTION
  • (etc)

Structure

  • First write Introduction or Background. For example, it could start as a bit broader (but not too broad) intro to the topic that directly relates to the topic itself, and it should continue into a more specific intro to the topic followed by a paragraph that will say what you will argue in the paper and what the essay is all about. This should not take more than 10% or so of your paper, so it is a brief introduction because the paper itself is rather short.
  • Body of the essay. This is up to you and your writing style. Use sections and subsections to provide structure and clarity. Your line of thoughts and arguments has to logically flow one after another, do not jump from one issue onto another but connect it logically to the preceding text. Every sentence has to flow into the next, and every paragraph has to logically lead into the next one.
  • Lastly, write Conclusion. Do not introduce any new points and do not use footnotes in conclusion. Shortly pull together main points of the paper and make some concluding remarks.