Pregnancy Discrimination and Law Article Summary
Question Description
Supreme Court Chart and Article Summary
1. Pick a Supreme Court Case
a. It must contain an “Opinion of the Court” and at least one “Dissent”
b. You may do cases that have to do with any of the Bill of Rights or the 14th Amendment (free speech, gun rights, search and seizure, rights of the accused, cruel and unusual punishment, cases about race, women, abortion, religion, etc.) You can also do cases about the executive branch (war powers, habeas corpus, treatment of detainees, issues in the military) or the commerce clause as it relates to civil rights.Pregnancy Discrimination and Law Article Summary
2. Read the case carefully. Read the opinion of the court and one dissent. Ignore concurrences or additional dissents. Highlight or note the important passages. There may be much in the case that is technical. Don’t worry about that stuff. Be on the look out for the big statements, especially those that show how the Court is interpreting the part of the Constitution in question. Notice the kind of quotes I picked in the examples I gave you.Pregnancy Discrimination and Law Article Summary
3. Chart
a. In an excel document, input the Case information
i. Case name
ii. Case ID (e.g. 347 US 483)
iii. One-paragraph summary of the Facts of the case (in your own words)
iiii. Constitutional Question (you can get from the opinion or websites like www.oyez.com, www.findlaw.com)
v. One paragraph summary in your own words of the holding. Include the vote count, 9-0, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3, 5-4 and a basic summary of the Court’s answer to the constitutional question.
b. Then your document should have three columns – one for the subject matter or issue, one for the Opinion of the Court and one for any one of the dissents. For this assignment, cut and paste only the most important quotations from the case as has been done in the example I have given. The key is to be able to match up points made in the dissent with points made in the Court’s opinion. It is this upon which you will be graded. You should have at least 10 quotations for the Opinion of the Court and 10 quotations for the dissenters. Again, only include the most decisive quotations. The quotations should not be any longer than three sentences. Do not concern yourself with earlier Supreme Court decisions, or issues in the lower court decisions, just focus on quotes in the decision that analyze the constitution or make big statements about rights and justice.
c. Note that some cases are quite long. But once you find a good one, they are worth reading. Take your time to find the right case before you begin. Find a case about a subject in which you have some interest. If you find gun cases interesting, find a supreme court about gun rights. If you are interested in the abortion debate, find an abortion case. Older cases (pre-1975) tend to be shorter.
d. For the chart portion of the assignment, I have given you examples from Court cases that I have done. My examples are beyond what I expect from you, but it will give you a sense for what I am looking.
4. Read one high quality journal article about your case or the issue in your case (e.g. privacy, abortion, capital punishment). This article should be from law reviews or academic journals, etc.. The article must be at least 10 pages in length. On a separate page of the assignment (in a word document) summarize thearticle in two paragraphs in your own words. It should be well-written and be a clear presentation of the main argument of the author and his understanding of the case. Upload the article itself to Blackboard in the form of a PDF or a doc so I can read the article. Do not just include a link. You may not use material published as blogs or entries on websites. It must be a published article in a law review or a journal. For this part, you may use Lexis Nexus or JSTOR or any other academic search engine in the library’s electronic resources. You may also use an approved article sentto me by email ahead of time. If you have any doubt about whether your article is a good one, email me.Pregnancy Discrimination and Law Article Summary
Supreme Court Chart Rubric
Earned
Possible
Comments
Case Name
1
1
One paragraph summary of Facts of the Case
10
10
Constitutional Question
5
5
Holding
15
15
Completeness and Importance of Quotations for Opinion of the Court (10-15 quotes)
30
30
Completeness and Importance of Quotations for Dissenting opinion (10-15 quotes)
30
30
Journal Article Summary
25
25
Total Part I
116
116
Total Points (out of 100)
100
ORDER NOW FOR AN ORIGINAL PAPER ASSIGNMENT: Assignment: Capella University Pregnancy Discrimination and Law Article Summary
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.