This summary is written by Aarchie Chaturvedi, a student from NUSRL, Ranchi.

This was an insightful session with Uzair Ahmed Khan (Assistant Blog Manager and Editor, Lawsikho) and Sammanika Rawat (Placements Head, LawSikho) on the understanding of how to become an expert in research and writing. In this interaction, they focused on one of the most important aspects for the growth of law students & professionals.

The following are the questions that Ms.Rawat and Mr. Uzair answered during the course of the webinar.

• Why should you write an article?

-According to Ms. Rawat, writing articles for academic and publication purposes hone your capabilities to research and write. Research and drafting skills are the two most important requisites to be a good lawyer. Whichever field of law you are in, these skills help you to excel and prosper.

• How to start/ find a topic for your research?

-The first step of research should be to identify a topic. You can do this by reading newspapers. When you regularly follow the updates on legal issues, you get an idea about the most debatable topics during a particular period of time.  This would help you in identifying a sector on which you can write. Once you are done with selecting a sector, you should dive deeper into the sector to find a topic. 

Don’t jump directly into researching once you choose your topic, Ms.Rawat says. Rather she advises to have a broader perspective and read multiple blogs and editorials on that topic. This will help you formulate a basic idea of the topic and enable you to find out a research query. The only startling factor that distinguishes a good article from a bad article, she points out, is the presence of a research query.   

• What are the various platforms you can use for your research?

-The sources students generally use are SCC, Manupatra, West Law, and J Stor whose access is provided to the students by their colleges. However, if someone doesn’t have access to these sources they can use India Kanoon. After Indian Kanoon, you can also make use of GoogleScholar. Ms. Rawat says that GoogleScholar is an unexplored platform by most of the students however she feels it must also be utilized fully for research purposes.

• What are the steps to write an article?

-Mr. Uzair firstly talks about the two heads under which the articles are categorized- informative & solution-oriented articles. In an informative article, he tells that you can choose any of your favourite subject and identify a topic from it. The purpose of an informative article is to educate the masses on a topic of law. He further told the listeners about a solution-oriented article, the purpose of which is to help someone find an answer to a legal issue.

One should also be mindful, he says, of the title that one is framing. It should not be the case that a title for an informative article makes it appear to be a solution-oriented article or vice-versa as that would eventually hamper the readership of the article.

Simultaneously, it is also important to keep one’s audience in mind while one is writing. If one writes an informative article, a major chunk of one’s readers will be law students and people outside the legal profession. However, if one writes a solution-oriented article then one’s readers will be diverse, including law students, people from the legal profession, and even people who are not from a legal background.

• What is the IRAC model and how you can apply the same in your research?

-I stands for issue; it is important to identify the issue you are trying to answer. The rule is abbreviated as R, which talks about the laws and regulations governing a particular sector. A stands for applicability of the rule. In this section you have to display your analysis; how are you reading the law with the precedents and the current position of the law. The last part of the model is the conclusion which is represented by C.  A conclusion is a crucial part of the research. One should put in enough thought and deliberation to decide for an appropriate way to conclude an article. 

• How is a legal article different from any other article?

-A legal article has to be structurised in a legal method which is the IRAC model. But apart from that, it is written as a normal article. 

• How to restrict your resources of research and reject the unwanted material?

-If you start with specific research you won’t find the unwanted material. However, if you are not able to find any case precedence or any relevant data then you must stop and contemplate for a few moments as to what is the kind of the topic, you are researching on-is it a specific law topic or is it a general law topic. If within the specific law you aren’t able to find an answer, then step back and go into the general law.  

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