Skip to Main Content

Law 792-PP: Biomedical Ethics (SP 19): Home

Use this guide to idenitfy legal and non-legal resources for bioethics research.

LAW 792-BBB Seminar Handouts and Assignments

Librarian Liaison:
Pia M. Hunter huntress@illinois.edu

Research Instruction Session:
Tuesday, Jan. 22, 3:00 pm (Normal Class meeting time)

Research Conferences:
Topic Selection: Week of 2/4 (sign up)
Draft: Week of 3/11 (sign up)

Seminar Handouts and Assignment Deadlines:

  • January 24, 2019: Proposed Topic Form due by 3:00 p.m.
  • February 11, 2019: Topic and Outline Assignment due by 3:00 p.m.
  • February 20, 2019: Final Outline due to Prof. Wilson, Prof. Hunter, and Carla Gall by 3:00 p.m.
  • February 27, 2019: Sketch Draft Paper Assignment due by 9:00 a.m.
  • March 6, 2019: Preliminary Draft Paper due to Prof. Wilson, Prof. Hunter, and Carla Gall by 9:00 a.m.
  • March 15, 2019: First Draft of Research Paper due to Prof. Wilson, Prof. Hunter, and Carla Gall by 9:00 a.m.
  • May 9, 2019: Final Research Paper due to Prof. Wilson, Prof. Hunter, and Carla Gall by 3:00 p.m.

The Course Text

     

Welcome!

Welcome to the research guide for Professor Wilson's Biomedical Ethics Course. This guide contains strategies and suggestions for finding topics and researching them, using University of Illinois resources.

There are two important things to keep in mind as you think about your papers:

  1. Organize Your Time. There's no such thing as getting started too early, and every step will probably take longer than you've planned. Prepare for that by blocking out time to work on the paper each week until the final due date.
  2. Take the "finding" part of research as seriously as you take the thinking and writing part. Part of the purpose of partnering with the Library is to support you when you need help. But an equally important part is to ensure that you're seeking out and finding appropriate resources from the beginning. Give yourself adequate time to do the research.

Research and Assignment Deadlines

 

All assignments should submitted via email to Professor Hunter at huntress@illinois.edu and to Carla Gall at holt3@illinois.edu.

You are required to meet with Professor Hunter to go over your topic idea(s), preliminary research, and preliminary drafts and citations. We have developed assignments for you to complete before each conference, to help you focus and to document your progress thus far. In order to make the conferences productive, you must submit the associated assignment by the deadline, so that Professor Hunter has adequate time to review them before your conference.
 

The first mandatory conference will be held the week of January 28th.
By Thursday, January 24th at 3pm, you must:

  1. Sign up for a time slot for your conference at http://go.illinois.edu/bio1
  2. Submit the first conference assignment to Pia Hunter and to Carla Gall. If you're having trouble thinking of topics, use the How to Focus handout from the course page. Please use the following format to name your file attachment: lastname-topic.docx.


The second mandatory conference will be held the week of March 11th.
By Wednesday, Feb 27th at 3pm, you must:

  1. Sign up for a time slot for your conference at http://go.illinois.edu/bio2
  2. Submit a full draft with citations to Pia Hunter and to Carla Gall. Please use the following format to name your file attachment: lastname-draft.docs.

If you do not hand in a completed pre-conference assignment, you will not be able to meet with Prof. Hunter. You will need to have progressed this far in your research in order to make this conference meaningful.

A note about plagairism (from Prof. Wilson's syllabus)

"Finally, plagiarism—or the use of another’s ideas without attribution or of their words without indicating that those words are quoted material—is not permitted.  The obligation to cite appropriately—and therefore not to plagiarize—extends to all materials submitted in connection with the paper (i.e., the First Draft and materials submitted to our Library Liaison). 
For this paper, merely rewording another’s sentences, without citing to the author, will constitute plagiarism.  This type of “covert plagiarism,” as defined and illustrated more fully in Fajans and Falk, Scholarly Writing for Law Students:  Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers 94 - 95 (1995)], is as pernicious as the outright theft of another’s words and will be treated in a like fashion. 
As a rule of thumb, if more than 4 words are taken from another author verbatim, we will treat the quoted words as in need of a citation."