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Advanced Legal Research Syllabus for Fall 2024

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In the syllabus for the Advanced Legal Research class that I taught in fall 2024, I have included learning outcomes that are aligned with American Bar Association and American Association of Law Libraries standards as well as an overview of the topics that are discussed in class and references for these topics. Much of the information on the beginning pages is specific to the University of Virginia School of Law. Within the syllabus, I provide an overview of the assignments and Research Assignments One (The Cell Phone Search) and Three (The Vape Shop) are available in the ACRL Sandbox. The instructions for Research Assignments Two and Four are in the syllabus. I teach the class as a survey class and cover a variety of sources. The target audience for the class consists of second- and third-year law students who have taken a legal research and writing class during their first year of law school. As stated in the syllabus, students choose their own legal topics and write a research guide for these topics for Research Assignment Four. Some students choose to use Research Assignment Four to do their research for a paper that they are required to write for another class. Other students choose legal topics based on their interests or the type of law they want to practice in the future. For Research Assignment Two, students are also offered the option to create a mind map or concept map to show the progress of their initial research for Research Assignment Four. Multiple frames from ACRL's framework for information literacy can be applied to the syllabus, however, one frame that is particularly applicable to the syllabus as a whole is "Searching as Strategic Exploration."

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