Law dissertation writing has always been more challenging than writing any other academic paper. Firstly, it is a dissertation, which means you need to invest a lot of time and effort into developing the paper. And secondly, it's a law paper, which is one the most intimidating areas from a student's point of view. Before you can deal with all that, you need to work on the problem statement for the law dissertation.
A problem statement is one of the basic segments of your dissertation paper. Once you have identified the problem on which you are about to work for the dissertation, you need to write the problem statement concisely, describing the precise issue that your research is going to address. In law dissertation writing, the problem statement can help you conceptualize and understand the importance of the research problem.
Here’s the ideal step-by-step process for preparing a problem statement that you should follow while working on your law dissertation paper.
1.Contextualize the problem:
At first, you need to frame your research problem in its particular context and provide the readers with some background details on the known facts about the issue. When you are dealing with a practical research problem, you need to focus on the concrete details of the situation. You need to identify when and where does the problem arise, what does it affect, and what initiatives have been taken to resolve this issue.
In case of a theoretical problem, you must focus on the scientific, social, historical and/or geographical background. Identify what is already known about the problem, whether the problem is limited to a certain period or geographical area, and how the problem has been addressed in the scholarly literature.
2.Explain why your research is important:
Your problem statement should also highlight the relevance of the research. You don't necessarily have to do anything groundbreaking. Just ensure that the problem you are working on is researchable, feasible, and clearly addresses a relevant issue in the field of your study. If the research problem is practical, identify what will happen if the problem remains unresolved, who will be facing the consequences and does the problem has any wider relevance.
In case of a theoretical problem, find out how the research can improve the understanding of the topic, how will it help any future research, and whether the problem has any impact on the society or not. Since the relevance of theoretical issues isn’t always immediately obvious, you need to focus on these areas to find out the hidden relevance.
3. Identify your goals and objectives:
In this last step, you need to ensure that the problem statement should state how you intend to address the problem. Ideally, your goal should not be to arrive at a conclusive solution but to identify the reasons behind the problem and suggest effective approaches for dealing with the issue or to understand it better.
Your aim for the dissertation should be to determine, explore and investigate the crucial aspects of the problem. And that should reflect on your problem statement. You can use qualitative methods to identify crucial data, surveys to collect it, and statistical analysis to measure the information. Ideally, the goals and objectives of the dissertation must lead to the research problem.
Isaac Nailor is a law practitioner who is currently employed at one of the leading law firms in the country. He is also a part of Myessayhelp.co.uk, where he serves as an expert and delivers law dissertation writing support to students.