INTRODUCTION:
One of the many great things about law schools are the extracurricular activities / opportunities one gets to participate into. We really cant emphasis enough on the Importance of extracurricular activities (EACs) in law school. These EACs act as a catalyst in honing your all round skills and whip you into a formidable lawyer. The most popular EAC in a law school would be paper presentations. It is popular because it is very inclusive in terms of huge participation numbers and one can choose from a vast cafeteria of subjects on which one may want to present / write a paper. From space law to international law to human rights, you name it and there is a conference / seminar / symposium for that! Moreover, its relatively easier compared to other EACs.
HOW CAN WOLR HELP A PAPER PRESENTER? (AKA ARTICLE WRITERS / RESEARCH PAPER WRITERS)
Writing a good article for personal growth can definitely be a daunting task. WOLR can help you bring your ideas to life! Let’s say you have an idea in your mind that you want to translate into a research paper or a seminar paper or want to write a research article on it, we help you throughout the entire process! We help you research, draft, analysis, vet and assist you with everything else! Sometimes it becomes immensely important to undertake proper citations and referencing style in your legal writing. When it comes to submitting a paper for a conference, you need to pull all the negative plugs in your final submission draft. We can’t lay enough stress on Importance of proofreading in Legal Research and publication. Secondly, when one undertakes full-scale research on a particular topic, one is bound to gain good amount of knowledge on that topic. Such activities shall surely add decent credentials to one’s CV. It also helps one to learn to think analytically.
WHY YOU MUST PARTICIPATE IN PAPER PRESENTATION ACTIVITIES?
There are numerous credible reasons for participating in EACs like paper presentations / seminars. Some reasons are as mentioned herein below:
1. Network building:
Participating into paper presentations / conferences / seminars can help you build your network in and out of your law school. It is popularly said that your ‘network’ determines your ‘net-worth’. The friendships and acquaintances you make in such gatherings are surely going to take you a long way in your career. You never know when you can find a potential collaboration for a case with one random colleague you met at such conferences / seminars.
2. Improves public speaking:
As a lawyer, one must have good auditory skills. You must be a good orator and must convey your message to your audience. When you can present your paper in a through fashion without just plainly reading the contents of your paper, you can effectively contribute something new to the already existing vast material in academia. Secondly, paper presentations make you confident in your approach and removes stage fear from yourself.
3. Improves your legal researching skills:
When one is researching for a paper presentation, one surely accumulates good amount of knowledge while researching for their writings. Now imagine, that in your tenure of 5 years of law school, you undertake 2 paper presentations every semester on different topics.
OTHER TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE PAPER PRESENTATIONS:
1. When one is preparing for a paper presentation, one needs to ensure to keep a special script handy. A special script is like a special précis writing of your entire paper and it explains and summarizes your paper in a nutshell. In other words, it is your ‘nutshell paper’. When presenting papers into conferences one is given a time limit in which one must sum up their paper presentation. At such times special scripts come in handy.
2. The most arterial component of any paper presentation is your audience. One must find creative ways to engage the audience into listening what one is presenting. When one is standing in front of a mic, he is shouldered with a great responsibility of educating his / her audience with something new. If you look at it from this perspective, you are surely going to excel into your paper presentation.
Secondly, take pauses and take out time to reflect onto the aspect whether your audience is actual receiving what you are trying to put forth. Furthermore, invite questions! The more questions your paper raises, the more engaging it is.
Don’t be in a hurry to sum up your stand. Ensure that you give a proper climax to your paper since would have undertaken studies of different perspectives of a particular subject, a proper ending in terms of ‘the way ahead’ or ‘future prospects’ is always appreciated.
3. Make sure you use easy to understand language in your paper. Avoid using technical jargons and legalese. You must use technical words only where they are absolutely necessary. Otherwise, they are a big NO NO!
4. In case if during your presentation you are allowed to use PowerPoint presentations, then you must ensure that your slides and script interact. This is a tricky scenario where your slides complement your script and vice versa. For example, say you have put up an interesting image on your ppt which leaves your audience intrigued. This is where your script can play a hero’s role by elucidating on what the image actually means.
5. Last but not the least, one must keep on editing the piece of their writings and keep on making it better till the last day of submission. Trust me, the more you edit your paper, the more you acquaint yourself with the contents of paper whereby you shall be knowing that what content of your paper is placed exactly where. I like to call it ‘knowing your paper in and out’. When you know your paper in totality, there won’t be any questions that you can let go unanswered.
