Dear First-Year Law Student,
Purpose. If you are a first-year law student in an American university, we invite you to respond to this survey, which asks you to consider your transition from writing in college to writing in law school. We hope to obtain responses from students with all kinds of experiences in different law schools all across the country. The higher our participation rate, the more complete will be our understanding of how law students experience the transition to writing in law school.
Procedures. The primary investigator is Dr. Joanne Liebman Matson, a professor in the Professional and Technical Writing program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock). The survey will focus on your undergraduate, graduate (if appropriate), and law school writing experiences, and it will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. You may stop at any point.
Confidentiality. Responses will be strictly confidential. The raw data will only be available to the primary investigator and her graduate students. Neither she nor the students are affiliated in any way with any law school. The data will not be shared with anyone at any law school, and no one at your law school will know about your participation. When the results are reported, individual respondents and their institutions will not be identified. Results will be reported as aggregate data only, and no personally identifiable information will be included. All data will be stored in password-protected files in a cloud storage drive and will be destroyed three years after completion of the study.
Anticipated benefits resulting from this study. Participating in the study may benefit you by providing an opportunity to reflect on your writing and learning in college and law school.
The study may benefit science and humanity by leading to new recommendations for pre-law and legal-writing programs, and by expanding our knowledge about transfer of writing skills from one context to another.
Reporting of results. This website will provide updates on the results as they are available.
Contact information. If you have any questions about this study, please contact
Joanne Liebman Matson | jlmatson@ualr.edu
Department of Rhetoric and Writing
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
2801 S. University Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72204-1099
I hope that you will be able to participate in this study.
Sincerely,
Dr. Joanne Liebman Matson