As you all should know, every student is required to submit a short paper (of no more than 5 pages) before Fall Break concerning a topic of sentencing law, policy or practice that you believe is under-reported and/or under-researched and/or under-litigated. I emphasize the "you" in this post because I want and expect this first paper will reflect your personal perspective on an issue of sentencing law, policy or practice that you believe should be getting more attention from the press and/or from researchers and/or from courts.
There are truly thousands of sentencing issues that I personally think merit a lot more attention from the press and from researchers and from courts. That reality is part of the reason for this assignment so that I can hear from interested students about what specific issues you personally consider problematically under-reported and/or under-researched and/or under-litigated. The best papers will not be trying to guess at what issue(s) I think merit more attention, but rather will be effectively explaining in clear and cogent terms the author's views.
Critically, at least some basic research may be required for you to confirm your beliefs as to what topic of sentencing law, policy or practice is under-reported and/or under-researched and/or under-litigated. In addition, the best discussion of this issue may explain not only why this issue deserves more attention, but also why you think the issue has heretofore not gotten the attention it deserves from the press and/or from researchers and/or from courts.
Make sense?
Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law 
2 responses to “Key facet of the first paper: it should be all about you, not me”
Can we also write about how the manner in which a topic is researched has caused it to be reported poorly due to the skewed statistical data or the lack of correlation drawn from other data (which tends to show the cause of sentencing disparities… whether it be politically-driven or just bad research/reporting)?
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YEP!!!
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