Note Taking Tips

ThirdMan

I'm a first year law student.

I'm looking for note taking tips, for both journal articles and cases. I realise it's a very subjective process, but are there tried and tested methods?

Thanks.

PCPhoto

learn shorthand !!

nuac

Surely you have developed some note-taking methods in secondary school.

Would suggest headings and subheadings of key words

cross references to decided cases - of which you should keep a separate summary.

Initially in handwriting but coming to end of course type them up -easier to revise.

Enjoy

johnnyskeleton

Any lecturer who has written a big tome on the subject will usually follow their book pretty religiously.

In such a class, I wouldn't bother to take notes unless it helps you concentrate. Instead, try to listen to what they are saying and follow it.

It would be better to have no notes but a good idea of the law than to have great notes that you wrote out automatically as the lecturer read them out.

With that in mind, take a note of any important point or case that is mentioned and then follow it up later. But you may as well shred these notes if you haven't followed up on them within a few days. As I say, it's all there in the books.

Above all, take a leap of faith that writing down everything that is said is not the key to success.

I guess nuac and me probably sat in different parts of the lecutre halls!

evercloserunion

Surely you have developed some note-taking methods in secondary school.

I'm final year law and still haven't figured out how to take good notes!

nuac

Agree with Johnny Skeleton that if your lecturer/professor is setting the exam it is important to grasp his/her main interests in the topic, moreso if your lecturer etc has written a leading text book.

Any lecturer who is simply reading out a lecture to be be taken down and regurgitated is a waste of space. The lecturer who should know the topic in depth should be able to talk about it's genesis, relevancy and likely future developments, and indicate further reading material.

In the end everybody has to work out a system that suits him/her.

ThirdMan

Thank for all the comments, but I was kind of looking for advice on how to take notes on the material I'm reading, particularly cases and journals.

The ILAC method has bee suggested to me as a way of breaking down a case, making it easy to review in preparation for exams.

Is there a similar system that would apply to journal articles?

Reloc8

I don't know what the ILAC system is but here's what I strived to produce in respect of the cases for each subject :-

1. Every relevant case read, the facts reduced to a half page of notes, the important bits of the judgment reduced to a half page of notes, put together on the same page. This takes time and effort as your initial notes will likely occupy much more than one page. The process of reducing it down and down to key points gets the case into your brain.

2. Every topic on every course - a double page summary - I recall using double foolscap pages for this, you used to be able to buy reams from the SU shop where I went. On this you set out in whatever form you can the themes, cases, how they interact etc - I used to draw spiderweb/bubble diagrams, more like a map than an essay so to speak. I would come up with mnemonics to remember a series of cases using the initial letter of a party of the case etc.

3. Every course - another double page setting out the topics and even more concise notes for each one - on this page really just noting the cases and their interaction with the topic/course.

4. Important journal articles - one page summary, bullet points, same as for cases, slotted into your topic & course summaries as appropriate.

5. Statutes/constitutional articles - establish what you will be allowed to take into the exam - no need to learn by heart these ones - if you do the caselaw exercise you will be very familiar with the relevant provisions. If you're not allowed bring anything in and statute/constitutional provision relates you just have to learn them off.

6. All a bit old school - the handwritten stuff - but I think trying to produce notes like this on a computer screen is in fact more draining and for whatever reason I personally make more of a connection with stuff I write as opposed to stuff I type.

For caselaw heavy subjects (contract, tort, constitutional, criminal etc) this works pretty well.

For 'ideas' heavy courses (e.g. jurisprudence) you'll be working on reading and understanding concepts more than individual cases, but I would still produce the one page summaries of articles and the overall topic/course note.

Anyway, that all worked for me. The objective is full familiarity with the cases etc. and produce something that you can review in less than 15 minutes for each topic & course - each layer builds towards the course summary.

In later years of study I used to try and get the cases onto large index cards. Again, the process of re-writing, summarising and distilling ingrains the information in your brain.

You can use nutshells and the like but to be honest short cuts like that don't really work out.

Personal comment - I never understood people who used lots of highlighters - you spend more time highlighting than reading and understanding. I would strongly advise use one colour highlighter only and highlight selectively on your master notes only, otherwise I found it a distraction.

edit : extra hint - lecturers love when you include off-course legal materials in exam answers/essays. If you have your criminal cases down pat you can use them in a tort exam to highlight the difference between the standard of proof on negligence and the standard of proof on crime and vice versa. There is a lot of overlap in the older tort and contract cases as well in terms of the principles by which the court reaches their decision.

Tom Young

I think what was just said above is about as on point as we'll see on this thread. If you apply the very same logic to committing the data outlined by Reloc8 to spider diagrams they can also be very effective aides memoires .....?!

McCrack

Reading law is a skill in itself and really can only be mastered with practice to get the ratio of the judgment and that takes quite some time and patience and a willingness to engage. I used find Murdochs dictionary a huge help in explaining concepts and legalese as I read.

Doing the above will help with your lectures as you begin to develop a sense for what is important (what you need to write down as central to the topic being lectured) and what is superflous. It just comes from practice.

nuac

Great post, Reloc8

Reloc8

I think I'm still a student at heart...except that I don't drink squeezy bottles of cider anymore.

Tom Young

Reloc8 wrote: »

I think I'm still a student at heart...except that I don't drink squeezy bottles of cider anymore.

Likewise. I can now afford the glass pint bottles

Fairs Fair

Very useful Reloc8 - thanks for this

I am a first year at the Inns - so it is all new to me

Are you in practice yet ? hehe

ThirdMan

Reloc8 wrote: »

I don't know what the ILAC system is but here's what I strived to produce in respect of the cases for each subject :-

1. Every relevant case read, the facts reduced to a half page of notes, the important bits of the judgment reduced to a half page of notes, put together on the same page. This takes time and effort as your initial notes will likely occupy much more than one page. The process of reducing it down and down to key points gets the case into your brain.

2. Every topic on every course - a double page summary - I recall using double foolscap pages for this, you used to be able to buy reams from the SU shop where I went. On this you set out in whatever form you can the themes, cases, how they interact etc - I used to draw spiderweb/bubble diagrams, more like a map than an essay so to speak. I would come up with mnemonics to remember a series of cases using the initial letter of a party of the case etc.

3. Every course - another double page setting out the topics and even more concise notes for each one - on this page really just noting the cases and their interaction with the topic/course.

4. Important journal articles - one page summary, bullet points, same as for cases, slotted into your topic & course summaries as appropriate.

5. Statutes/constitutional articles - establish what you will be allowed to take into the exam - no need to learn by heart these ones - if you do the caselaw exercise you will be very familiar with the relevant provisions. If you're not allowed bring anything in and statute/constitutional provision relates you just have to learn them off.

6. All a bit old school - the handwritten stuff - but I think trying to produce notes like this on a computer screen is in fact more draining and for whatever reason I personally make more of a connection with stuff I write as opposed to stuff I type.

For caselaw heavy subjects (contract, tort, constitutional, criminal etc) this works pretty well.

For 'ideas' heavy courses (e.g. jurisprudence) you'll be working on reading and understanding concepts more than individual cases, but I would still produce the one page summaries of articles and the overall topic/course note.

Anyway, that all worked for me. The objective is full familiarity with the cases etc. and produce something that you can review in less than 15 minutes for each topic & course - each layer builds towards the course summary.

In later years of study I used to try and get the cases onto large index cards. Again, the process of re-writing, summarising and distilling ingrains the information in your brain.

You can use nutshells and the like but to be honest short cuts like that don't really work out.

Personal comment - I never understood people who used lots of highlighters - you spend more time highlighting than reading and understanding. I would strongly advise use one colour highlighter only and highlight selectively on your master notes only, otherwise I found it a distraction.

edit : extra hint - lecturers love when you include off-course legal materials in exam answers/essays. If you have your criminal cases down pat you can use them in a tort exam to highlight the difference between the standard of proof on negligence and the standard of proof on crime and vice versa. There is a lot of overlap in the older tort and contract cases as well in terms of the principles by which the court reaches their decision.

Wow!:D Much appreciated!!

FreudianSlippers

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Any lecturer who has written a big tome on the subject will usually follow their book pretty religiously.

In such a class, I wouldn't bother to take notes unless it helps you concentrate. Instead, try to listen to what they are saying and follow it.

It would be better to have no notes but a good idea of the law than to have great notes that you wrote out automatically as the lecturer read them out.

With that in mind, take a note of any important point or case that is mentioned and then follow it up later. But you may as well shred these notes if you haven't followed up on them within a few days. As I say, it's all there in the books.

Above all, take a leap of faith that writing down everything that is said is not the key to success.

I guess nuac and me probably sat in different parts of the lecutre halls!

Totally agree with this.

Having a little netbook or laptop is a great benefit too. I never had one in college and took handwritten notes. Everyone who had a laptop and took notes on it in class was far more organised and had everything necessary when the time came.

Thank god for generosity I guess

FreudianSlippers

ThirdMan wrote: »

Thank for all the comments, but I was kind of looking for advice on how to take notes on the material I'm reading, particularly cases and journals.

The ILAC method has bee suggested to me as a way of breaking down a case, making it easy to review in preparation for exams.

Is there a similar system that would apply to journal articles?

ILAC is actually a method used to answer exam questions.

Identify the issues
Law: state the relevant law
Apply: apply the law to the issues
Conclude


At least that's what I remember it being from undergrad.

evercloserunion

OisinT wrote: »

ILAC is actually a method used to answer exam questions.

Identify the issues
Law: state the relevant law
Apply: apply the law to the issues
Conclude


At least that's what I remember it being from undergrad.

Yeah, that's how it's taught. But then, I guess judges tend to apply the same process in cases so most decent case notes will probably look like that anyway.