My title assumes that you write an outline for each class you take. I do. It’s helpful for me and memorizing it (or nearly memorizing it) is incredibly helpful. (Particularly – and sadly – for my exam tonight where our professor taught us shockingly little about the area of law she’s testing us on.)
My question is: How do you go about building your own outlines?
What sources do you use? Solely class notes and your case books? Commercial outlines? Other students’ outlines?
Do you outline throughout the semester or on a few days/weekends late in the semester?
Do you supplement your outline with things like flash cards or practice exams or…?
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I only outlined one course (Contracts II) and I went through my notes and casebook, subject by subject, case by case, making sure I had the salient points in a concise, accessible format. For cases I would include one line to remind me of the facts (“the chicken case”) and then a few bullet points of the propositions the case stands for.
In my case, I did the outline because the professor said we could use it on the exam. It therefore had to be usable and I couldn’t afford a 50+ page outline.
I use the “bird nest” method, pulling things from anywhere and everywhere and building on it throughout the year. Once I have a conceptual outline I test it against other people’s outlines to look for holes or better ways of thinking about things.
One particularly useful thing I’ve found is to use Word’s footnoting function for all my case information. It has really saved me a few times when I see fact patterns that closely track specific cases.
When I was a law student, I found it helpful to get outlines from a few, select trustworthy (and erudite) colleagues. Invariably, the law professors like to hear their voice echoed in your blue-book responses so you have to matchup and otherwise incorporate key ‘buzz-words’ from class notes. If your taking UCC,Tax or Corporations… it pays to do your own outline. BEWARE of nutshells and any other commercial outlines and employ on as a last resort.
Hey CS,
I learned of this website following your comments on another blawg (sic) covering alternative careers to law. I noted your comments about the PR field and wonder if you can shoot me an email. Would like to know how you got in the field and if you have any suggestions.
Otherwise, hope my comments above were helpful.