No one really teaches you how to study or how to take notes. Over my undergraduate to my graduate studies I have moved from plain paper notebooks, to exclusive laptop use, to a hybrid of both. It is a difficult problem to solve because everyone has his or her own method: some go lo-fi with a pen and paper, others with laptops, others who record lectures on MP3 players; and others still who merely sit and listen. Revision, similarly, is equally sui generis, though harder to observe.
I feel (and hope) that I now, in my final semester of law school, have found as close as I can get to a “perfect system”. What works for me won’t necessarily work for you. However, hopefully my experiments will give you some ideas on how to approach your own note taking and revision.
At the outset I think it is useful to think about what kind of student you are. This will help you decide what will work for you. For example, I like to be organised but I don’t want to spend vast amounts of time organising; my handwriting when pressed is messy; I am visually orientated; I prefer material in electronic form rather than hard-copy, but I hate reading text of a screen. These realizations and a lot of trial and error have lead me to my current set-up which is a combination of lo-fi and hi-fi systems.
Note Taking in Lectures
In class I type notes on my Apple Powerbook G4 15″. This way I don’t have to decipher my own handwriting. I try to type out as much of what falls from the lecturer’s lips as is possible. I type my notes into an OmniOutliner Pro (OO) document. I have a separate OO document for each subject. At the start of each semester I input the whole of the course outline for each subject into a OO document. This includes inputting the various topic headings (e.g. “Copyright”), sub-headings (“The Idea / Expression Dichotomy”) and cases / legislation (e.g. “Feist Publications Inc v Rural Telphone Service (1991, US Sup Ct).” When in class I can add my notes under the appropriate heading. This keeps my notes in a hierarchically organised structure. Having all the case names listed means there is no more: “What did he say the name of the case was?”
Why OO as opposed to Word or any of the other application? It all comes down to the simplicity of OO’s formatting and structure. Firstly, I can segment my notes by topic, while still in the same document. This is important as it provides context (which I think is one of the most important parts of being a law student. That is, seeing how all the inter-related topics and cases fit together). Secondly, is OO’s nesting capabilities. Press the TAB key to indent a row; press Shift+TAB to outdent a row. These two simple keyboard shortcuts allow me to structure my notes in a hierarchical fashion on-the-fly. I also prefer having all my notes for each subject in one document. When it comes time to study for an exam I can export my OO document as a PDF, print and bind it. As a result, I have my own mini text-book for study which accurately mimics the course syllabus.
Reading & Learning
I use a Moleskine Large Ruled Notebook (240 pages) to capture my hand written notes. Why do I have handwritten notes? When reading a case or textbook I like to make short notes, questions and summaries. I also like to draw diagrams summarizing the relationships between the parties in complicated factual scenarios. As I said above, I’m visually orientated. I find it easier and quicker to jot down such information in a notebook as opposed to typing it into one of my OO documents, or creating diagrams in OmniGraffle (which is also a great application, by the way).
I think there are two reasons why I prefer having both a hi-fi system (for my class notes) and a lo-fi system (for my own notes). Firstly, I prefer having what my lecturer says and what I think separate. I could put my own notes and summaries with my class notes in OO (MLS founder Erik put both his case briefs and class notes in the same OO document). But I prefer to keep them separate quite simply because my thoughts on, or interpretation of, an issue or case might be wrong. My notes can also be quite messy and unorganised when I am trying to understand a complicated case or issue. Secondly, it is easy to get distracted when working on a computer. When taking notes in lectures it is easy to stay focused. But out of class it is easy to get distracted by email, internet, updating my calendar or address book, etc. So when reading and revising I put my Powerbook away and stay focused on the hardcopy materials in front of me. I will often leave my laptop at home when I go to the library to study.
Why Moleskine? I won’t go into detail the reasons why Moleskines are such great notebooks, just type “Moleskine” into Google and you will see the fanaticism surrounding these little notebooks. Frankly, if they are good enough for Hemmingway and Picaso, then they are good enough for me.
I use the large version of the Molsekine because I found A4 notebooks too bulky to carry around and the Moleskine Cashiers were too small. The Moleskine Large Ruled Notebook is just right in terms of pages, size and versatility.
I employ two simple Moleskine “hacks” to keep the information organised: I numbered every second page of the notebook for easy reference; and I date every entry in the notebook. I use a Sakura Pigma Micron 0.1 pen or Uniball Gel Impact 1.0mm pen. The Sakura pens are great except you have to be careful not to been heavy-handed with them or the points will crush. The Uniballs are great also but they seem to run out of ink fairly quickly.
Revision Method
Recently, I have been employing a simple version of the Cornell Note-taking method. Essentially this is a way of organising your notes by separating the page into different areas making it easier to digest information. You rule a 2.5 inch (6.25 cm) margin down the left-hand-side of your page (called the “Cue” column) and a 2 inch (5 cm) margin at the bottom of the page (called “Summaries”). The “Cue” column is where you record key words, things to do, important stuff, questions, etc. The “Summary” column, as the name suggests, is where you write a summary of the page. The space to the right of the “Cue” column and above the “Summary” column is the note taking area.
My version of the Cornell is slightly different. I put the “Cue” column on the right-hand-side of the page. I employ 3 different symbols for use in this column. A “[ ]” represents a “to do” item. For example, “[ ] Quote” tells me that I have to go look up the full text of a case that was mentioned in class and record a quote from that case. These items get ticket off once they are completed (e.g. “[ x ] Quote”). A “!” represents something important, usually hints given by the lecturer (When a lecturer says “This is a very important issue” this translates to “This will be in the exam”). A “?” represents something that I don’t understand and have to research or ask the lecturer. You can see visual examples of this approach here and here.
I employ the Cornell Method in both OO and in my Moleskine. In OO I create a column on the right-hand-side and title it “Cue”. I leave it at the default size. Sometimes the symbols will be added to the “Cue” column during the lecture, but usually they will be recorded after (see below). In “Page Setup” I create a footer that contains the page number (e.g. 3 / 54), under which I place a heading “Summary:” I set the “Bottom of content to footer” margin to 0.17 cm and the “Footer to bottom of page” to 2.37 cm.
In my Moleskine I rule a 4.5 cm margin down the right-hand-side of every page for the “Cue” column; and a 3.5 cm margin at the bottom of the page for the “Summaries” column. Both are ruled in light pencil. I employ the same three symbols noted above.
At the end of the week I will print off my OO class notes in hardcopy. I put away my Powerbook, sit with my textbooks and Moleskine, add the symbols and make the necessary summaries in pen to the hardcopy version.
Essays
This is an area where I am not happy with the tools available. Currently I draft my essays in WriteRoom and then do the final version in Microsoft Word. WriteRoom employs a full-screen writing environment with none of the clutter of other word processors. It is just you and your text. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to avoid Microsoft Word. I don’t like using Word. I find its UI bulky and formatting is time consuming. After reading Timothy Roes article Legal Documents the LyX Way, I experimented with LyX. LyX has an uncluttered UI and its is formatting beautifully simple because LyX performs the typesetting for you. I would switch over to LyX in a heartbeat except for its footnoting and cross-referencing functions. Word handles footnotes and cross-referencing far better than LyX. Unfortunately, that feature alone keeps me tied to Word.
Keeping Track of Assignments with Remind + GeekTool
I am probably in the minority here, but I’m not a big fan of iCal. I’m not a big fan of GUI calendaring applications at all. I use Roaring Penguin’s Remind. Remind is an open-source UNIX-driven calendaring program. It is incredibly flexible, powerful and works with plain text. I have a text file which contains due dates for all assignments and university holidays. Of its many functions includes the ability to have countdowns. As of writing I can see that I have 92 days until final exams and 29 days until my Advanced Contracts mid-semester test. I add new entries to the text file using a Quicksilver’s “Append To …” function and a TypeIt4Me abbrevation. I use GeekTool [projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/] to display the output from Remind on my desktop and have it update at preset times. Besides my “reminders” I also have a textual calendar for the current week’s calendar.
Conclusion
If you are interested in different approaches to taking notes I suggest doing some searches on Google and Flickr for “Moleskine” and “GTD” (Getting Things Done). There are a number of hardcore productivity geeks out there who have been generous enough to describe their various systems in detail. Their observations can be quite insightful for any student.
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