Taking Notes

 

Effective note taking is a critical skill for a law student. You'll be taking notes on both your reading assignments and your classroom lectures, and the notes you take will help you construct your outlines and prepare for exams as the semester moves along. Keeping up with your notes while the material is still fresh and reviewing them periodically will help you manage the information load and feel more prepared for your finals. Some things to consider about your note taking:

• Will I take notes by hand or by computer?
• If by computer, what software will I use?
• What should I include in my class notes?
• What should I include in my reading notes?
• As I get used to my classes and professors, should I modify my class or reading notes to fit the class?

 

Choosing your preferred note taking method: 

You will need to decide whether you plan to take notes on the computer or by hand (or some combination of the two). Here are some things to consider about each method:

Pro-computer: 

- Taking notes on a computer gives you a lot of options - searching for key terms in your notes, cutting and pasting into your outline, taking notes on PowerPoint slides provided by your professor, etc.

- Most people type much faster than they write by hand, so typing your notes can help you keep up with what your professor is talking about.

- Keeping all of your reading and lecture notes on your computer saves trees and limits the amount of stuff that you have to keep track of and carry around.

- Certain programs allow you to include diagrams, images, slides, sound files, and other interesting features in your notes.

Pro-handwriting:

- If your professor does not permit laptops in class, you may be required to hand-write notes in that class. 

- Studies show that retention is usually better from handwriting notes (see article below). 

- It is very easy to get distracted on a laptop, especially if you can't keep yourself off the internet. There are apps Links to an external site.that can shut off your internet access for a period of time, but you need to be really diligent about cutting yourself off during class time. Taking notes by hand eliminates that temptation.

- If you are not good about backing up your hard drive, you run the risk of losing a whole semester's worth of notes. 

- When typing it is tempting to basically transcribe what the professor is saying. Most people type quickly enough that they don't have to think critically about what information is most critical to include in their notes. That can reduce engagement with the lecture and the information. Handwriting is slower and forces you to consider what needs to make it on the page. 

- Some classes (particularly Property) may rely somewhat heavily on diagrams. If you are taking notes in a program that does not allow you to make drawings, you may not be able to capture those diagrams easily. Handwriting notes makes it easy to incorporate diagrams.

Pro-hybrid method: Even if you take notes on the computer, it may be a good idea to keep a notebook on you so that you can capture things like diagrams or drawings that pop up during lecture. Additionally, if your battery dies or you run into tech trouble, you'll always have a backup method of note taking so you won't miss anything.

 

What software should I use?

There are several programs that are commonly used for taking notes on the computer, including Microsoft Word, Evernote Links to an external site., and OneNote Links to an external site.. You should you play around with the features of different programs to make sure you're comfortable with them before using them to take notes. You may also want to explore programs that allow you to employ voice-to-text technology or link your typed notes with audio recordings of your classes (only if the professor allows you to record audio of the class - check first!!). See below for a link to a list of study resources, including several note taking and flashcard programs. 

 

What goes in my reading and class notes?

Reading notes:

Professor Minneti covers a lot of what goes in your reading notes in his videos on Reading Comprehension and Critically Reading Cases.

We recommend keeping good reading notes in the form of case briefing. Case briefing can be time-intensive, but it's a valuable exercise in your 1L year. Briefing your cases helps you get prepared for in-class questioning and provides a contemporaneous record of the cases you've read when you're going back to outline. It's much easier to figure out how a case fits in your outline if you can simply review your notes rather than having to reread the case and reconstruct your understanding of it. Briefing also helps you learn to identify the different parts of a case and understand the functions of those different parts. 

Some things to keep in mind when briefing cases:

- Take a moment to figure out the context in which this opinion was written. Court cases are tied to particular places and times and circumstances that may affect their outcomes. Look at the year of the opinion and the jurisdiction.

- Try to place the case in the context of your course. Where does this case fit in the syllabus? What chapter of the book is it in? How does it tie to other cases you're reading on the same topic? Why are you reading this case?

- Your brief should rarely be more than 1 page, often less. If your briefs are extremely long, you may need to focus more on finding and summarizing the most relevant information.

- You should not just copy down long chunks of text from the case. While a short quote may be useful sometimes, the benefit of briefing a case is really derived from translating the opinion into your own words and making sure you understand what the court is saying. 

- Take note of any questions you have after reading the case and any words or concepts you are unfamiliar with. Be sure to look them up or see if your professor addresses them in lecture.

The last section of this article, Legal Reading - The Key to Law School Success Download Legal Reading - The Key to Law School Success

, offers some good tips on case briefing. It also provides an example 1L case brief with comments from a TA. The last section begins on page 67 of the article. For more examples of case briefs and different formatting options, visit the Critically Reading and Briefing Cases page.

 

Class notes:

Below we've linked to a resource from the Georgetown University Law Center's writing program that offers a good summary of what you might want to include in your class notes. Below is a portion of that summary:

"Listen for Indicators during Class Lecture and Discussion: There are many indicators that a professor may provide during class that you should listen for and incorporate into your notes. The following are some key indicators that may signal the importance of material.

• Summaries. Summaries are an important opportunity to find out what the professor considered to be the most important points from her lesson. It is also an opportunity to fill in any gaps in your notes or to elaborate on certain points. Sometimes professors begin class with a short review of the topics covered in the previous lecture. Taking down the summary and, after class, comparing that summary with your previous day’s notes can be a useful exercise.

• Hypotheticals. Hypotheticals are potential or past exam questions and provide valuable insight into how your professor answers questions and applies the law. Therefore, be sure to write down all of the hypotheticals and how the professor addresses the hypotheticals in class. It’s not uncommon that professors will consider examples of the very legal tests that you will be asked to apply on your exam.

• Recurring themes. Listen for concepts that professors repeatedly introduce. For example, in a Constitutional Law class, federalism or separation of powers doctrine may provide insight into the Supreme Court’s rationale in a variety of contexts.

• Emphasis. Sometimes professors will directly state that you need to understand a particular concept, definition, statute, etc. Make sure this emphasis is duly recorded in your notes.

• Favorite words and phrases. These can be terms of art or phrases that the professor tends to emphasize in class. It is useful to write these down because they could be helpful when answering exam questions.

• Numbered lists. A numbered list may indicate the importance of a topic or provide a useful method for organizing your notes on a particular topic.

• Colleagues’ questions and the professor’s responses. Like hypotheticals, questions that your colleagues raise during class can become exam questions." [ARC note - depending on the level of discussion, this can be hit or miss]

A few more thoughts:

- Pay close attention to is your professors' policy interests. Some classes, such as torts, may include questions about public policy that your professor expects you to analyze on your final. 

- Listen for clues from the professor about what is likely to appear on the final: exam format, subjects you can expect to see, etc. 

- Do your notes make sense when you look at them later? Look at a set of class notes a couple days later and see if you can decipher what you meant. If you can't, you may need to rethink how much shorthand you're using or whether you're capturing the right information.

 

Modifying your note-taking strategy:

As you get to know your professors, you may realize that certain note-taking strategies work better for some classes than others. For instance, you may find that your professor tends to ask questions about a case in a certain way, and it may make sense to modify your case briefs to match the professor's questioning style. Some professors might tell you to brief cases in a particular format. If so, you should generally follow that advice.  Reevaluate your note-taking strategies periodically to make sure they're working.

 

Back up everything:

This advice is noted elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Please, please, please back up your notes, outlines, and writing assignments regularly. You can email them to yourself, use Dropbox, buy an external hard drive, or whatever other way works for you, but don't become that cautionary tale when your computer crashes two weeks before finals and you lose all of the work that you've done all semester. If you have any questions, you can always go see the IT office on the third floor.

 

Some additional reading and resources:

Tips and Techniques for Taking Notes in Law School Links to an external site. - links to a resource on note taking from The Writing Center at Georgetown University Law Center. 

Everything You Need to Know About Taking Notes in Law School Links to an external site. - links to a blog post by a 1L that includes pictures of an interesting way to keep reading notes next to class notes in a notebook.

A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop Links to an external site. - links to an article from Scientific American published in 2014.

Hacking Chaos: The Cornell Method of Note-Taking Links to an external site. - links to an article on Lawyerist about how to use the Cornell method of taking notes.

Outlining/Notetaking software Links to an external site. - links to a list of resources published by University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. ARC does not specifically recommend any of these programs, but feel free to check them out. One SU student specifically recommended the program Audionote Links to an external site., which links typed notes with audio recordings. 

There are a lot of blogs out there written by law students. Some offer ideas about how to take notes in various programs, such as this person Links to an external site. who uses Evernote and this student Links to an external site. who uses OneNote. You can poke around the internet for ideas on how other students use note-taking software.