Yup! Just briefed it.Burger in a can wrote:Anyone else have Hawkins v. McGee as their first case in Contracts?
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- Kiersten1985
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Re: The Gunner Thread
- Duralex
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Re: The Gunner Thread
If you really can't concentrate, install a program to block your own access to facebook while you're in class. (Or just turn off your wireless.)saucie wrote:I changed from handwriting my notes to typing them and it sucks. I feel like I'm not really there in class. Could possibly be from Facebook, but I want to go back to handwriting.
I'm paranoid enough that the very idea of someone scoping out my facebook over my shoulder would keep me off of it in class if I were tempted (which I can't say I really am. I'm one of those people that gets yelled at for never logging in.)
I tend to retain more from handwriting than typing if you only look at the note-taking process itself, but I get more from reviewing typed notes--especially if I need to edit and consolidate them. It's something of a trade off.
- kalvano
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Re: The Gunner Thread
One of my professors today pointed out a camera at the back of the room, which can be operated from the front of the room and the picture displayed on a projection screen.
He said a few professors like to see what people are actually doing on their laptops.
He said a few professors like to see what people are actually doing on their laptops.
- traehekat
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Re: The Gunner Thread
haha, that is so cool and very lame at the same time.kalvano wrote:One of my professors today pointed out a camera at the back of the room, which can be operated from the front of the room and the picture displayed on a projection screen.
He said a few professors like to see what people are actually doing on their laptops.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
I'm old and I type faster than I writejayn3 wrote:is this an appropriate time to make another joke about how old you are?kalvano wrote:jayn3 wrote:they assume everyone uses a laptop. long gone are the days of the organized, concise, three-point lecture.kalvano wrote:Also, I finally gave in and started typing my notes. Too many professors are too disorganized, and I got tired of them going back to some topic from the beginning of class.
I, and about 3 other people, were the only handwriters. I'm still worried about retention, but I guess I'll make do.
Ironically, I write much faster than I type.


For those distracted by Facebook - TURN OFF YOUR WIRELESS. The profs know that you're on there anyway. They just do. And they don't like it. Don't ruin it for the rest of us and have them eliminate laptops (which some of the profs at my school are considering).
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- Thirteen
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Re: The Gunner Thread
He's a Texan.kalvano wrote:romothesavior wrote:How do you figure? Were you not raised there?kalvano wrote:I'm not a Texan, you bastards.
Born and raised. Still not a Texan.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Man. Apparently being a Texan is a cast-iron bitch!Thirteen wrote:He's a Texan.kalvano wrote:romothesavior wrote:How do you figure? Were you not raised there?kalvano wrote:I'm not a Texan, you bastards.
Born and raised. Still not a Texan.

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Re: The Gunner Thread
Did it bother you that the case never mentioned a "hairy hand" like in the movie? Or that the casebook (at least mine) specified that the fact that the doctor may have made the hand worse than it was before was irrelevant, but the movie got that part wrong too?Kiersten1985 wrote:Yup! Just briefed it.Burger in a can wrote:Anyone else have Hawkins v. McGee as their first case in Contracts?
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I was just excited that I recognized it from the film.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
What do you guys recommend to compare your briefs with? Casenotes?
- kalvano
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Thirteen wrote:He's a Texan.kalvano wrote:romothesavior wrote:How do you figure? Were you not raised there?kalvano wrote:I'm not a Texan, you bastards.
Born and raised. Still not a Texan.
You shut up.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
As far as note-taking goes. I'm briefing cases by hand first, then typing them up in OneNote. In OneNote, I have a notebook for each class so far and in each are two tabs: Class Notes and Case Briefs. After class, I create a subpage on the "Case Briefs" page (which appears directly under the case in the list of briefs) and put in the main talking points of class, and any relevant definition, law, etc. I then use the "tag" feature to mark this for later searching.
For example, today we went over intent in battery cases. I took a bunch of notes, and now I'm transferring over the "important stuff". So I'm tagging this as the definition of intent in the subpage for the relevant brief:
Legal definition of intent: The act must be done for the purpose of causing contact or apprehension or with knowledge on the part of the actor that such contact or apprehension is substantially certain to be produced. -You need a specific act in order to prove intent. No element of reasonable, subjective in nature.
-General intent: substantial certainty
-Specific intent: purpose
-If intent is absent, then substantially certainty has to be present.
-Motive is irrelevant to intent.
It's a work in progress until I hone in on what exactly I need to know, but I'm trying to stay as organized as possible. That way, when I want an outline for a course, all I do is search the tag and hit print. Then I can spend my time tightening up definitions, practicing, etc... instead of having to waste time constructing the outline itself.
For example, today we went over intent in battery cases. I took a bunch of notes, and now I'm transferring over the "important stuff". So I'm tagging this as the definition of intent in the subpage for the relevant brief:
Legal definition of intent: The act must be done for the purpose of causing contact or apprehension or with knowledge on the part of the actor that such contact or apprehension is substantially certain to be produced. -You need a specific act in order to prove intent. No element of reasonable, subjective in nature.
-General intent: substantial certainty
-Specific intent: purpose
-If intent is absent, then substantially certainty has to be present.
-Motive is irrelevant to intent.
It's a work in progress until I hone in on what exactly I need to know, but I'm trying to stay as organized as possible. That way, when I want an outline for a course, all I do is search the tag and hit print. Then I can spend my time tightening up definitions, practicing, etc... instead of having to waste time constructing the outline itself.
Last edited by beach_terror on Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- kalvano
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Re: The Gunner Thread
I tried OneNote, but it just doesn't float my boat.
I think and organize in a very linear fashion, so Word with bullet points seems to work best for me.
I've also noticed a tendency to get too wrapped up in all the cool stuff you can do and forget to actually take notes.
I think and organize in a very linear fashion, so Word with bullet points seems to work best for me.
I've also noticed a tendency to get too wrapped up in all the cool stuff you can do and forget to actually take notes.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Hi everyone! So glad this thread exists! Currently trying to finish LEEWS (Wentworth Miller is driving me nuts).
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Re: The Gunner Thread
I'm using Notebook in Word since I have a Mac. I don't want to run Windows on my machine. I might try Circus Ponies, but I don't know if it would be any better than what I'm using now.
- inchoate_con
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Gawd, this is totally on point. I catch myself spending more time organizing shit than actually do it. Color coding, formatting, hyper-linking, attaching pronunciation to latin phrases.... everything.kalvano wrote:I've also noticed a tendency to get too wrapped up in all the cool stuff you can do and forget to actually take notes.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
This is the problem I had the last time I tried to type notes in real time (although I was just using Word) I guess I will still try to hand-write but Kalvano's having abandoned it is making me worry that it won't turn out so well for me either.inchoate_con wrote:Gawd, this is totally on point. I catch myself spending more time organizing shit than actually do it. Color coding, formatting, hyper-linking, attaching pronunciation to latin phrases.... everything.kalvano wrote:I've also noticed a tendency to get too wrapped up in all the cool stuff you can do and forget to actually take notes.
- Duralex
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Re: The Gunner Thread
If you really feel handwriting is better for you than just go with it. You know yourself best.
Anyway, it's not Facebook that distracts me in class, its Westlaw and LN. Some issue or question sticks in my craw, I go off looking for an answer and miss five minutes of the lecture.
This is kind of a tangent, but rather than bicker over banning laptops school IT departments should get off of their asses and tie IP filtering to their authentication suites, so the profs who want to be assholes can simply disallow students in their classes from accessing off campus hosts during a class period for which they are registered. Not that I think that should be the policy, but currently as far as I know at most schools this tension is resolved by allowing individual profs to disallow laptops in their classes. There should be a more granular option of disallowing Internet access. Really, it's a technically simple requirement when you're already using 802.1x access controls w/RADIUS & Kerberos or Cisco NAC or whatever.traehekat wrote:haha, that is so cool and very lame at the same time.kalvano wrote:One of my professors today pointed out a camera at the back of the room, which can be operated from the front of the room and the picture displayed on a projection screen.
He said a few professors like to see what people are actually doing on their laptops.
Anyway, it's not Facebook that distracts me in class, its Westlaw and LN. Some issue or question sticks in my craw, I go off looking for an answer and miss five minutes of the lecture.
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- kalvano
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Re: The Gunner Thread
I just can't stand when they go back and add another half-page of stuff to something 3 pages ago. It gets disorganized.Burger in a can wrote:This is the problem I had the last time I tried to type notes in real time (although I was just using Word) I guess I will still try to hand-write but Kalvano's having abandoned it is making me worry that it won't turn out so well for me either.inchoate_con wrote:Gawd, this is totally on point. I catch myself spending more time organizing shit than actually do it. Color coding, formatting, hyper-linking, attaching pronunciation to latin phrases.... everything.kalvano wrote:I've also noticed a tendency to get too wrapped up in all the cool stuff you can do and forget to actually take notes.
Also, some of my classes will be 4-6 pages a day of notes. That gets old.
I just use Word with no fancy stuff. It looks remarkably similar to my notes anyway, with bullet points and underlining.
- HazelEyes
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Re: The Gunner Thread
I've been having the same issue. Though I love OneNote's searchable options, I get so caught up in its (IMO) buggy formatting, I waste time that way. I think i'm headed back to Word.kalvano wrote:I tried OneNote, but it just doesn't float my boat.
I think and organize in a very linear fashion, so Word with bullet points seems to work best for me.
I've also noticed a tendency to get too wrapped up in all the cool stuff you can do and forget to actually take notes.
- RUQRU
- Posts: 134
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Re: The Gunner Thread
I find the Livescribe solution gives me the best of both worlds, see:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=118671


Using the MyScript add-on all my handwritten notes are OCR'd into machine readable form and pasted in to OneNote.
Livescribe has been criticized for not doing direct OneNote integration, but they keep promising. The OCR method is pretty painless and allows me to not carry a heavy laptop around.
You can get more information here: http://www.livescribe.com/store/store.h ... 1&pcid=101
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=118671


Using the MyScript add-on all my handwritten notes are OCR'd into machine readable form and pasted in to OneNote.
Livescribe has been criticized for not doing direct OneNote integration, but they keep promising. The OCR method is pretty painless and allows me to not carry a heavy laptop around.
You can get more information here: http://www.livescribe.com/store/store.h ... 1&pcid=101
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Can you explain how to do this to my IT department? Because the profs keep saying that "they [the administration] have yet to find a way to turn the internet off in classrooms only".Duralex wrote:If you really feel handwriting is better for you than just go with it. You know yourself best.
This is kind of a tangent, but rather than bicker over banning laptops school IT departments should get off of their asses and tie IP filtering to their authentication suites, so the profs who want to be assholes can simply disallow students in their classes from accessing off campus hosts during a class period for which they are registered. Not that I think that should be the policy, but currently as far as I know at most schools this tension is resolved by allowing individual profs to disallow laptops in their classes. There should be a more granular option of disallowing Internet access. Really, it's a technically simple requirement when you're already using 802.1x access controls w/RADIUS & Kerberos or Cisco NAC or whatever.traehekat wrote:haha, that is so cool and very lame at the same time.kalvano wrote:One of my professors today pointed out a camera at the back of the room, which can be operated from the front of the room and the picture displayed on a projection screen.
He said a few professors like to see what people are actually doing on their laptops.
Anyway, it's not Facebook that distracts me in class, its Westlaw and LN. Some issue or question sticks in my craw, I go off looking for an answer and miss five minutes of the lecture.
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- Duralex
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Re: The Gunner Thread
That's just smoke and mirrors (coming from the administration, not the profs.) There are multiple ways to do this, either as part of the network authentication suite itself, or by doing it in the routers (dynamically blacklist MACs registered to students for off campus access during their class periods.) You could also have a parallel "in-class" network that won't pass external traffic and kick "in class" users off the "general" network during their registered class periods.....blah blah blah.Can you explain how to do this to my IT department? Because the profs keep saying that "they [the administration] have yet to find a way to turn the internet off in classrooms only".
Campus IT departments are generally clueless and move about in what resembles a fugue state, while throwing money at overpriced or obsolete vendors for half-working products. That's just the way it is.
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Yeah, we know. http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3#p3348403RUQRU wrote:I find the Livescribe solution gives me the best of both worlds, see:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=118671
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Re: The Gunner Thread
Just got to Pennoyer. Holy shit, that took me like an hour to read. I still don't quite get it all either.keg411 wrote:We had to do Pennoyer for day #1. /killselfkalvano wrote:TCScrutinizer wrote:So when does this law school shit get hard?
When you start with the Civ Pro.
.
- soaponarope
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Re: The Gunner Thread
beach_terror wrote:Just got to Pennoyer. Holy shit, that took me like an hour to read. I still don't quite get it all either.keg411 wrote:We had to do Pennoyer for day #1. /killselfkalvano wrote:TCScrutinizer wrote:So when does this law school shit get hard?
When you start with the Civ Pro.
.
I stopped reading Pennoyer after the 1st paragraph. I was actually angry that a law school, or any reasonable person, would subject a newly minted 1L to read such arcane, legal jargon. So... instead of wasting three hours trying to figure out what the fuck was going on, I googled it.
Your welcome! Oh... and if this brief doesn't tie it altogether, there is also an article on Wikipedia (but, ya know the deal with that site).
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/300377/Penn ... Case-Brief
Seriously? What are you waiting for?
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