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I have an exam coming up on the 19th with the following features:
--3 hour in class, 2 or 3 essays of 500 words apiece.
--the essay will NOT be an issue spotter, or really about the doctrine as such. the professor has been known to ask questions like "talk about your learning experience in this class", "how does the doctrine that we have learned about relate to our intuitions about civic participation and democracy?", etc.
--one of the essays will be about a pending scotus case that just had oral argument, but besides that there's no clue at all as to what's going to be tested.
--it's HLS, so we have DS/H/P/LP grading. professor stated he's not keen on giving lots of LP's, but i've heard anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
--professor is notorious for being a little bit unhinged (not going to name him but if you are at HLS you should know exactly who i'm talking about).

i have this feeling that outlining the doctrine and relevant policy arguments is not going to be an effective way to study for this exam. any tips?

Ha ha! I hope you enjoyed that class. I think I know which professor.

Suggest that you read over your notes, read past exams if available, think about what he/she has done and emphasized in class - the "themes", and use your time to study for more doctrinal classes.

smittytron3k wrote:I have an exam coming up on the 19th with the following features:
--3 hour in class, 2 or 3 essays of 500 words apiece.
--the essay will NOT be an issue spotter, or really about the doctrine as such. the professor has been known to ask questions like "talk about your learning experience in this class", "how does the doctrine that we have learned about relate to our intuitions about civic participation and democracy?", etc.
--one of the essays will be about a pending scotus case that just had oral argument, but besides that there's no clue at all as to what's going to be tested.
--it's HLS, so we have DS/H/P/LP grading. professor stated he's not keen on giving lots of LP's, but i've heard anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
--professor is notorious for being a little bit unhinged (not going to name him but if you are at HLS you should know exactly who i'm talking about).

i have this feeling that outlining the doctrine and relevant policy arguments is not going to be an effective way to study for this exam. any tips?

I feel your pain. My property prof does things like hand out a Robert Frost poem and say "What is property? You have 9 hours." To prepare I just read a few books and articles on property theory, theories of rights, etc. If I were you, I'd just read some of his recent articles and parrot them back to him w/o being too obvious about it.