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How do you finish your outline early? Do you just use your syllabus to determine what you are going to be going over in the future and then use commercial supplements, 2L and 3Ls outlines who had the same teacher as you to create a rough outline, and then fill it in over the next month?

TYIA

IMO if your doing it right --- You don't.

You can outline periodically or daily for each class if you choose but a smart student is still going to want the opportunity to include everything that could matter on the exam from class. You can create an entire outline a month early if you want but your still going to need to go back and add any relevant topics of discussion or nuances from your classes.

I know some people did it differently, but to be honest my first semester 1L year I did my entire outline within a week or two of the final and I think it really helped. Making the outline from scratch made me review the entire course and hone in on what was important. If I had outlined early I would have had to go back and basically learn it over again anyway. For me it was just doing the outline and them some practice exams the week before, and that was enough.

best way to outline is to take meticulous notes in class and then condense those into an outline. so you can't really do that until the semester ends. if you've stayed on top of it, you'll be fine. I could turn my notes into a 20-30 page outline in a couple of days.

Agree. Outlining early doesn't make sense. The act of making the outline is more important than the product itself, as it forces you to sit down, review, & ideally condense the information. The closer to finals you do it, the fresher that information is in your mind. I think first semester last year I hadn't started any outlines until well into November.

Heat wrote:IMO if your doing it right --- You don't.

You can outline periodically or daily for each class if you choose but a smart student is still going to want the opportunity to include everything that could matter on the exam from class. You can create an entire outline a month early if you want but your still going to need to go back and add any relevant topics of discussion or nuances from your classes.

This--I definitely underestimated the value of class notes in building my outline last year and it (1) made making the outline more tedious and time consuming than it had to be and (2) I didn't get as much of the prof's personal take on the issues. You can copy all the info straight from the book or supplements but nothing really replaces knowing the way that the professor phrases the issues and in what context they like to discuss them.

I remember someone said--the professor is the word of God, casebook is the Bible.

(I am not dissing supps)

nStiver wrote: I remember someone said--the professor is the word of God, casebook is the Bible.

(I am not dissing supps)

Agree with this. 95% of everything I ever saw on an exam was something the professor discussed in class. I was more often tested on some minor detail the prof mentioned for less than a minute in class, than I was tested on some minor detail discussed in a court opinion.

My approach was always to take excellent notes from Prof's lecture, and make those the primary focus of my exam prep. And it worked well for me (top 15%). Second on my exam prep list was reading old outlines from the same professor, just in case I missed something in class. Supplements come in at a distant third.