Key Skills: Foundational skills are crucial for law school and professional practice.
General vs. Specific Advice: Advice provided is overarching, pay close attention to specific guidance for individual assessments.
Planning Your Assessment
Three Essential Steps:
Plan what to say.
Manage your time effectively.
Reflect on feedback to improve future work.
Time Management:
Start early to allow ample time for research, drafting, and revisions.
Aim to finish a solid draft well before the due date.
Use a semester planner to schedule assessment tasks; some planners can work backward from due dates.
Block out specific time slots for each assessment.
Benefits of Unit Restructuring:
The consolidation of units aims to reduce student stress by spacing out assessments and dealing with content more efficiently.
Importance of Downtime:
Rest is essential for the nervous system and mental well-being.
Taking breaks freshens your mind and improves work quality.
Avoid grinding for extended periods, as it leads to diminishing returns.
Incorporate rewards into your study schedule.
Personal Biorhythms: Identify when you are most productive and structure your study schedule accordingly.
Reflection on Feedback:
Use feedback to identify areas for improvement in future assessments.
Create a checklist of common errors to avoid, such as citation issues or statute formatting.
Maintain a document of past feedback to track recurring issues.
Types of Assignments and Critical Thinking
Common Assignment Types: Problem-based and essay-style assignments are common, however, there can be others.
Core Skills Tested: All assignments test critical thinking, planning, and writing skills.
Key Considerations:
What to say.
In what order to present the information.
How to structure the assignment.
Level of detail needed.
How to weigh different aspects of the argument.
Learning as a Process: Recognize that mastering these skills takes time and practice; expect an initial period of discomfort.
Active Engagement: Engage with the material actively rather than passively watching or reading.
Getting Started: Planning and Structure
Read the Question Carefully: Ensure you fully understand the question and respond directly to what it asks.
Start with a Plan: Develop a plan by putting thoughts on paper and organizing them.
Mind Mapping: Use mind mapping to brainstorm concepts.
Identifying Controversies: Focus on controversial areas and sub-issues.
Contentious Aspects: Determine primary issues requiring attention and analyze different viewpoints.
Argument Creation: Use resources to support your arguments around the controversies.
Resource Tracking: Keep track of resources for citations.
Mind Mapping Techniques
Various Methods: Apps, Post-it notes, color-coding.
Post-it Notes: Easy to move around, color-coding benefits.
Color-Coding: Organize information visually (e.g., main issues in yellow, sub-issues in other colors).
Content Organization: Use techniques like "pizza paragraph, and "crossword definitions with the names".
Organizing Thoughts and Resources
Word Document Approach: Use basic headings and subheadings to organize thoughts.
Iterative Process: Start with dot points and develop them into paragraphs.
Folder System: Use folders to store resources for different sections or chapters.
Research Essay Answer Plans
Turning Questions into Headings: Convert assessment questions into headings to structure your answer.
Resource Explanation: Explain how each resource supports your argument.
Detailed Planning: Create detailed plans to streamline the writing process.
Non-Linear Writing: Start with easier sections or questions to build momentum.
Drafting a First Draft
Revisit the Question: Read the assessment question again to ensure you stay on track.
Core Elements: Introduce, explain, argue, and conclude in a logical manner.
Word Count Allocation: Answer the question succinctly and avoid over-explaining simple aspects.
Focus on Controversy: Spend the most time and word count on the controversial aspects of the question.
Learning from Feedback: Use feedback to identify areas where you need to provide more or less detail.
Exemplars: Review exemplars of good student work to understand how better answers addressed specific issues.
Key Elements of the First Draft
Clarity and Logic: Focus on clear expression and logical organization.
Succinctness: Concisely answer the question without unnecessary detail.
Professionalism: Present a professional and well-organized paper.
Formatting Requirements: Pay close attention to specific formatting requirements for each unit.
Active Voice: Use active voice and short sentences for clarity.
Addressing Gaps: Identify and research any gaps in your knowledge as you write.
Iterative Process: Recognize that drafting involves continuous research and refinement.
Starting the Writing Process
Various Methods: Super planner, writer and rewriter, beginners and closers, outline first.
Avoid Procrastination: The most dangerous approach is not to begin at all.
Draft Management: Keep multiple versions of your work to preserve different ideas and protect against data loss.
Structuring Assessments and Avoiding Common Mistakes
Simple Structures: First-year assessments often have simple structures with unpacked questions.
Cascade Approach: Follow a logical progression in research questions (law, cases, reforms).
Word Count Restrictions: Avoid long quotes and repeating the question to save space.
Summarizing Relevant Law: Summarize the law by citing statutes, sections, and cases.
Applying to Facts: Tie the law back to the specific facts of the scenario.
Checking Completeness: Ensure every part of the question is answered.
Review Resources: Use books such as Goldstein and Lieberman Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well for help.
Critical Legal Thinking and Strong Arguments
Universal Expectations: Critical legal thinking, supporting arguments with authority, and logical organization are universally required.
Post-Draft Review: Addressing Gaps and Citations
Double Checking: Identify and address any gaps in your knowledge discovered during drafting.
Citation Verification: Ensure all arguments are supported by authorities where required.
Quote Accuracy: Use quotation marks and precise footnotes for word-for-word quotes.
Summarizing Ideas: Summarize others' ideas, cite the original source.
Law Source: Where is the law, statute, three requirements?
Fact Statistics: Cite facts, statistics, and scientific results.
AGLC Chapter 1: Chapter 1 of the AGLC helps with general writing with the cases.
Primary Sources: Use primary sources and official versions of those sources, official government website.
Case Reporting and Official Sources
Case Reporting: Determine if a case has been reported and if an authorized version exists.
Authorized Reports: Use authorized reports because the court has checked and approved them.
Court Verification: Check the specific requirements.
Key Resources and Abbreviations
Library Guide: Library website offer guides on official and non-official resources.
Legislative Publishers: Legislative publishers in each state provide official versions of legislation (Federal Register of Legislation for federal laws).
Abbreviating Names: Abbreviating cases and statute helps make writing easier.
Common Mistakes of First-Year Students
Question Conflation: Conflating questions rather than answering it directly.
Detail Omission: Missing that Section 52 is what you need rather than the details.
Sweeping Generalization: No emotional words in this field or industry is preferred.
Language and Sentence Structure: Double check the sentence. Clear is preferred.
Revising and Refining
Editing as a Separate Stage: Separate editing for a dedicated time.
Mental Break: Put it aside for a day or two and come back refreshed.
New Version: Save New version and edit it.
Segment Review: intro/body/segments all should be working.
Word Count Assessment: Word count needs to be happy to be approved.
Prioritization: It is good to remove things of lower priority.
Complete Sentences: Keep note of things that would have liked to include.
Sentence Scrutiny: Check the sentences for appropriate meaning.
Reference Check: Check and double-check the reference.
Clear Writing Techniques
Checklist Usage: Be confident doing the sentence-by-sentence usage following your rules.
Gender-Neutral Language: Don't assume gender, the judge is the correct terms.
Grammarly and CoPilot: Tools only used if the particular academic allows.
Grammar check
Spell Check: You can use spell check in order to review; however, make sure it is not the US spelling for the sentence.
Apostrophes: Apostrophes in writing is common, be careful to check the right location.
Full Stop: Put complete stops as needed.
Working with Word Count
Word Restrictions: Is a fact of lawyer life, follow the restriction!
Chopping Sentences: Keep in mind to keep the idea of that sentence if removing. Clear, direct way is the goal.
Word Count Too Low: Need to think or do more research! Discounted resources is preferred to re check.
Don't Panic: If it doesn't wake up in the time given, relax.
Checking Layout and Formatting
Font Check: Double check the font.
Citation Check: Check for the period at the end of every footnote.
Header Item: In the header needs to be enough information.
Before You Submit- Proof Reading
Proof Read for Last Errors: Make sure that everything checks correctly.
Hard Copy is Important: Having a printed version helps find more mistakes.
Get a Family Member to Assist: Family members who don't have law background will see the more straight forward errors in language.
Final Thoughts
Significant Difference: By taking the time and steps, you should see a real difference in your work.
Eye for Detail: Must be clearly communicative.
Clearly Communicate and Keep Detail: If instructions appear absurd, keep eye on detail.
Following Instructions: If it is not laid out properly, there is a possibly of not accepting it for filing.
Keep Sloppy Words Away: Mistakes distract the eye and the line of thought comes away from understanding the true meaning!
Do NOT Waste Time Redrafting: Create more time in the plan.
Use All of the Resource Available: All books available read much the same.