As the fall semester is upon us, many students are scrambling to purchase text books for class. As a courtesy, the library purchased one copy of each required textbook. The books are located on course reserve behind the circulation desk. You can check out course reserve materials for two hours at a time. Some of the titles are on order and will be placed on reserve as soon as the library receives them. Please note that the library does not purchase statutory supplements, because you can access the United States Code and state codes through several online resources, including Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg Law.  Click on the course reserves link to view the items on course reserve by course name or professors’ name.

A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal for the Association of Psychological Science, suggests that students may be harming their academic performance by taking class notes on their computers.  Pam Muller of Princeton University, lead author of the study, says that even when students use their laptops as intended – and not for buying things on Amazon during class – they may still be harming their academic performance.

In the study, students listened to a lecture and were told to use whatever strategy they normally used to take notes – hand writing or typing.  Students then completed three distractor tasks and, 30 minutes later, were asked to answer factual recall questions (e.g. how many years ago did an event take place?) and conceptual application questions (e.g. how did equality differ in the countries discussed?).  The study revealed that while the two types of note takers performed equally well on the factual recall questions, those typing their notes performed significantly worse on the conceptual questions.

The difference in performance may be explained by the fact that typists take almost a verbatim record of a lecture while writers must process what they hear and then write down the ideas in their own words.  According to Muller, the hand written notes might allow students to better remember the message of a lecture because they have already processed what the lecture meant.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/take-notes-by-hand-for-better-long-term-comprehension.html

If you are a first year, you are most likely preparing for your oral argument.  It can be pretty intimidating and scary.  (At least it was for me.)  But the library can help you prepare and shake off some of those jitters.

The library has many resources to help, including a new Technology Collaboration Lab that will allow you to record and watch yourself practicing your arguments.   The Tech CoLab, Room 111, is located on the ground floor of the library by the copy machines/scanners.  To use the Tech CoLab, you need to reserve the room, using the library’s study room reservations system.   When it is time for your reservation, you will check out the key to the Tech CoLab from the circulation desk.

We also have several books trial and appellate advocacy to assist you.   Listed below are a few of the available titles.

Thomas A. Mauet, Trial Techniques and Trials (9th ed. 2013).

Charles H. Rose III, Fundamental Trial Advocacy (2d ed. 2011).

Ursula Bentele, Mary Falk, & Eve Cary, Appellate Advocacy: Principles and Practice (5th ed. 2012).

Michael R. Fontham & Michael Vitiello, Persuasive Written and Oral Advocacy in Trial and Appellate Courts (3d ed. 2013)