CrunchTime Audio
Here we are, its 2009, laptops are everywhere, smartphones have invaded, and the almighty digital microchip controls your daily life–yet our studying habits are still old school (no pun intended). Physical books, hand written notes, other printed material, yet more physical books. How many trees should we kill in the name of legal supplements? I have been a person of technology for decades and felt that law school should be no different; using a few simple ideas I’ve found that it doesn’t need to be.
What I’d like to bring up today is the Emanuel CrunchTime study guides from Aspen Publishers. These cram-exam legal supplements are widely available and used at law schools across the US. Fortunately, Aspen has realized that not everyone actually has the time to read all of them. To correct this issue they have created the audio equivalent of the series distributed on one or two CDs in popular MP3 format. Each chapter is its own file which can be played on all MP3 devices as well as some CD and DVD players.
Yes, nothing more than an audio formatted book, but not something found in the world of academia very often. If you’re like me and stretched thin for time, this series may be of value. I personally find them useful in my daily commute to and from the office. 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there–it adds up. If you’re motivated enough, you can listen to them during your morning rituals, at the gym, maybe even try to absorb some info while asleep (your mileage may vary on the last tip).
The narrator follows the book word for word covering the all printed materials. His voice can get annoying after a while, but he does speak clearly and slow enough for you to follow and understand. Each subsection is also delimited by an audio indicator to let you know when a new portion is about to being.
These audio CD’s are available for most of the Crunchtime series books and sold on Amazon. I have not found them by simple browsing, as if they do not wish to promote them but a simple search at your favorite online book e-tailer should return the list. If such a time saver may be of benefit to you, then you may wish to order one to try out. I personally own them for contracts, torts, property, and civil procedure and have no intention of stopping anytime in the near future.
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Nifty, I didn’t even realize Aspen was doing this. Also recommend Law In A Flash iPhone apps. Flashcards on-the-go.
@Joshua Auriemma, Hey hey hey–no stealing thunder. Modality’s iPhone Law in a Flash in part of the upcoming series write ups. :-)
Since you’re doing a series, here’s my tech tip: you can use a Firefox add-on called “Scrapbook” to save cases from Westlaw, Quicklaw, etc in a form that looks and acts the same as it did on Westlaw and Quicklaw, but doesn’t require internet access, and allows you to highlight, add notes, and otherwise edit in your browser window. It’s fantastic for research.
Does it make me a hopeless Luddite to say that I still do most of my studying on paper–with a fountain pen? Reading dense text from a screen isn’t as easy on the eyes (yet) as a well-printed page.
On the same note, I never used to understand the point behind legal pads–until I went on an internship and started using them to take notes while I was observing trials. Suddenly, I wanted ALL my pads to be legal-sized.
@Molly, That does sound very helpful! I’m still a borderline ‘newbie’ myself and only get my Westlaw/Lexis access this semester so I haven’t yet had the pleasure of doing caselaw research but I will definitely take this tip and blog about it when I become proficient with it. Thanks!
@ouij, Not at all, its a personal preference. I work all day with computers, multiple large LCD screens, and have been doing so for years–its what I’m used to. The best tips for other is always to use what works best for ‘you’, I just like to point out the options available.
@Adam Vella, I tend to take paper notes; where I choose to make outlines, I tend to use LaTeX to reassemble them into nicely typeset documents that I print out and carry with me everywhere. Then I do my outline memorization while I’m on the train, without having to trot out any other devices. Personally, I prefer the type of output I get:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2284/2125882368_91fee8a09f.jpg
Whatever method you use, most of the benefit comes, I think, from actually being forced to confront the material & synthesize it all. The workflow is just incidental.
@ouij, That’s right, you have the hour long DC train ride. I use OneNote (another upcoming part of the TechStudy series) which I use to integrate my notes, syllabuses, outlines, case briefs, as well as the cases and materials–all hyperlinked together for ease of navigation.
My main point of the audio books was that sometimes you don’t have the option of looking at something to read–like when you’re driving, or cooking dinner, or or cleaning the house, etc.
Its not always even important to absorb it all when listening, you catch a phrase here and there, and next time you catch different ones, and with enough repetitiveness they all come together.
@Adam Vella, Agree w/ audiobooks. I used them quite successfully in studying for Corporations and Evidence (although in the latter case, “success” meant “averting failure”)
For Linux users looking for a hyperlinkable note-taking solution, there’s always Tomboy:
http://projects.gnome.org/tomboy/
No fancy-pants diagram-drawing abilities here, at least not the last time I checked. I briefly considered going with Tomboy as a note-taking suite, but I found I was just more comfortable taking paper notes.
Thanks for the heads up on the audio series. My commute is 45 minutes each way from work and these will prove invaluable to me.