Outlines

[uart]

Last semester I didn't really know what I was doing. I spent a lot of time making outlines. I could've used that time to go over commercial/borrowed outlines.

Should I even bother trying to make my own this semester?

[mike4488]

I spend almost my whole time studying making outlines.  I make them every weekend after classes and then about halfway through the  semester I go through those outlines and make them even better.  This process is what really allowed me to understand the material.  It worked for me as I ended up #1 in my class last semester.  However, I think you just have to know how you learn the material the best.  Personally, I couldn't get a thorough understanding from reading somebody else's outline.

[thorc954]

I take the same approach mike does.  It is very helpful to go through the material to make an outline.  Plus, I find outline banks from my school are full of useless 60+ page outlines which arent conducive to studying.  I think its pretty helpful to review material and put it in outline form so you know you understand it.  That being said, everyone learns differently, so while that works great for me, you may be one of the people that doesnt need to make one to do well. 

[nybartutor]

I think it's really an individual preference. There's some benefit to making an outline: you're forced to organize the material, and in doing so you're studying the material in a way that goes beyond what you'd be doing if you were simply looking over a commercial outline. In other words, when making your own outline for contracts, and deciding which cases to place in your offer/acceptance section, you're looking the content for that aspect of the course.

I think a problem might be when someone takes so much time constructing the outline, and constructing the outline becomes the work, rather than learning the content. By buying a commercial outline, assuming it's a good one, you've basically paid for someone to do the work of constructing the outline for you, and you can concentrate on learning the material within the outline. So, there is definitely a benefit to that.

Personally, I'm in favor of buying the outlines, but I do appreciate the benefits that some people might get in making their own.

[thorc954]

when you buy one though, its hard to get something tailored to your class. 

[plex]

I looked at some of the outlines in my schools outline bank, and they looked like complete gibberish. Of course, part of that was because they were from different professors, funny how they don't make available the outlines for the teachers that are currently teaching the subject that year  . I took a quick look at some from other sources, and they were even worse.

I put most of my outlines together a week before each final, at least for the most part. I am very used to putting together long outlines that hit everything from undergrad though. So, I would suggest starting earlier than that.

[jacy85]

Commercial outlines are usually useless if you have open book exams; most profs allow student-created things in, but ban anything commercial.  So relying on that won't help you.

I don't make my own outlines if I can help it, but I do end up putting a ton of time into updating and reworking old outlines.  For some reason I get more out of editing and rewriting something that's already created, going through line by line and reviewing each page of my notes.