Can you ever get away without fully outlining a class?

[Jake_MONDATTA]

I've never actually made my own outline for a class. I sort of did once.

how did you do, sue?

[Susan B. Anthony]

I've never actually made my own outline for a class. I sort of did once.

how did you do, sue?

I did fairly well. My school doesn't rank, so hard to say.

I should say that I don't necessarily recommend the method. But if you can get your hands on solid outlines from other people and it works with your learning/studying style to study from that outline, it's certainly not the end of the world. Don't try to force something that doesn't work for you.

[Jake_MONDATTA]

I'm adopting sort of a hybrid technique.  I started using other peoples' outlines and I've now completely mangled them (added/subtracted).  We'll see if it works. 

[dashrashi]

The answer to the question asked is OMG YES ARE YOU JOKING.

Different from whether you should, or whether it's a good idea. I don't have enough experience to say. Although I did best in the class where I pretty much only used a commercial outline (Emanuel, I think). I often feel like I don't have good enough connections to others to get hold of other outlines, so I often end up starting to outline and then run out of time and just cram by reading my notes over and over. I...don't recommend this.

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

I'm only a 1L, so take this with the usual salt:

I'm very disorganized, and I take notes by hand, so my outlines were crap.  I mean, they were absolute crap.  To make matters worse, I used a ton of hornbooks and commercial outlines to get the big picture, and didn't pay attention in class as much as I should have.  (I certainly didn't transcribe things.  I had maybe a page of notes every day, and it was all big picture.)

Luckily, I'm friends with 2Ls and 3Ls who were gracious enough to give me their outlines, and I used them while taking practice exams and did fine on the practice exams.

As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, you want an outline that you know cold and that is a point-adding machine.  My CivPro outline, for instance, is a checklist.  Nothing more.  I know the rules cold, but I can glance down at, say, Rule 48, and know that there are 6-12 people on a jury.  I also have some policy stuff, like Twombly and the plausible standard.

What is an outline?  It's just a brief summary of the relevant BLL and topics in the course.  Nothing more.  You don't even have time to consult it during the exam.  Now, do the people who do well generally have better outlines?  Not really.  I got outlines from a friend on LR that was a mess, and a really simplified outline from a guy who did okay that was perfect.

[Susan B. Anthony]

Wally, do yourself a favor and refrain from commenting until you've taken an exam and gotten grades back.

You do almost always have time to reference outlines during exams. You may not have time to search through it for an answer, but if you know where to look, you're good to go. I haven't taken one exam where I haven't referred to my outline many times.

Also, what an outline should consist of very much depends on the professor and what s/he looks for on an exam.

[Matthies]

You do almost always have time to reference outlines during exams. You may not have time to search through it for an answer, but if you know where to look, you're good to go. I haven't taken one exam where I haven't referred to my outline many times.

My experience is somewhat different. I can say I’ve only had two in class exams where outlines were allowed to be brought in (most are either closed everything or take homes at my school). In neither did I have much time to consult my outline, maybe 2-3 times during the test max, but had I not known the material pretty well I would have run out of time (granted I am a hunt and peck typer and dyslexic so I need time left over to spell check). I did learn from a friend to create a table of contents for my outline, so that helped in finding stuff quickly. But at least for me I never felt like I had enough time to search for something really in depth in my outline, it was just a quick check to make sure I had the right rule number or something.

[Miss P]

I read a case in my book during my property exam.  For reals.  But I seldom finish everything and I am too proud to get things wrong.

[Susan B. Anthony]

You do almost always have time to reference outlines during exams. You may not have time to search through it for an answer, but if you know where to look, you're good to go. I haven't taken one exam where I haven't referred to my outline many times.

My experience is somewhat different. I can say I’ve only had two in class exams where outlines were allowed to be brought in (most are either closed everything or take homes at my school). In neither did I have much time to consult my outline, maybe 2-3 times during the test max, but had I not known the material pretty well I would have run out of time (granted I am a hunt and peck typer and dyslexic so I need time left over to spell check). I did learn from a friend to create a table of contents for my outline, so that helped in finding stuff quickly. But at least for me I never felt like I had enough time to search for something really in depth in my outline, it was just a quick check to make sure I had the right rule number or something.

Well right, as I said, you probably won't have time to go through an outline searching for answers. If you know where things are, though, or can easily find them, you can certainly usually consult it, at least in my experience and the experience of pretty much everyone I've ever talked to or observed during exams.

[Matthies]

You do almost always have time to reference outlines during exams. You may not have time to search through it for an answer, but if you know where to look, you're good to go. I haven't taken one exam where I haven't referred to my outline many times.

My experience is somewhat different. I can say I’ve only had two in class exams where outlines were allowed to be brought in (most are either closed everything or take homes at my school). In neither did I have much time to consult my outline, maybe 2-3 times during the test max, but had I not known the material pretty well I would have run out of time (granted I am a hunt and peck typer and dyslexic so I need time left over to spell check). I did learn from a friend to create a table of contents for my outline, so that helped in finding stuff quickly. But at least for me I never felt like I had enough time to search for something really in depth in my outline, it was just a quick check to make sure I had the right rule number or something.

Well right, as I said, you probably won't have time to go through an outline searching for answers. If you know where things are, though, or can easily find them, you can certainly usually consult it, at least in my experience and the experience of pretty much everyone I've ever talked to or observed during exams.

Are you exams mostly open or closed book, if its on the bar they require closed book here.