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As a law student, you must learn and remember (memorize) vast quantities of information. Depending on your personal learning styles, there are many methods you can draw upon to help yourself learn material and then recall it in class, on law school exams, on the bar exam, and even in law practice. Most of the information on this page comes from Michael Hunter Schwartz’s excellent book, Expert Learning for Law Students. Here are some strategies for memorizing the material you will encounter in law school.
“Clustering” Strategies. Organize large quantities of knowledge into smaller meaningful categories to maximize your learning by
Organizing and Connecting Strategies. The more connections you can make between new knowledge and existing knowledge, the more likely you can recall the information when needed. Make connections by
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Creating graphic organizers such as charts or flowcharts
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Drawing analogies among your law school courses (e.g., between defenses in contract, tort, and criminal law)
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Connecting law school to undergraduate learning (e.g., between constitutional law and U.S. history)
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Connecting your law school learning with your personal experiences (e.g., between contract formation and your job as a salesperson).
Elaboration Strategies. Make sense out of new information by adding new information by strategies such as
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Paraphrasing, or putting a concept into your own words
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Generating examples of the concept (e.g., A puts ring in B’s hand as example of delivery of gift)
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Generating non-examples (e.g., A waves at ring on dresser while talking to B, as non-example of delivery of gift)
“Rehearsal” Strategies. You can use repetition to learn. Rehearsal strategies include
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Saying the information to yourself
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Speaking out loud
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Writing the information down
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Reciting the full course outline based on a one-page summary outline
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Creating and using flashcards
Associational Strategies. Create associations by strategies including
Relevance and Use Strategies. Working through practice problems and practice exams is a powerful learning strategy, because it makes information relevant by asking the learner to put the new concepts to use.
Several commercial websites have a wealth of information on memorizing. About Memory has relatively simple, accessible techniques. Mindtools.com also has a wealth of material, some more complex, on specific memorizing techniques for different learning situations.
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