Law School Academic Support Blog

Editor: Goldie Pritchard
Michigan State University

Monday, June 23, 2014

Taking notes in law school: pen and paper or laptop.

To type or not to type; that is the question . . ..

Susan Bakhshian of Loyola Law School of Los Angeles addressed this issue in her presentation at the Second Annual Conference of the Association of Academic Support Educators.  Professor Bakhshian, like many of us in academic support, encourages law students to take notes the old fashioned way -- in longhand. 

For years, many of us have been telling students of the potential downfalls of relying on laptops for note taking in class.  First,  typing notes leads students to create a transcript of the class discussion, rather than a meaningful account of what students should take from the class.  Second, laptops and the internet can be unwelcome distractions in the classroom.

Recent publications  confirm what we have been telling students over the years; students will get more out of writing their notes in longhand than they will if they type notes on their laptops.   One such publication is a research article published in Psychological Science OnlineFirst: "The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop," by Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. 

Professors Mueller and Oppenheimer's article indicates that "laptop use can negatively affect performance on educational assessments even -- or perhaps especially -- when the computer is used for its intended function of easier note taking."  The studies described in their article confirm what we surmised: even though more notes are better than fewer notes, indiscriminate transcription of class content does not promote learning as well as purposefully synthesizing and summarizing class content.

Additionally, following on the heals of the AASE Conference, the New York Times published an article further addressing the connections between writing and learning: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html.  In addition to Mueller and Oppenheimer's work, the New York Times article references work done studying the connections between longhand and learning. 

(Myra G. Orlen)

 

 

 

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