How to Know if You DON’T Know

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We are not good at judging the effectiveness of our own learning. When information seems easy to recall, we develop “illusions of competence” or “illusions of learning” which hamper our true ability to learn. Over-confidence in our learning leads to early termination of studying,  resulting in poor academic performance.

Ways to avoid overconfidence from Annie Murphy Paul’s post at The Creativity Post:

1. Wait a while - hold off a day or two and then check how well you actually know the information by testing yourself after a meaningful delay

2. Put notes and books away – re-reading & reviewing breeds overconfidence; when material seems familiar, we assume we have learned it. Put your notes & books away and recall the information from memory

3. Mix it up - in the real world, we aren’t tested in convenient chunks. Everything comes at you at once. Interleave (mix up your studying) to replicate realistic conditions, to look for patterns, and to better identify information correctly.

4. Gain expertise - beginners are at a disadvantage as knowledge grows more quickly when linked or connected to prior knowledge. Beginners have to learn AND construct prior knowledge at the same time. Beginners also don’t have the expertise to know what they don’t know. What if you can’t gain expertise or do so in a reasonable time frame? Find a mentor.

 

Judges do not like “redundancy, verbosity, and legalism”

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Here’s the dilemma. You cannot see how you could possibly reduce your brief to meet the court’s (stingy!) page limit. Every word , every sub-sub-section you slaved over is precious. What to do? You file a motion with the court to submit your overstuffed, er, overlength brief.

The court’s response? Instead of simply denying your motion, the court denies your motion AND publicly humiliates you by stating:

A review of the proposed, twenty-nine-page motion’s commencement confirms that a modicum of informed editorial revision easily reduces the motion to twenty-five pages without a reduction in substance.

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How to Avoid Sexism in Legal Writing: A Pronoun Primer

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Good legal writers should write in such a way that no one could call sexist, but also appears totally natural and not contrived. Bryan Garner recommends that legal writers adopt a style that “no reasonable person could call sexist [and that] never suggests that you’re contorting your language to be nonsexist.” In Modern American Usage, Garner suggests three solutions to the “Pronoun Problem“:

  1. Alternate your use of masculine pronouns he, him, or himself, and feminine pronouns she, her, or herself. After all, that’s what the Supreme Court Justices do.
  2. Use pronouns pairs like he or she and his or her.
  3. Avoid the pronoun problem by:
  • Deleting the pronoun
  • Changing the pronoun to an article like a(n) or the
  • Pluralizing the sentence so that he becomes they
  • Substitute the relative pronoun who for he or she
  • Repeating the antecedent noun making the pronoun unnecessary

What NOT to do – avoid the “slants.” What is a “slant”? According to William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, a “slant has no place in good English.”  The slant is a nonword that combines the pronouns: s/he, he/she, she/he, s/he/it (really?).

For more, read “Avoiding Sexism in Legal Writing – The Pronoun Problem” here.

 

Exercise for Writing Gains, Not Just for Weight Loss

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Exercise isn’t just for weight loss. We all know that there are many benefits to regular exercise such as stress reduction, weight loss, increased energy, and many other health benefits.

Exercise can also immediately and positively effect your thinking and writing. Ben Opipari of Persuasive Matters wrote an article for Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing about the history and research of exercise benefits on writing.  Opipari describes a rich history of famous writers who used exercise to either compose and draft or revise and edit. He also reviews the neuroscience behind the connection between exercise and good writing.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), called “Miracle-Gro for the Brain” by researchers, is a protein that acts on neurons in the brain to facilitate the growth of new neurons and survival of existing neurons. Scientists have discovered that this protein has a direct effect on learning and thinking. BDNF is released when you exercise. When the oxygen level increases in your brain during and after you exercise, you become sharper mentally. As a result, the more you exercise, the more you will think and write clearly.

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