What kind of pattern?
The most useful recall patterns usually fall into
one of five basic categories: slash, linear, radial, pictorial and random.
First, look at the following models and the comments on the first four
of these patterns (excluding, for the moment, the random pattern). Then,
we’ll examine each of these types in more detail, and you can decide
which one best fits your needs.
Model Slash and Linear Recall Patterns
Model Radial Recall Patterns
Model Pictorial Recall Patterns
More on the slash.
The slash structure is perhaps the most popular and
useful of all the recall patterns. You draw the basic slash line diagonally,
beginning at the bottom of the left-hand corner of your note paper and
ending at the upper right-hand corner. This line represents the major
topic of your reading.
Then, after each time through the assigned material, you should make
changes, if necessary, and add more branches or sub-branches to the
main slash line. Subheadings and boldfaced or highlighted materials may
be placed on these lines.
With important nonfiction textbooks, one page in your notebook is
usually enough for each chapter. On the other hand, less important
nonfiction books and many novels may only require one page for the
whole text.
As I mentioned earlier, a major advantage of the slash, and of other
recall patterns, is that you can see at a glance your notes on all the
material covered in a given segment of reading. The material will
automatically be organized logically: Subheadings will branch off the
main topic and sub-subheadings will shoot off those branches.
If the author has included material on one subtopic in several
locations in the text, your slash recall pattern will enable you to insert it
all under one of your branches. You’ll thus have it available for review
in one spot, rather than spread out over piles of disorganized notes.
To give you an idea of how easily organization can be achieved with a
slash recall, look at how it works with a long, assorted shopping list. If
every complicated list were organized this way, think how much more
efficient shopping would be. Using this approach, you can group related
items together for ease in shopping.
How a Slash Recall Can Organize a Shopping List
Here’s another slash recall pattern, which has been a particularly
helpful model for law students to use when they’re taking notes on their
cases.
Many of the best law students like to fit all their notes on a case on a
single page. And of course, they want the material to be organized as
efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, though, not every judge who
writes an opinion is well organized or logical in presenting facts,
principles of law and other points.
To remedy this problem, a slash recall pattern can help impose better
organization on a difficult case than just writing down notes in the order
in which the judge drafted his opinion.
Model Slash Recall Pattern for Legal Cases
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