Let’s imagine that we are both standing in front of a big tree. I know every- thing there is to know about the tree and your job is to find out as much as possible from me about the tree. There are two ways we can do this. You could ask me to tell you everything I know about the tree. I would then talk for an hour or so about the tree and you would try to absorb as much as possible of the information I give you. The problem with this method of finding out as much as possible about the tree is that it’s so
passive. Your job is simply to listen to me going on and on about the tree.
But you won’t – your attention will wander, you’ll get bored and after only ten minutes you’ll have stopped listening to me altogether.
The second method for finding out as much as possible about the tree is much better. Under this method, you ask me questions about the tree and I answer them. Using this method, you are no longer a passive – and therefore bored and unenthusiastic – participant in the learning process.
You are in charge, not me. You get to dictate what I talk about. If I say
something that is unclear, you have the power to make me express myself more clearly by asking me to try to answer your question again. Because you are more involved in the process of learning as much as possible about the tree, you are more engaged and will therefore pay more atten- tion to what I have to say. As a result, you will learn far more about the tree using this method than you would if you adopted the first method.
Let’s call the first method for finding out as much as possible about a particular subject the osmosis approach. ‘Osmosis’ because it involves trying to absorb information by allowing it simply to sweep over you, in the hope that some of it will sink in. Let’s call the second method for finding out as much as possible about a particular sub- ject the question-driven approach. The overwhelming majority of law
LETTER 11 HOW TO APPROACH YOUR STUDIES
students adopt the osmosis approach in their studies – with the dis- mal results I’ve already mentioned. What I’m going to do in this let- ter and the following letters I’ll be sending you is to show you how to adopt a question-driven approach to your law studies.
Now – before I start, let’s immediately address one objection that my stu- dents always make when I try to encourage them to adopt a question- driven approach to studying law. The objection is this: If I don’t know anything about a subject, how do I know what questions to ask? When my students say this kind of thing, I remind them that little children don’t seem to find it difficult to ask all sorts of questions about all sorts of sub- jects about which they know nothing. If little children find this very easy, then so should my students.
Let’s go back to our tree. Even though you know nothing about the tree, there are still loads of questions you could ask about it:
What kind of tree is this?
How many different kinds of trees are there?
What makes this tree different from other kinds of tree?
How old is this tree? Has it suffered any damage over its lifetime?
How would it have started growing?
Do any birds or animals live in the tree?
Is there anything about the tree that makes it a suitable habitat for cer- tain birds or animals?
Why is the tree the colour that it is?
Does the tree change colour during the year – and if so, why?
And these are the questions you can ask even though you don’t know any- thing about the tree. Imagine how many further questions you might ask once you get to know a bit about the tree.
You might say – well, of course I know what sort of questions to ask if I have to ask about a tree; but what if I have to find out about something I know absolutely nothing about? How then will I know what sort of ques- tions to ask? Well, even in that situation, there are still basic questions you
PART 3 HOW TO STUDY LAW
can ask that will give you enough understanding of what you are inquir- ing into to allow you to ask more complex questions later on.
For example, suppose that we are both standing in front of a snarg – a wholly imaginary object – and you again have to find out as much as you can from me about that object. Even though you know absolutely noth- ing about what a snarg is, there are still questions you can ask:
What is a snarg?
What does it do?
Is it useful for anything?
How is it produced?
How long does it last?
If it ever dies or breaks down, how and why does that happen? The answers I give you to these questions will then allow you to go on to ask much more complicated and detailed questions about snargs. At this point, my students usually object – But what if we fail to ask an important question? Won’t we miss out on finding out some important information? This is unlikely. If there is an important question relating to a particular subject that you are studying that you haven’t thought of your- self, you will come across it soon enough in the course of trying to find out answers to the questions you have thought of. You will then be able to add that question to the list of questions to which you are seeking answers. That’s enough preliminaries. Let’s get on with developing a question-based approach to studying law. Whenever you start studying a ‘straight’ legal subject, you should buy two A4 ring-binders. One of them you should label ‘Topic File’ and the other you should label ‘Case and Statute File’ (I’ll refer to it as your ‘case file’ for short).