I generally use freeware or opensourced free software for my Mac, but Mori is one app which I paid for a license within 3 days of trying it out.
I’ve tried many apps for the organising and taking of notes during my law classes, all of which seemed to be lacking in some way. I’ve tried Notae, which was great, but did not give me much by way of organising the notes. I tried myNotes, because it produced really great-looking and stlyish printouts when I needed to print out my notes for exams. I tried Voodoopad, which I really liked and even paid a license for because I really liked its wiki-style organisation.
I used Voodoopad for the whole of last semester and it was great for jotting down my notes, but when the time came to integrate and put my notes together thats when its limitations started to show.
For a student of law, even though classes are divided into approximate topics, the final set of notes which we bring with us into the exam hall cannot actually be divided in this way. Every single “topic” is actually related or connected to the others in multiple ways. While a wiki is very helpful to show how different “topics” in a law subject is linked to another through the use of hyperlinks, there is no way that this wiki structure can actually be replicated on hard copy.
The one thing about Mori which stands out for me is that it has smart folders. Normal folders help us organise things by being holders of classes of information. In the screenshot above, you can see that I’ve put my notes into four normal folders, organised by subject. Smart folders however, help us organise information according to conditions.
Say for example, I need all notes with the word “action” in them to be put into a folder. What I do is I create a new smart folder, set the smart folder to contain all notes with the word “action”. The result is that a new folder will appear with all the notes fulfilling that condition. The important thing is that the notes are not actually replicated: the smart folder acts like a filter, so when I delete that smart folder, the notes remain in the normal folders.
The conditions for filtering are numerous. I can select by date, time, location, title, attachments, etc, and I can use Boolean operators to filter those conditions.
This flexibility is very important for me because it helps me filter and organise the notes according to the connections between the various topics. This way, I can see the relationships easily, and note them down along the side of the paper for use during exams.
6 Comments
Gee, seems like a hell of a lot of hassle to me. You get the marks by doing heaps of practice papers, and by the process of writing your notes. If you need to see everything in writing on exam day, it is too late. No? I’ve always found it much more beneficial doing notes in short, or as semester goes, then doing tonnes of exam papers.
nmrn:
Actually you’re right, doing tonnes of exam papers is definitely a must. But then again there are only so much exam papers available to be done.
Also, this organisation process should be done as an ongoing process, early on before the exams are anywhere near.
Perhaps its just me? the obsessive/compulsive need to organise and tab things according to how I see it? lol
No I think you are right too. I can see the value in it, and I have the same OCD for putting things in boxes, so I understand what you are trying to do!
And yes, there are only so many exams you can do. What a shame we didn’t know all this when we began, hey! Only worked it all out after 3 or 4 years of it!
nmrn:
Actually I’ve long suspected that OCD seems to be rather prevalent amongst law students… lol
The difficulty we face in doing past year exams is that we can only go so far back in time before we end up doing questions which are not relevant either due to legislative changes or changes in direction that the higher courts take (the former is more likely and common I guess).
Yeah of course - you’re right. Although I have always noted that it is interesting when law has changed due to HC authority (rather than legislative changes) that you can still do the questions. In the end, I guess whatever works for people works for them. In the end, we will all get there!!! Good luck for exams this year anyway (I graduated in August thank god :))
Notae author here.
I realize you’ve already chosen, and that’s cool, but what kind of organization was Notae lacking for you? That’s my next focus for 2.0 and I’d really like to know. Just folders and smart folders/saved searches?
I rather like Mori as well, but I feel it over-emphasizes outlining which really feels like it’s spending too much time on organization at that point. Yet, I’m pondering where the middle ground is in that scenario.