USE YOUR IMAGINATIONTMJust let your thoughts run wild ... as you apply the Erie doctrine. Or is that advice addressed to me? I am kind of using my imagination by writing a blog post about the front of the blue book, but no one needs prodding to think of new ways to avoid the task of grading, and being imaginative while grading would be evil.
And what's with trademarking the phrase "use your imagination"? As if all the other blue book manufacturing companies would want to horn in on the idea of printing bad advice on the cover.
All right. All right. I'll concede that there are some law school exam questions where some controlled use of imagination would be appropriate -- for the student. Never for the teacher.
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10 comments:
Ann - Blue books are for making outlines in when you take the exam on the computer right?
Lets hope my crim professor uses his imagination when he reads the last paragraph of my long hypothetical - I believe I supported something with a rule that does not exist.
Too bad when he prints the essay from the electronic format, it won't say, "Use your imagination" on the top.
Ann - I have a brief question regarding warrants that I didn't want to clog the other thread up with - If warrants were available up to 72 hours after the wiretaps begun, why wouldn't the administration take advantage of them (for no other reason than to forestall this type of "scandle"? Is it because they are relying on authority outside of FISA all together?
Forgive the baseline of ignorance with which the question comes - I'm a month away from starting con law...
Tefta: You'll have to use your imaginationTM.
Gabe: We haven't moved to computers for exams yet! We are about to. As to the other question: I'm just not an expert on that law. I don't want to throw out low quality opinions on this subject. I've got some low quality opinions on other subjects I'm willing to put in writing however.
I loathed blue books. I bought perfectly servicable paper in notepads and everything else - buying these special little (overpriced) books just for taking tests because they were an affectation of the teacher's seemed monumentally stupid.
At my temporary university (University of Washington... the other UW), we have "blue books" and "green books," which are green-colored exam books made out of recycled paper. Using a green book is a mark of social virtue - buying the blue will get you disapproving comments in the examination room.
Ann - Thats why I didn't go to UW. That and I would have had to get a divorce to do it!
In reading your post, the minute I got to the "Use Your Imagination Part," the PBSkids theme song started running through my head:
"Use your imagination/Think of what you can do!/Use your imagination/PBSkids and You!
My kid used to sing that all of the time, up until fairly recently.
DUMB phrase to trademark. I tend to be a copyright/trademark conservative, but I do think it's gotten way out of hand, with really generic and pedestrian and ordinary phrases being put of limits.
Opinion strictly worth the price.
In my first semester of law school, my criminal law professor refused to hand out the blue books until one hour into the exam. I FREAKED OUT. I began writing the essay and it took the form of a limerick. A fifteen stanza limerick answering the darn question. I got the exam book, excused myself to the typing room and wound up with a dean's list grade on the test. Lenny K. will always have a place in my heart for that little trauma.
Over here, some of the books are white-covered, but they're still called blue books. Personally, I hate them - the pages are too damn small. And, when writing furiously during a timed exam, my writing tends to be overly big and widely spaced. Plus, I like to skip lines so I can easily and clearly make edits.
I really hate them on physics exams because with nested radicals and fractions, free-body diagrams and other drawings, space fills up so damn fast. Then, when moving to the next step in calculations, you're constantly flipping back pages to refer to previous steps.
I wish we'd ditch these stupid little books. Full 8.5"x11" printing paper for physics exams!
And for writing exams, I think you could go a step farther than switching to full-sized, lined paper. A lot of my classes have been on honor code, so the exams were mostly unproctored - even closed-book, closed-notes take-home exams. I think if you're going to be that trusting, just let people use their own computers to type up their exams. No professional CBT solutions in computer labs - just regular old AbiWord. That's right - AbiWord.
reader_iam:
DUMB phrase to trademark. I tend to be a copyright/trademark conservative, but I do think it's gotten way out of hand, with really generic and pedestrian and ordinary phrases being put of limits.
Then, you'll love this.
Ugh, just the words "blue book."
Maybe because I'm a graphic designer and way too anal about some things, but: those books are all wrong. The size, the spacing... taking an exam is bad enough, but having to write in that format. I repeat, ugh.
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