ZiefBrief

Read Law Professor Barack Obama’s Final Exams

There has been a lot of commentary about an article in the New York Times that discussed Barack Obama’s 12 years as a law professor at University of Chicago (click here to see article). Turns out he was generally considered brilliant by most students but enigmatic by some fellow professors. What the readers of the print version of the article didn't get to see is a collection of Professor Obama's final exams and the syllabus to his class Current Issues in Racism and the Law.

Links to the materials:

Syllabus: Current Issues in Racism and the Law

2003 Final Exam
2002 Final Exam
2001 Final Exam
2000 Final Exam
1999 Final Exam
1998 Exam
1997 Final Exam | Answer Memo
1996 Final Exam | Answer Memo

Better Boolean Searching on Lexis and Westlaw - Sample Training Documents

Lately ZiefBrief has been participating in a group of academic and law firm librarians who are looking for ways to make sure that summer associates and new law school graduates have the real-world legal research skills they'll need.

One of the group's observations is how little training most law students get in the techniques of Boolean searching — the picking of search terms; the effective use of the AND & OR operators; the role of proximity connectors such as w/15 or w/p.

Here at USF all of our first-years have a mandatory Lexis/Westlaw training session that stresses how to build an effective Boolean (Terms and Connectors) search. Our slides, outlines, worksheets, and student handout might be useful to other librarians who want to beef up their Boolean training (or to students who want to sharpen their skills). So, herewith …

• Instructor's Slides (shorter version) (PowerPoint document; 1.4 MB)
• Instructor's Slides (longer version) (PowerPoint document; 2.2 MB)
• Instructor's Outline (PDF; 15 pages) (This is geared to the shorter set of slides)
• Handout for Students (PDF; 4 pages) (we print this on one folded 11 x 17 sheet)
• Blank Search Worksheet - Front (PDF; 1 page)
• Blank Search Worksheet - Back (PDF; 1 page) (We encourage the students to use this worksheet when drafting searches for research until they are confident in their skills)
• Search Worksheet with Training Hypothetical (PDF; 1 page)

Fighting "PowerPoint Phluff" with Edward R. Tufte

Depending on your point of view, the presentation software PowerPoint is either the greatest tool for presenting information to a group of people since the invention of the chalkboard, or it's the work of Satan. For most people bad PowerPoint presentations are akin to pornography—you can't exactly define what is that makes them bad, but you know them when you see them. Edward R. Tufte has written some of the most thought-provoking words about what's wrong with PowerPoint, and how to improve presentations made using it. In his slim volume The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint Tufte illustrates the limitations of PowerPoint, lambastes some of the common misuses of the software and tells the reader how to use the software intelligently and effectively. If you think you will be called upon to make a presentation, a few minutes spent with this book may stand you in better stead than wading through a 400 page guide to PowerPoint.

To learn more about Edward R. Tufte and his theories on visual representation/presentation of information go to Professor Tufte's web site at www.edwardtufte.com.