Meet our friends…
Meet our friends …
This book is not intended to be prescriptive in any way; rather it is intended to offer you a helping hand especially in your early years of studying law. You will find that there is not always one way to do things or just the one answer. For example, you can plan an essay in a number of ways, each method will have its own advantages and disadvantages but your choice will ultimately come down to personal preference and what works for you. You need to explore these things and through trial and error, identify what method is most effective for you personally. You need to be open to trying different techniques in order to be sure that you have found the best fit for you. It is for this reason that we have used examples featuring fictional students to explain ideas and concepts – based not on any particular individuals but who feature a mixture of characteristics we often come across in our teaching. So let’s meet them, as they will be popping up throughout this book to explain ideas and work through examples with you.
Meet Ashwin, Brodie, Maisy and Sienna. Here’s a quick rundown of what they are like:
SIENNA
Sienna works tirelessly but finds the volume of reading a bit of a struggle. Since she rarely completes the reading for any of her classes, she is not confident in speaking up in tutorials and putting across her ideas. She feels out of her depth constantly. She does however feel more confident in small groups, where she feels she can bounce ideas off other students. Sienna finds it hard enough to keep up with her studies and therefore avoids attending any extra-curricular events as she finds it impossible to squeeze anything extra into her schedule.
MAISY
Maisy is bright and confident but keen to cut corners where possible. She loves to take part in moot competitions, and excels at the advocacy side of this, but limits herself by only reading what is absolutely required. Similarly for her tutorials she scrapes by on a bare minimum since there are just so many things to read. Maisy likes to find the quickest way to do things and would rather just do ‘enough to get by’ so she can take part in the social events taking place across the university. Since she does not engage in wider reading, she often finds it hard to concentrate when discussions veer off at a tangent and particular questions are being addressed.
