Study Aids

Study Aids in the United States

To supplement casebook and in-class notes, law students might want to use a hornbook, nutshell or other study aid. A study aid is a secondary source that explains the legal concepts in a particular area of law. There are study aids on numerous legal subjects. These study aids are generally authored by law professors.

A hornbook is a single volume devoted to one area of law. A hornbook contains references to cases, statutes, and secondary sources such as law review articles and American Law Reports annotations. Unlike a hornbook, a nutshell provides a basic overview of the legal concepts in a particular area of law with few references to cases, statutes, and secondary sources. Hornbooks and nutshells are published by West/Thomson Reuters. Check Westlaw/WestlawNext for electronic availability of a particular hornbook or nutshell.

LexisNexis publishes the “Understanding …” series and Aspen publishes the Examples and Explanations series of study aids. The Examples and Explanations series of study aids has hypotheticals along with explanations to the hypotheticals. Foundation Press, an independent affiliate of West/Thomson Reuters, also publishes the Concepts and Insights series on various areas of the law. The “Mastering …” series is published by Carolina Academic Press. There are other study aids by other publishers. Mentioned in this audio tour are the major publishers of study aids.

Generally, study aids have a table of contents in the beginning of the book and an index of subjects in the back of the book. References from the index may be to a section rather than a page. A study aid may have a list of cases cited in the book and, depending on the topic, a list of statutory sources that may include citations to the United States Code or to a uniform or model act such as the Uniform Commercial Code. Publishers will update the study aid by publishing a new edition.

Study aids are shelved with books on the same subject by Library of Congress call number. Current editions of a study aid may be shelved on Reserve with earlier editions being shelved in open stacks or all editions of a study aid may be shelved together in the open stacks.

Main Source: Lib Tour (http://libtour.classcaster.net/2011/03/08/study-aids/)

See Also

  • Examples and Explanations
  • Hornbooks
  • Nutshells
  • Law Study
  • Primary vs. Secondary Authority
  • U.S. Constitution law resources
  • Uniform Commercial Code

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