Keep Your LSAT Prep Paperbound
If you were lucky enough to get your hands on the new iPhone5, we know you’re feeling pretty darn cool. Even if you’re just sitting in class or at work with your Mac Book Pro, Tablet, Kindle Fire, or iPad 2, you’re tech-savvy self is still cooler than the dinosaur hovering over a stack of lined-paper and #2 pencil. With the ability to double as an environmentalist and a speed typist, why would anyone these days opt for the old-school printouts and notebooks to read and write?
Turns out, according to a recent piece from the New York Times, that while it may feel (and look) cool to spend the majority of your waking hours staring at an array of glowing rectangles, old fashioned paper still matters when it comes to being productive and learning new material. Here’s what a few productivity experts, researchers, and CEOs had to say in making the case for print:
Paper is “in your face:” Paper’s mere physical presence serves as a reminder to complete a task. If you toss a document in a computer file it becomes out of sight and consequently, out of mind.
Paper allows you to better navigate and understand the geography of a document: Not only are the margins useful for taking notes but a physical copy of the text allows the reader to “better understand relationships between sections of writing,” says Richard H.R. Harper, a researcher for Microsoft.
Paper helps you read and remember: A 1997 study revealed that people comprehend and retain information much better when it is presented on paper as opposed to online. While this study is a little outdated, Mr. Harper maintains that even new screen technologies and e-readers do not necessarily make reading more efficient.
Paper makes you slow down: Writing by hand has some side effects: it is surely slower than typing and you put yourself at risk of a painful hand cramp. However, Steven Leveen, co-founder and C.E.O. or Levenger, speaks the truth when he says that writing by hand “slows us down to think and to contemplate and to revise and to recast.”
When it comes to studying for the LSAT, it can certainly help to play the LSAT Arcade every now and then but for the bulk of your study it’s probably best to listen to the wise words of the experts and keep your prep paperbound. After all, the exam itself is still administered on paper and still calls for one of those old fashioned #2 pencils.