3.4 THELEGALWRITER ASDIGITALREADER
If you are like most twenty-first-century law students, you are accustomed to conducting legal research on a tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. Thus, it is likely that you first start to read most of your research resources in digital rather than hard-copy form.
The easy availability of digital documents has been a boon to legal researchers. When I was in law school, in the early 1980s, I could conduct legal research only in a law library. Research databases were in their infancy, and one research computer served the entire student body (which was fine, since we hardly used it). Thus, I conducted almost all of my research by using book-based finding tools, and then going to the appropriate shelf in the library to find the state or federal code, case reporter, or other text that I wanted. I read many cases in books; if I decided a case was significant to my research, I would pay to make a copy of it so I would be able to mark up the text and take the copy home with me.I tell you this story not just to evoke your pity (wait till I tell you about using a typewriter to write!) but to illustrate what a physical act research used to be. Researchers had to use their whole bodies. They used their hands and arms to pull books off shelves, and they had to walk around the library to find the books that they needed. These activities certainly had time and place restrictions. But there were benefits, too. When we had to go to one set of shelves to find cases in the F. Supp. reporters, and another set of shelves to find the cases in the F.2d reporters, the constant reinforcement taught us — without any conscious effort on our part — that F. Supp. published only federal district court opinions and F.2d published only federal circuit cases. When we had to flip through the pages of a case to find a pinpoint cite, we could easily notice — due to the reader-friendly printing techniques — when we passed from the majority opinion to a concurrence or a dissent.35
These obvious benefits are not the only physical benefits of the hard-copy research process.
Scholars who study digital reading have seen that readers of digital text interact differently with the text than do readers of hard-copy text. We might believe that we read only with our eyes, or maybe our eyes and our brains, but scientists are realizing that the physical dimension plays a real role in the reading process. When we read a hard-copy text, the physicality of the document helps to give us more of a sense of the whole document, and of the relationships between and among the various pieces of information within that document.36The smaller the screen, the harder it is for us to develop a spatial relationship with the text; this lack of a spatial relationship may inhibit our immediate comprehension,37and, more importantly, our learning and long-term memory regarding the text.Other studies show that digital readers are more likely skim and scan through the document than to read it from beginning to end, and are less likely to read longer excerpts. The skimming and scanning process, obviously, is less likely to promote comprehension and full engagement with the text. The ability to jump from one keyword to another is an obvious benefit of digital reading, but it inhibits learning and comprehension if it changes our behavior by turning readers into skimmers.
Perhaps most obviously, the digital reader faces constant temptation to abandon the relevant document and to go to another document. Hot links within the document may lead to another document and then another, until the reader is unable to remember (or retrieve) the original text. When we face a roadblock in either research or thinking, we may be tempted to abandon our research, or “take a break,” and look at other tabs or icons readily available on our screens. Likewise, the dings of new e-mails or social media notices call to us even when our research is going well.
I am not suggesting that we should all abandon all digital reading. We should, however, be aware of its limits and take steps to combat them.
We can absorb the content from digital documents, but we may have to expend extra energy to do so. To make sure that we are comprehending context, we may want to scan a table of contents, if one is available, or strive to take notes (either on or off the screen) that provide context cues. Many research databases make it easy for writers to insert pop-up notes, and planning to write those notes may encourage us to engage with the text and discourage skimming. Similarly, consciously noting how long a case or article is — either by scanning through the document or by noting a page length that is provided in the document — may help us to subconsciously place the information into a physical context (such as beginning, middle, or end).Furthermore, when we have the choice to read the article as a.pdf rather than by scrolling, we should do so, especially if we can fit the page to the screen size. Many studies show that scrolling through the text affects comprehension and recall because the information has no permanent physical location.38It is common for readers to “picture” information by recalling where it was on a page, or on the two-page presentation common in hard-copy books.39Likewise, consider the size of the screen on the device you are using to read the document: the smaller the screen, the harder you have to work to put information into context. Your smartphone will allow you to read cases anywhere, but the benefit of accessibility may impose costs in comprehension.
Thus, when conducting your research, take steps to help you focus your attention. Set timers or use other methods to encourage you to stay with one document for a specific period of time. Read.pdfs or use other hard-page imitations to improve your spatial relationship with your documents. Finally, if you are having a particularly difficult time with a document, or if you know that a document is particularly crucial, spend the toner to print it out. Your brain — and your clients — may be glad that you did.