Mark's briefing method...

[Mike]

Just wanted to sing some praises here.

I went through another spell of feeling frustrated with attempting to learn way too many new briefs last month. It's been an going pattern for me to be overzealous in adding in new briefs, being unable to learn them as muscle memory (and hesitating) for a month or so, then suddenly breaking the hesitation for all of a week before, once again making too many adds....so I asked the big guy for his advice.

The long and short of it: Mark got back almost right away, was incredibly encouraging, and told me to simply practice a list of 50-100 two or more times a day, stick to it, and do his speed videos a few times a day. After the first week, review once the next week, then in two, then in four, then it should be totally ingrained. Also, he pointed me to some specific instructional videos about attitude which were an enormous help.

How easy is that? :-X

Thanks again, Mark!

[Clay Frazier]

The briefs you make yourself are the ones you learn the fastest I think. Maybe this is the reason Mark is freakishly amazing at them.
Either way, adopt each of Mark's briefs as your own child and learn its name, or you can just rename it if that is easier. Everybody thinks a little different.

[Mike]

A large chunk of what I learn I adapt to relate to a similar set of briefs. As a result, I have a lot of briefs that really only make sense in the context of being similar to other briefs...as in phonetically, they're jibberish, but they resemble some other jibberish, so I guess whatever works is good :D

[Monica Gerard]

Hi Mike,

I've been undergoing the big conversion process myself. I've had to unlearn old briefs and relearn them in Mark's theory so I wouldn't have conflicts.

Fortunately, I LOVE practicing briefs and phrases. but it is daunting at times.

I'm thing I'm finding amazingly helpful is making digital flashcards of the briefs on loading them on my IPod Touch and practicing them backwards and forwards. Away from the machine. I try to imagine myself stroking the outlines. I actually do this before I go to bed (I feel asleep on my IPod the other night!) and when I wake up the next morning. I use IFlipr for this purpose. I also use Flashcard Machine with Eclipse running so I can see how I'm doing. I'm happy to report that mental practice really, really does the job!!

But I think the real key is to review, review, review stuff you learned a couple of days or a week before. Sometimes I'll take 3 sets of briefs and mush 'em together for a grand review.

I try the MSC videos a couple of times a day - right now just to stay on the speaker. Pretty soon, I will have shortened up my writing enough (and believe me, I was writing LOOOOOOOONG) to start speedbuilding again on more "gettable" speed (I had been at 180 when I started the "reconstruction" precess).

[Mike]

That's great to hear you were able to make the change at 180. I cringe when I hear students talk about how they've written everything out for too long to start briefing. I might be naive, but I can't imagine a better time than while in school to shorten one's writing.

Fortunately, my first semester teacher -- much to the objection of my old school's administration -- was a devout believer in phrasing and learning briefs as part of the foundation of your writing (versus writing everything out through theory.) She started us on down that path early and even had us switch our initial T to "it" and final T to "the" despite the StenEd text. She actually got fired for her varied rebellious teachings, but I stayed in contact with her and kept learning her briefs/phrases. The administration believed that much in sticking to the book, among other things. I was writing DAOUBZ [do you say] and DUPT [did you want] while hoping my Theory II teacher wasn't going to pounce on me for it the way they did when they realized what we'd learned under the old instructor.

Anyhow, I actually thought I was writing pretty short until I saw Mark at a seminar...what an eye opener! At that point I decided I NEEDED to incorporate inflected endings, which is still a bit of a headache as far as dictionary building, but it's feeling pretty natural tucking everything in 6 months later.

[Monica Gerard]

I also asked about writing short in school I was always told to write everything out so I would be able to read it. Well, I certainly did get very good and writing everything out. I think I only had a repertoire of the most standard briefs and about 50 phrases, mostly for jury charge.

Don't get me wrong. People have graduated writing everything out. I would have too, perhaps in about 4 to 6 months from now. But I wasn't happy, because I wasn't taught to write conflict-free and I want to do realtime. I didn't want my dictionary to blow up in my face, I don't care how snazzy the CAT systems.

I also know that shortening up my writing after I'm out there working would be a nightmare.

So, I took the plunge! Now or never!