Clarification on the Nicole Hopkins approach to RC from people who actually use it

Spencer D

So I just finished the Nicole Hopkins webinar on RC and felt like a lot of it made sense. But as I try to work through an RC passage on my own using her method, I'm finding that so much seems unclear. I decided to use the first passage of my most recent PT (PT54). Below is a run down of what I annotated and where I ran into problems. I'm hoping I can figure this method out because it seems helpful, but ultimately the method so far seems to leave me with more questions than answers. If I constantly need to second guess and wonder if I'm correctly annotating everything then I will only be wasting time that I could otherwise be using to answer questions.

So the first thing I annotate is the very first word of the passage which is "The Internet". I box and tail the "The internet" with the tail being the explanation of what the internet is in order to show it's a what. Next, I square "Internet Users" on line 3 to show who. Here is where I find my first unknown. Do I need to [bracket] the "throughout the world" found on line 4 to show a where? Next I bracket line 5's "national and other political borders" because borders are technically places. Not totally sure if that should be bracketed. Finally the last thing I annotate in paragraph one is the "borders" found on the last line of the paragraph line 9. I bracket this once again because borders are technically places.

The first sentence of paragraph 2 seems like it should have some type of annotation but I can't decide so I move on to line 12 where I circle "presupposes" to indicate when. On line 13 I carrot "But" to show a pivot. "Borders" on line 15 gets a bracket again. Next on line 16 I square "government" to signify who. The next annotation comes on line 19 where I carrot the "But". That is the last annotation I give for paragraph two even though it feels like I've missed something between line 20 and 29.

Paragraph 3 opens with a box and tail around "legal domain" and the words that follow to indicate a what. On line 33 I bracket "country" again to show where but I feel unsure if this is right. This is done again with "country" on line 34. Line 39 receives a carrot to indicate a pivot with the word "but". Now here is where I get really confused. Line 43 contains the word "Norway". Does this receive a bracket to indicate where or does this receive a box because we're talking about Norway as an actor or agent? I have the same issue with "Brazil" on line 44 and 45. Line 45 receives a Q in the margin to indicate the question asked. Line 48 receives a carrot to indicate the pivot word "otherwise". "Country" on line 49 receives yet another bracket to show where but again I am unsure of this being correct.

Paragraph 4's first annotation comes on line 53 and 54 where I box "electronic communication" and underline what follows to indicate what electronic communication is. "French" on line 57 gets squared in order to indicate a who and then Canada and Japan both receive brackets to on line 59 to indicate where. Lastly I put a Q in the margins of line 59 so that I can indicate a question was asked.

When I had finished all of this I was unsure if I did things correctly and felt that I definitely missed things. I decided to go to the first question and only then did I realize that I was so focused on annotating that I didn't really read the passage. Because I read looking for things to annotation, I ended up having no idea what I actually had just read. Is there a resource, link, or place where I can view properly annotated passages done by others? I don't want to give up on this method after one try but I just don't see how I could annotate everything correctly in under 4 minutes.

dennisgerrard

I need her notation on RC.very useful on details.

Cant Get Right

You're going to need lots of practice. I developed my own method loosely based off of Nicole's and it took me about two weeks of drilling before I could use it effectively. I just wasn't used to it at first and I kept having to consciously remember what the annotations were supposed to be. Once I got it down though, I no longer had to think about it and I was able to annotate naturally while paying attention to the passage rather than to my annotation strategy.

So keep with it. Use old sections until you get the hang of it, and from there, retakes are really great exercises for learning to see how your annotations reveal the underlying passage structures.

Alex

@"Cant Get Right" said:
Use old sections until you get the hang of it, and from there, retakes are really great exercises for learning to see how your annotations reveal the underlying passage structures.

THIS!
I got so much from re-doing RC passages over and over again. I don't exactly use Nicole's RC method, more of just the pure memory method JY uses.