A Note on Boado's Notes

Notes and Cases on the Revised Penal Code and Special Penal Laws by Leonor D. Boado was well recommended.  So I got a copy of the 2012 Edition at the Rex Bookstore to check it out.

First the good impression. Page layout is well organized and font size is comfortable for reading in contrast to the font size of Reyes'. I think the books of Reyes can be done in bigger font size without making them any thicker if he leaves out the decisions of the Court of Appeals. Does anybody in real life refer to CA decisions?

One thing going against Boado's book is its running heads. It would really help if the Article number is shown in the running head to make the search for an article easier without flipping through many pages to get to where you want to be.

Here's a typical running head of Boado's, from the left and right pages (562 and 563) where she discussed Art. 202 (Vagrants and prostitutes):

This is the verso including a few lines from the text.

This is from the recto

Here's how Reyes did it on the verso (page 362) and recto (page 363) where he talked about the same article:

Verso

Recto

And here's how it's done in the book Criminal Law Conspectus by Regalado:

Verso

Recto including a few lines of text.

You will immediately find out where you are in the book. (Note: Boado, Reyes, and Regalado will need to revise these parts as vagrancy is no longer part of the penal code.)

But I like better the way De Leon presents the running heads of his various books. Here's a typical example from his book on Sales:

At a glance you can see the article number, the chapter title, and the page number. With the page number on the running heads, the bottom of the page can contain another line of words.