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The Virtual Teaching Assistant

Method

How to study thirty minutes a day and get a 4.0 GPA

By: Liam McIvor Martin

©2008-2009, All Rights Reserved

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Introduction
I have spent four years collecting and refining what you are about to
learn in this book. It is the product of 5 years of teaching assistantship and
research assistantship experience where I helped over 2000 university
students through various classes. It is also based on qualitative interviews of
almost 50 university students who quickly moved from the bottom fourth to
top fourth of the class within a semester.
Unlike other books of this type I have not interviewed students that
have always been successful for the simple reason that people who will be
reading this book need real help. If I interviewed students that have always
been successful this book would be filled with information that you probably
couldn’t implement.
I have instead interviewed students who improved the most within the
shortest amount of time. I learned that you shouldn’t model yourself after
the MVP but the most improved player on the team. This is the premise that
this book is based on which makes it unlike any study guides you’ve read.
I’m also a sociologist; I’ve made sure to interview students
methodologically using what we call grounded theory.
You don’t really have to know the details of the method but it allows
me to work from the ground up with no pre-conceived notions, getting to the
core of what got my interviewees from bad to excellent students in the
shortest amount of time.
The book covers basic skills to stop studying and start enjoying
university life to its fullest while getting high grades. I have cut this
information down to the most crucial points so that you can get through this
book quickly. You can go back to certain sections in order to reread and
implement certain strategies. I have included a collection of scripts and
forms that will help you implement these strategies and I encourage you to
print them out. They are also available at the end of this book. On Adobe
PDF viewer, go to the file menu, push print pages 164 to 167 and you will
have all the forms printed and ready to use.
The second major component that makes this book different from
every other book out there is the support you get from the virtual teaching
assistant. I have put together a team of teachers from some of the best
universities in the world.

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 They are either masters or Phd students who are taking or have
finished their degrees and they have all been teaching assistants at some of
the most prestigious universities in the world. They have also gone through
our training program where they have learned the ‘in’s and out’s’ of how to
make you successful in the shortest amount of time and keep you there. If
you bought the full package we will be matching you up with a virtual
teaching assistant within a few days. We give you some time to review the
book and fill out the forms so that you’re ready to maximize the time with
your VTA and get them working for you as quickly as possible.
If you haven’t purchased the virtual teaching assistant program, I
highly suggest it. It is probably the cheapest way to hire a PhD student to
help you study and getting help is the fastest way to get yourself on track. If
you’re serious about studying less and playing more, give it a look at
www.virtualteachingassistant.com.
If you are in any way unhappy with this book I encourage you to
return it for a full refund within the first 30 days. I’m not interested in
making money off people who I do not help so please send me back the
book if it’s not helping you. However I GUARANTEE that these methods
will help you achieve greater success academically and beyond so please
send me a reason as to why you’re sending it back as I might be able to help
you solve your problem. Also let me restate, don’t start copying this book, if
you want other people to get access to the book, send them to
www.virtualteachingassistant.com and suggest they buy their own copy.
Not only is this stealing from me and stopping me from paying off my grad
school bills, it’s going to be bad for you because I will send my attorney
‘He’s 6 feet, 250lbs, long blond hair, kind of looks like a Viking’ and he will
sue your ass!

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Copyright Notice
Copyright 2004-2009 all rights reserved. It is illegal to copy,
distribute, or create derivative works from this book in whole or part. By
purchasing this book you have agreed to the terms of conditions as listed on
www.virutalteachingassistant.com at point of sale.

I have a guy who I pay to search the internet for copies of this book.
Each of these books has been imprinted with a tracking number which is
linked to your individual copy. If he finds your copy out on the internet, you
can be sure I’m going to sick my big Viking lawyer on you.

On a personal note, I have written this book and built this program to
pay off my grad school bills which are now becoming quite significant.
Understand that if you decide to steal my content, you’re not stealing from a
big corporation but a single person.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter 1: Philosophy of this Book........................................................... 9

- My Story………………………………………………………………..10
- How this book is structured…………………………………………….13

Chapter 2: Mind Shift: How to Think like a Winner and Win ‘even if you’re
not’……………………………………………………………………….. 10
- Belief…………………………………………………………………… 17
- On a micro level………………………………………………………... 21
- On a macro level……………………………………………………….. 22
- Approach anxiety………………………………………………………. 28
- Appearing more intelligent…………………………………………….. 29

Chapter 3: Find your Learning Style ..........................................................33

- The main learning styles...........................................................................34
- How to improve each method ..................................................................36
- Integrating all these methods....................................................................37

Chapter 4: Organization..............................................................................39
- Where did working hard come from?.......................................................40
- Organization .............................................................................................43
- Your environment.....................................................................................43
- Study space vs social space ......................................................................46
- When you should study ............................................................................47
- Computer organization .............................................................................47
- How to think faster automatically ............................................................49

Chapter 5: How to be a Star in Class..........................................................53

- Different types of Profs you will meet .....................................................54
- Asking intelligent questions .....................................................................56
- How you should talk in class....................................................................60
- How Wikipedia and Google will make you look like a genius................61

Chapter 6: How to Take Notes Down like an Academic Ninja .................64

- Systematizing your notes..........................................................................66
- Three methods of note taking that will cover almost all your classes in
university.....................................................................................................67

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- Power point lecture...................................................................................71
- Spoken word lecture .................................................................................72
- Reviewing notes before and after class ....................................................73

Chapter 7: How to Read Smarter not Longer .............................................76

- Philosophy of reading...............................................................................77
- Speed reading ...........................................................................................80

Chapter 8: Time Management: Spend more time Partying and less time
Working ......................................................................................................87
- The main components of time management ............................................90
- The big picture for time management ......................................................94

Chapter 9: Stopping Procrastination...........................................................97

- My personal story, a case study in procrastination ..................................99
- How to solve procrastination....................................................................103

Chapter 10: Why Professors are your Friends ‘Or Should be’...................107
- How to deal with professors .....................................................................109
- On meeting with Profs..............................................................................111
- The theory of rapport................................................................................112
- Before you meet up with the Prof ............................................................113
- During the meeting ...................................................................................114
- Differences between TA’s and Prof’s ......................................................118
- A note on scare tactics..............................................................................119

Chapter 11: How to Take a Test .................................................................121

- Test preparation ........................................................................................122
- Three days before the exam......................................................................124
- How to code your notes............................................................................124
- Methods to remember notes .....................................................................125
- Before your exam .....................................................................................127
- Types of tests ............................................................................................129
- Final notes on tests ...................................................................................133

Chapter 12: How to Write an A Paper........................................................135

- The four stages of any paper ....................................................................136
- Research Stage..........................................................................................142

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- Brainstorming Stage .................................................................................144
- Writing Stage............................................................................................148
- Editing Stage.............................................................................................152
- A note on plagiarism ................................................................................154

Chapter 13: Putting it All Together ............................................................157

- Review of all the chapters ........................................................................159
- How to use your Virtual Teaching Assistant ...........................................160
- The standard VTA package ......................................................................160
- Concluding points.....................................................................................162

Chapter 14: Forms and Activities ...............................................................163

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Chapter 1: Philosophy of this Book
In this Chapter you will learn:
- My personal story behind this book
- How this book is structured
- What you need to do to keep yourself accountable

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 Hello everyone, my name is Liam Martin and in the next few pages I
am going to show you the secrets that successful students and graduate
students at the best universities in the world have kept to themselves.
They keep this info quite because the information I’m going to share
with you doesn’t work if everybody knows it. Therefore, I’d suggest only
sharing this information with students that aren’t in your classes or a select
set of friends.
I’m going to show you how you can change your grades from C’s to
A’s in one semester while working a third of the time. You might think this
is impossible but I hope you will stay with me as the book is quite short and
concise (as all things should be).
I have put the information down in such a way so that you can read it
as quickly and easily as possible and go back to various sections for review
later. Before I tell you about how this book is put together and the basics
you need to succeed with this book please allow me to tell you my story (I
swear this will be quick and it’s important).

My Story

I was a competitive athlete throughout high school and competed

nationally and internationally in ice skating. Due to my level of
competition, I was able to take time off from school to skate; I actually
didn’t really attend high school much at all. The last few credits I took
online which was a huge mistake in hindsight as I only found my love for
learning later in life.
After high school I continued on with my skating career hoping to
make a living out of it. I unfortunately broke my knee and went into a
depression, spending six months on the couch. This was by far one of the
lowest times in my life. I couldn’t support myself, moved back home,
started ‘moping’ quite heavily, it was really REALLY bad. My parents
convinced me to apply to university and I got accepted to a mid tier
sociology program.
This helped pull me out of my depression as I had a lot of fun hanging
out with a new set of friends and enjoying university life… until my first
semester’s marks came back. I started buckling down in my second
semester and significantly improved. But, I was working part time and
holding up my grades was becoming a full time job. I had friends who
seemed to have ten times more fun than me while getting better grades than

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me, they also were being published in journals, getting early acceptance to
grad school and generally kicking my butt academically.
I was studying about twelve to fourteen hours a week and friends of
mine were on three to four per week. I started asking the ‘smart’ students
about how they got away with high marks and little work but none of their
explanations clicked with me. In my second year of university I decided that
enough was enough. I was going to fix this problem as I had enough of
studying and wanted to get back to the lifestyle that I enjoyed during my
first semester and athletics career.
I took an entire summer and applied myself to studying all the study
books I could get my hands on, some of them were good but most of them
didn’t link up with what my buddies were doing to become successful. I
finally had a epiphany that resulted in me getting an A average my last two
years of my undergrad, getting published in my undergrad and getting into
one of the best grad school programs in the world.
I realized that trying to model myself after ‘good’ students was the
problem. The big shift happened when I started picking the brains of
students who improved the fastest in the shortest amount of time. From
those talks I made four fundamental shifts in my academic paradigm.
I first studied what was absolutely fundamental to my learning. I
became a teaching assistant. I started figuring out the easiest and quickest
ways to get through papers and exams. I started talking with professors.
These four fundamental shifts in my work ethic ‘in combination with a few
other secrets I’ll show you later’ allowed me to go from a C/B student to an
A/A+ student over a single semester.

Don’t believe me? Here are my transcripts… If you want a better copy just
email me.

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 I also did this while getting a new girlfriend and starting a business, I
spent about half an hour ‘studying’ and the rest of the time hanging out and
partying. I moved on to graduate school and have carried on the same study
methods to succeed in the working world as well. Oh and here is the best
part. This is by far the easiest thing to do when you have the right resources
and teachers. The process was long and difficult for me but through this
book and the virtual teaching assistant program I’ve made it incredibly
simple and easy to use.

How this Book is structured

There are a few rules that you are going to have to follow before
reading this book. If you feel like you can’t follow these rules you might as
well get your money back right now as you won’t succeed if you don’t
follow these general guidelines.
First, I would like you to make a semester commitment to the study
methods and tactics in this book. If you’ve purchased this book you’re
obviously not doing well or your hoping to do better, so what do you have to
lose? Also studies show 1 that it takes on average three months for a new
skill to become second nature. Therefore, if you spend three months
applying yourself completely to the knowledge in this book, I guarantee
your marks will go up. This seems like a long time to apply yourself but let
me give you a few pointers that will make it easier to first start and then
keep your new resolution.

- Read this book straight through from cover to cover, if you don’t have a
few hours, put it down for right now and come back when you have some
time to read all the information.

- Get out a notebook or a few pages of lined paper. As you go through

reading, take down notes, nothing complex just jot down central points.
This will wire your brain to remember a lot more of this book and will give
you some reference points to look back on later.

- After you have finished reading the book, I’m going to give you some
activities to implement immediately. You have to implement these changes

1
Google scholar skill attenuation if you’d like to study this concept more.

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right away because it will start the mental rewiring process. Don’t worry;
most of the activities only take 10 minutes or less.

Second, I want you to know that I will be making you accountable. I

now have your email address which means your mine now! The virtual
teaching assistant that has been assigned to you will be hunting you down
and making sure you are accountable, not just in the first month but every
month after that. If you don’t email us, we will be emailing you to make
sure you’re not falling behind. This book is just the first step in a larger
study shift so if you think you’re just going to read this book and walk away,
think again. We are now both in this together, you have backup and I’m not
going to leave you high and dry.

- You will be getting an email from your assigned representative in a few

days. Have the book read by then!

- He/she will be reviewing some of the goals you want to set out and figure
out the best way to achieve them. Have an idea of what you want to achieve
with this program “more on this later”.

- You’ve heard the old adage, you can bring a horse to water but you can’t
make him drink. Well we are going to try to force you to drink! The
representatives are professionals, they have teaching experience and/or grad
student experience. They are an immeasurable resource and they are going
to try everything they can to make you succeed.

Third, tell me how you’re doing. Send questions to

updates@virtualteachingassistant.com and share with the community. I put
out a great newsletter every month and the great thing about it is that you’re
going to get new, up to date info on the latest study methods absolutely free
each month. You updating me and getting the newsletter acts as another
accountability tool in your arsenal for academic success. I can’t stress this
enough, take the five minutes to read the free newsletters each month and
update me, its really important.

Fourth, you might be asking yourself why I’m writing in such a

colloquial style. Well everything in this book has a purpose, even my writing
style. I could write in a more academic style such as:

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 “The incongruence with contemporary study methods in a neo-
globalized study paradigm is inapplicable to the relations between
present day student philosophies and the greater educational
paradigm”
But I’m here to teach you, not to impress you with how many big
words I know. This book is simple to read, simple to learn and simple to
implement. I write like I’m talking to you directly, as life is too short to
screw around with melancholy when sad will do.

Fifth, keep practicing, keep implementing and keep evolving. Just

because your getting A’s doesn’t mean you can’t get A+’s. Just because you
have more free time doesn’t mean you can’t have more. Do not settle for
acceptable results, excel to extraordinary results. When you think something
is impossible that’s exactly when you should be doing exactly that.

Now let’s get started.

- Reading time approximately 3-6 hours
- Activity time approximately 1 hour

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Chapter 2: Mind Shift: How to think like
a winner and win ‘even if you’re not’
In this chapter you will learn:
- How you are defeating yourself mentally in university
- How to fix mental blocks
- How believing you’re going to do well, will actually make you do well
- Specific techniques to make you mentally expect success

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Belief

I’m going to start off our little journey together with saying that the
most important thing about success in university, (as in life) is the belief that
you are going to do well. I don’t mean some theoretical concept of success
that you have in your head for a moment and then quickly leaves you. I’m
talking about a concrete belief that you are going to do well in quizzes, tests,
papers, exams and university because you know you have the tools to
succeed.
I’m going to premise this with a quick story. As I said, I had gotten
into university after being out of high school for a few years. I remember
sitting down in my first class with approximately 300 of my fellow students
and thinking. This is crazy, I’m actually in university what the hell have I
gotten myself into! I had never been in a class of 300 before, I didn’t know
anybody in this class and I was seeing beautiful women everywhere! (This is
also a big problem if not properly managed). I remember after that first
class I took down 12 pages of notes with no method of selection, thinking to
myself that it was impossible for me to get all this work done along with the
four other classes I had.
I more or less defeated myself right out of the box. The rest of that
semester I had the idea in the back of my head that I was never going to stay
on top of what I was doing so I might as well not even try. It was horrible.
I just accepted that I wasn’t going to succeed and then made it a reality by
not doing the readings, not managing my time and not getting help. I never
really consciously realized that I felt this way until I re-evaluated what was
going on with my level of confidence and tried to change it.
This resulted in a very interesting phenomenon that I believe most
university students share.

More than just procrastination, I sabotaged myself.

I could have started to study for exams earlier but didn’t. Why? Was
it procrastination, did I have better things to do, was I just lazy?..
Obviously… but it went a little deeper than that. Deep down inside I already
believed I was just planning on doing ‘alright’ in school. Sure I wanted to
get straight A’s but a subconscious part of me believed I couldn’t do it, or
more specifically that I wasn’t good enough and didn’t deserve to get that A.
So I proceeded to write my papers and study for my final only a few days

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before they were due, accepted the crappy marks I got back and ended up
getting nice regular B’s.

Write this down and underline it: The moment you shift from
thinking you’ll succeed to knowing you’ll succeed your circumstances in
university and life will completely change.

Have you ever looked at how good students act? Have you ever seen
how they carry themselves? What about successful people in general? Have
you ever tried to sit down and think about what makes them different from
everyone else?
The moment I made this shift from thinking to knowing that I would
succeed, everything changed. My marks magically went up, even if I had
only studied a little. I became more confident in speaking to professors and
opening my mouth in class. Students started coming to me for advice, me!
At first I was confused but quickly took on the role of the smart student guru
which only helped to feed my confidence in knowing I was succeeding in
school. You can do this too in a short amount of time but it all starts with
you looking inside yourself and figuring out whether you are sabotaging
yourself.

Lets first look at why we defeat ourselves mentally.

Being a sociologist I know that everyone has that little person inside
of them that keeps saying “you can’t really do that, or you’re not good
enough to do that”. 2 This is based on lengthy academic research in the
social sciences showing that we have been conditioned through nature and
nurture to believe that some things are out of our grasps.
At first this may seem shocking as your parents probably told you that
you could do anything if you put your mind to it. Ironically however, the
majority of parents do not follow their own advice. Many of them settle for
the status quo. Whether in their jobs, their personal lives etc. It’s a bit of a
mind game to tell your kids that they can do anything. If the parents hate
their job, bitch about their marriage and generally say the world is a crappy
place.

2
Anyone who is interested in looking at this subject matter, google goffmanian lense for further
information.

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 Now, your parents are not to blame. I may have some parents who
have bought this book for their children. I commend you on taking the
initiative for your children. But many parents and adults in general have
been programmed to accept complacency. It’s not their fault, and I suggest
not discussing this section of the book with them. When faced with their
own mental sabotage people usually put up defenses in the form of
emotional outbursts and reasons why things don’t work instead of
suggesting something that will. These defensive mechanisms are usually
hard wired in between the end of their formal education and the beginning of
their first job where they settle for that job placement, or that relationship, or
that life in general without going out for what they really want.
What I’m alluding to is what sociology calls cultural hegemonic micro
level social interactions. Those are the interactions between you and your
close family and friends. Poisoned micro level interactions are the most
effective way of losing track of your main goal; which in this case is getting
incredibly high marks in school. The majority of them are locked into the
same mental box like everyone else in society.
Macro level interactions are more broadly based. Like the media,
institutions, and society at large. For instance, let me share a little secret
with you up front that all university professors do in first and second year
classes. It’s called bell curving, it’s the process by which they take the
average marks of the class and make sure they are distributed equally with
the majority of the students getting B’s for instance and a smaller amount
getting A’s and C’s on either side creating a bell shape.

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 The marks are sometimes adjusted to meet the requirements of the
university. If the class has done too well on a course, instead of
investigating as to whether the class worked hard or if the professor and/or
teaching assistants did a good job they will move the marks down in order to
correlate with the average mark of previous classes.

They do this without telling the students…

This is technically looked down upon, and is actually sometimes

against policy in some universities. But if profs hand in marks that are too
high they will not move on to get tenure which is unfortunately for many
professors, their primary goal. Therefore they sometimes illegally change
the marks without telling the students. This is a prime example of how the
system is set up for the majority of students (those at the top of the bell) to
settle for academic normalcy. I’ll show you how to get out of this later in
the book; this is just an example of how the university system screws
students.

“Oh and yes, I’ve had to bell curve as a teaching assistant, (I was
ordered to) it sucks as I know many of the kids deserve higher
grades. I hope that I can make up for that sin by educating
students through this system”.

The majority of people accept both the micro and macro system of
cultural indoctrination. This great academic and all round cool French guy
Michel Foucault said in essence that a lone man can’t be insane. People who
do not take the road most traveled and attempt a mind shift appear out of the
ordinary, particularly at the beginning as they have no evidence of real
success. Also the little guy or gal inside your head will be yelling at you all
the time to go back to what you were doing.
Kick that little guy (internalized hegemony, conscience etc) out, he is
an agent for your failure and he wants you to fail. He is a product of the
programming you’ll be working on getting out of your head and I’m telling
you now, he will want to get back in.

Don’t let him.

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 Your conscience, your family and society can be very VERY
destructive towards your mind shift. So here are some strategies to help you
mentally free yourself from this process of hegemony.

On a Micro Level

- Do not share how you are attempting to change mind wise until you
see concrete progress academically. Only share your journey with people
you believe can handle your new ideas and will not sabotage your mind
shift. Many university students can deal with this type of information as
they have not been hard wired into settling for the status quo. Therefore
fellow students are ok but older people usually can’t take it.

- Be mindful of what friends and family are implying when they

discuss not just university but life in general. For instance, people placing
restrictions upon you are a prime example of hegemony.

Some examples being:

- You have to study more to get good marks (untrue)

- You should really take that job, where are you going to find money? (If
you’ve got a degree you can usually get something)
- Get your shit together and get your head out of the clouds it’s never going
to happen (due to) money, time, just because… (Proper response: shut the
f—k up)

You can usually catch people in their own programming using the
Socratic Method of questioning. This is a process by which you answer
every question with another question. It is very effective as it leads to the
other party getting to the core epistemological truth (In combination with
other methods I’ll show you).

For instance:

Parent: Why are you majoring in philosophy, why don’t you switch to
business?
You: Why would I want to switch to business?
Parent: Well don’t you think you’d have a better chance at a job?

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You: Why do you think I would get a better chance at a job with a degree in
business?
Parent: Well, umm… you just would, you’d be more secure.
You: Is it that you want me to get a high paying job?
Parent: Yes
You: Why do I need a high paying job?
Parent: Well you just do! What’s wrong with you? (This will usually be met
with frustration)
You: Why do you think I would need more money? (This may be a little too
far).

I don’t suggest you try this questioning until you figure your well into
your mind shift. But this technique is really fun. Most people presented
with their own fault in logic realize their own hegemony which only helps
them realize their own bias.
If some people are continually negative you have two options. Either
cut them out of your life which is extreme. Or only interact with them in an
environment where they are positive and not trying to mentally control you.
As an example, if your parents are bitching about how you should change
your major, when the question comes up, “so how is school going?” respond
“Oh its going great, how is (insert the favorite thing they like to talk about
here) going.” Keep deflecting and talk about things they like. People will
talk for hours about things they like and usually forget about what they were
asking in the first place.
Don’t talk to your parents about their jobs if they don’t like their jobs.
Don’t talk to friends about classes if they think the class sucks. If they bring
it up, change the subject. Fill your life with positive energy, positive
subjects and positive people.

On a Macro Level

My next suggestion will kind of freak you out but stay with me here.

Actually you better sit down for this one as your ‘little guy’ will start yelling
at me and calling me crazy so get ready to shut him up.

Are you ready…?

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Ok, I want you to not watch the news, read newspapers, magazines,
blogs or listen to the radio for one week.

Yes, even my blog (even though it’s awesome).

Yes I know your freaking out right now. Just shut up your little guy for a
minute and stay with me.

Ask yourself the questions:

- How much of the daily news that I take in effects me as an individual?
- How much time do I take up each day looking at this stuff?
Oh and here is a really counter hegemonic question…
- Why am I really looking at this stuff?

When I first tried this experiment I had quite a bit of difficulty,

particularly with blogs and facebook which I have now weaned myself off of
using some tricks that I’ll show you later. In a media study by Robert
McChesney during the first Iraq war, he found that the more people watched
coverage of the war on CNN, the less they new about the war. The truth is
that the majority of coverage carries a system of propaganda that will
indoctrinate you on a particular position. The more television you watch the
more ignorant you can become.

Just try it, don’t worry you can go right back afterwards… if you want.

As a project, I want you to do a time audit of your daily activities.

Find out how much time you spend on the internet, studying, going to class,
eating, watching TV, reading, hanging out etc. The results will amaze you, I
found out for instance I checked my email 9 times in one day and spent two
hours emailing people. I cut this down to 10 minutes a day using some
methods I’ll teach you in later chapters and I’ve never been happier.
You’re probably asking why I want you to do this. Other than the
obvious reasons that it helps you focus, can give you more time to learn and
gets rid of some of the mental blocks implemented by society there is a
much more insidious reason.

By cutting yourself off from media I hope to show you that you don’t
actually need it in the first place.

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 The first few days will be HELL, but pull through it, your virtual
teaching assistant can help you with this. You need to do this because when
you get rid of all the media suggestions and know you don’t need them, you
can then add them at your leisure. Instead of you being controlled by the
media unconsciously you can begin to live consciously free from cultural
hegemony.
So, I’m assuming that you have taken my advice and will implement,
or are already implementing the suggested micro and macro changes to shift
your mind. The next step is figuring out exactly what your goals are with
this program. There is an exercise sheet you can print out at the end of this
chapter. I’ve also included a digital version of all these forms in an editable
format which is the best option so that your VTA can have a look.

This exercise looks at your university, degree and semester time lines.
We want to figure out exactly what you’ve done in university and where
you’re planning on going.

First thing I want you to write down is what you hope to accomplish
at University, if that’s have fun, go to grad school, make six figures a year,
put it down. Put this down in the ‘Long Term Goals box’.

Next, I want you to write down a few short term goals that you want
to accomplish within the semester. Be incredibly specific, don’t just write
down get A’s. Outline what you think you’re going to need to get an A.

In the University box, write down the reason why you chose that
university. Because it was my only choice, because it was close to home,
away from home, because I liked it, because my partner was going there…
all valid answers.

In the major box, write down the reason why you chose that degree.
Because I liked the major, because my parents/friends were doing it, because
I thought I could make money at it… again all valid answers.

Next ask yourself the question: Do I like what I’m doing and ask yourself
why or why not.

24
Next let’s look at your semester.

Write down the classes you are taking right now, if you haven’t started the
semester just put the classes down, if you have started the semester put down
your current average.

In each class I want you to answer three questions.

1. Why did I choose this class?
If you had to take it that’s fine, put it down.
If it’s because you think its going to be easy, put it down.
Be honest.

2. How easy do you think this class will be in terms of work load?
If you think it’s going to be too hard, can you change, is this class important
to my ultimate university goal?

3. What is the most important thing I’m going to learn in this class and how
is this going to accomplish my ultimate university goal?

25
26
 By now you should have a pretty good idea of what you want to get
out of university and whether you’re getting it. Have a quick look at what
you’ve written down and reflect on exactly what you want out of the
university experience. Ask yourself what action you should take to improve
your university life.

I have some suggestions.

- If you don’t like what your doing then investigate what you do like, put
together a list of the three majors you would like to pursue and go to your
academic advisor and/or professors in that major to ask them about the
degree.
- If you like what you’re doing but find it difficult, write down the top three
things that you find difficult about the degree. I’m talking about specific
things; writing down ‘the readings are difficult’ won’t cut it. A better
answer would be ‘I do not understand macro-economics use of keynesian
theory to explain fiscal something or other.’

You’re going to submit this first exercise to your virtual teaching

assistant when he/she contacts you in a few days. Keep in mind that it
doesn’t help yourself or your VTA to write down something that you
haven’t really thought about so go over your answers and see whether you
really want to answer each question that way. I suggest you spend 15-30
seconds on each answer and ask yourself, ‘have I answered that question
truthfully?’

Mental techniques to trick your mind into thinking you WILL succeed,
or fake it till you make it paradigm.

So the changes I’ve suggested above are about 75% of the things
you’re going to need for your mind shift. Hopefully you’re already
becoming more confident and freeing your mind from thinking to knowing
you can succeed at anything you do. Next, I’m going to provide you with
some quick tricks that you can implement today that are going to support
and supplement these longer term changes.

27
Approach anxiety

The thing that most people don’t realize is that many of the emotions
we feel everyday are simply chemical changes in the brain triggered by
social stimuli. For instance, when I was a skater before stepping out on the
ice I would always get a bad case of nerves.
Why do we feel nervous about public speaking, asking a person out
on a date or talking to a professor about a lousy mark on a paper? I won’t
take you through the neuro-psychological explanations so I’m going to
provide you with a simple example to illuminate my point. If you go back
and look at human society from an anthropological lens, we see that the
majority of societies had no more than 100-150 inhabitants in a single tribe.
So if ‘Ooglack’ the caveman addressed his tribe, or approached a
female and failed, it resulted in serious repercussions for his standing within
the tribe. Although we all know consciously that we now live in cities with
millions of inhabitants, our unconscious programming forces us to place
ourselves in the same mindset of Ooglack the caveman. Fear of rejection is
not a product of nurturing but instead a product of natural genetic
programming.
I propose a bit of an exercise for everyone that I’m going to borrow
from Tim Ferris’s book “The Four Hour Work Week”, which you can buy
here.

Keep an open mind with this exercise.

Next week during class I want you to approach five people of the
opposite sex and ask them for their email address. Tell the little guy inside
your head to shut up for a second and just do it. If you have a partner, just
throw the contact info out after you’re done. Here is a script you can use if
it will make you feel less nervous, I’ve used this many times and get a 90%
success rate (I’m also no Brad Pitt so it has nothing to do with looks).

“Hi, you seem cute and interesting, I knew I was going to kick myself later if
I didn’t come up to say hello, my name’s Ooglack, what’s your name”

After a nervous laugh or pause “Sarah”

28
“Hi Sarah, (have a pen and paper ready) “Do you spell that S-A-R-A-H”
(write her name down on the paper)

“Ya”

“Great, I have to get back to my friends, put your email down so we can
continue this conversation later” (Give her the paper and pen, direct it
towards their solar plexus as people will usually grab whatever is directed
towards their chest as a defensive action).

Why this works.

- The very first thing you will say is “your cute and interesting” which
makes your target understand your not just there to talk, this makes you look
much more confident than if you beat around the bush.
- Notice how I never actually asked for an email or phone number. It’s a
sales technique called ‘assuming the sale’ which I’ll show you in a later
chapter. When you write her name down on a piece of paper it becomes
more difficult for her to not give you the number as she already kind of
agreed to giving you her number when you wrote her name down.
- Get in, get what you want and get out. Most people can make a judgment
call on others within 1-5 seconds so don’t worry if you think this is too fast.
Your target has already made up his/her mind about you the moment they
saw you. Also the less time you spend talking, the smaller the chance of you
screwing up.

This exercise is important because getting a phone number is a great

way to become accustomed to dealing with approach anxiety. It’s free, it’s
quick and there are literally an infinite amount of people to test this out on.
Make the commitment to approach five people now and you’ll find that you
won’t want to stop!

Appearing more intelligent

A person, who appears in control, also appears more intelligent.

Therefore I’m going to show you a few mental tricks you can implement that
will make you appear more intelligent which in turn makes you feel more
intelligent. Again, knowing is believing, so write these down as single points
in your notebook.

29
 - When you speak, speak in a slow, even tone. Do not speak quickly
and keep your comments short and to the point. Attempt to stutter as little as
possible (this was personally difficult for me and took a few months). The
more you prattle on, the less intelligent you will appear unless you know
exactly what you’re talking about.

- Move slower, this can be in terms of walking, eating and if you can;
general body language. This is important because when you slow down
your body language, you appear to have precise movements which oozes
confidence.

- Stop wearing contacts and start wearing glasses. This is the easiest
and best way to instantly appear more intelligent. A study found that
students found professors 10% smarter when they wore glasses as opposed
to when they performed the exact same lecture without glasses. This also
goes for your clothes. Don’t show up in a power suit, but appearing well
kept will also make you appear more intelligent.

- Become an expert at a few rare things that you can use in

conversation with almost all people. As an example, I’m very good at
discussing the concept of ‘Agency and Structure’ which is the theoretical
debate that humans are either programmed to follow a specific destiny or are
able to act independently of their natural tendencies and make choices that
can’t be tracked, check out the debate here.
If your able to discuss a few specific things intelligently then people
assume that you can discuss other issues with the same level of astuteness.
This is particularly advantageous when talking with fellow students in group
assignments and with professors and teaching assistants because it may lead
to academic respect, which is your friend. Now I’m not talking about brow
beating people into thinking you’re a genius. When I talk about intimidating
people, I’m simply suggesting that when people find you intimidating you
usually gain respect, and when you’re humbly intimidating it’s even better.
So don’t be a dick, be calm, cool, collected and above all humble.

30
 The changes I’m suggesting do not only apply to your university life
but are also applicable to almost every other aspect of your daily life. These
changes are really important as they make the next steps much easier for you
to figure out.

31
So in Review

- Mind shift on a micro level

- Only interact with people who are going to support you
- If you have to interact with them, make sure you talk about subjects
on your terms.
- Mind shift on a macro level
- Take a one week hiatus from media after doing a time audit on how
much time you waste and answer the questions included in the activity
page.
- Make sure you’ve filled out your University Ultimate goal page and have it
ready to submit to your VTA.
- Approach five people you’re interested in and ask them for their email.
- Choose a week to speak and act slowly.
- Start wearing glasses instead of contacts.
- Become and expert on a few rare things that you can bring up in any
discussion.

32
Chapter 3: Find your Learning Style
In this chapter you will learn:
- The different kind of ways you learn
- How to maximize each method

33
 You might not be aware, but there is more than a single way to learn
information. Your own learning style probably prefers a single method. In
my research I have found that the literature suggests one of two possible
strategies when trying to understand learning style.

1: They present the different learning styles and suggest you choose the one
that you feel most comfortable with.

2: They present a different learning style and then tell you that their method
is the best, telling you to throw out all the other styles and just learn their
method.

Based on my interview research I have decided to give you a third option.

3: I will show you the main ways people learn and get you to maximize
EACH ONE.

If you only used one of your senses and got rid of the others wouldn’t
that be really stupid? In looking at genius students versus improving
students I found that the students who improved the fastest did not restrict
themselves to a single learning style. Instead, they maximized them all and
that is what I want you to do.

The Main Learning Styles

Visual: Visual learning is the most straight forward style. If you like
learning off a blackboard, or if you have memorized notes off a page then
you’re probably a visual learner. You’re also a visual learner if it’s easier to
make a picture of an idea rather than write it out. If you’re good at solving
rubik cubes, geometry, or any other type of visual puzzle your probably
pretty good at visual learning.

Auditory: Auditory learners are the people who are great at learning
information through lecture or from audio-books. If you seem to be able to
remember things after only hearing it once your probably a very good
auditory learner.

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Categorization/Sequential: Categorization/Sequential learning is a style
where you categorize variables in order to understand them. An example of
this style would be when you take your notes and categorize them so that
your mind can remember them. Here is an example.

Dog, cat, ostrich, old man, elephant, baby.

Things that walk on four legs: Dog, Cat, baby

Things that walk on two legs: Old man, ostrich

You can also just place things in order to remember them like this.

The four stages of minority group integration:

1) Integration
2) Assimilation
3) Division
4) Normative Pluralism

Kinesthetic/Active: Active learning is a method where you actively

participate to learn the information. So having a class discussion, asking
questions in class or teaching what you’ve just learned to your study buddies
are all perfect examples of this method (this is my favorite method).

So I’d first like you to take a look at each method and think about how
you learn. I’m personally predisposed to active learning as I like to teach
other people things the moment I’ve learned them; by doing that I hard wire
the information. After you’ve figured out which methods you like and
which you don’t, your job will be to become better at the other methods of
learning. The goal is to integrate all learning styles into a single meta-
method. This is by far the most effective way to learn. I’ll be using specific
examples throughout the book as to how you should be maximizing each
method of learning but I wanted to give you this information right now so
that you can start to frame your own personal learning style and begin to
improve it.

35
How to improve each method

So if you’re no good at a certain technique here are a few quick tips to

help you work on each method of learning.

Visual: Go to lectures! Watch the prof and draw pictures explaining what is
going on. I personally like graphs and symbolization as they are the best
way to get complex ideas in a simple easy to understand form. Also, make
them as crazy as possible; the weirder they look the more you will remember
them. Watch a youtube video of something you’re trying to learn rather than
just reading it out of a book.

Auditory: Two words here. AUDIO BOOKS! They are totally awesome.
I’ve committed almost an entire chapter to auditory learning later in the
book. Audio books are great as you can listen to them on your mp3 player
and can do other things while you’re learning.

Categorization/Sequential: Start to look at the organizational characteristics

of seemingly un-organized pieces of information. Get out a piece of paper
and write them down. Rewriting your notes in this way can massively bring
up your recall.

Active: Begin teaching other people. Whenever I learn something new and
interesting I usually call a buddy immediately. They actually find me kind
of annoying as calls at 3 in the morning aren’t usually received that well. If
you can teach somebody what you’ve learned, you’ll usually remember it for
life.

Take the method you’re the worst at and choose two days to take
every opportunity to learn in that style. Two days should give you enough
time to work the bugs out and start to appreciate the learning style. After
the two days are up try to integrate that style of learning into your learning
method.

36
Integrating all these methods

Once you get a general idea of each method and have tried them all.
Attempt to integrate them. For instance before an exam, I’ll usually
condense my notes (categorization/sequential), take those notes and record
them onto my ipod (auditory), take any hard concepts and simplify them into
pictographs (visual), then teach my notes to my study buddies (active).

37
So in Review

Review each learning style:

- Visual (making pictures and watching lectures)

- Auditory (listening to lectures and AUDIO BOOKS!)
- Categorization/Sequential (Making categories and lists)
- Kinesthetic/Active (Teaching what you’ve learned to others)

- Take two days to improve your worst learning style.

38
Chapter 4: Organization
In this chapter you will learn:
- How people perceive work in North American Society
- The fundamental problems with disorganization
- The 5 ways to become better at organizing
- How to keep on top of being organized

39
 So, the front section of the book has to deal with your mental game,
the second step is to start to deal with the exterior aspects of study. If
you’ve heard the old adage a stitch in time saves nine, then you know how
important organization is. I was a horrible organizer; I spent my first year of
university with a bunch of loose leaf binders with notes that resembled a
creative version of chicken scratch rather than a sane thought. It was hell
when finals came and I had to make sense of my notes.

It was… actually let’s not talk about that, it’s a dark memory for me.

I know that everyone has gone through a version of this during their
school years. It creates so much unneeded stress in your life as you can
usually take care of it really quickly if you know what to do.
I had the same problems with papers. I looked over them for this
book and wanted to puke on them they were so bad. A lot of “what the hell
was I trying to say” and “Wow, how did I manage to get a C on that” were
my general thoughts in looking down my own personal academic memory
lane. If you’re a fourth year student I suggest taking a look at your old
papers, it will be hilarious I promise.
Anyway, I know many of you have had feelings of anxiety being up at
three in the morning on your twelfth coffee of the night. You are constantly
checking the page count every 10 minutes and starting to wonder why you
didn’t start this thing a week ago like you were supposed to. You finish up
the night at about 5 in the morning getting that un-edited conclusion finished
before you have to submit your paper at 8:30 the next morning.
What if I told you that I could make it so you would never be in the
situation ever again? What if I also told you that by using my method you’re
going to actually get things done 50% faster (conservative estimate) and get
better marks back? Well I have some great news for you. I’ve done this for
many students in the past and your about to learn my secrets. This is very
important so pay extra attention during this section.

Where did working hard come from?

Ask somebody about their work and the vast majority of the time
you’ll get an answer like “Oh I’m so busy, lots of things to do,” or “work is
hell, I’ve got (insert ridiculous amount of work to sound impressive here) to
do and there aren’t enough hours in the day.” If you ask me about ‘work’

40
I’ll usually have this response; “Work is great (I then explain what I’m
currently doing).” This really sends people for a loop when everyone has
bitched about their jobs for 30 minutes. When its time for me to add to the
pity party I don’t add to that cultural hegemon, I’m always amazed as to why
people stay in jobs they don’t like.
Now, this philosophy of negative work environment is not a global
phenomenon. There are places in the world where people actually like their
jobs and don’t see work as a badge of discontentment but more of a way of
life. Take a look at Europe for instance or the Middle East and you’ll get a
very different conceptualization of work. So the question is why does North
America see work as being a negative and an unhappy process?
A man named Max Weber was able to give us the answer. One of the
most important publications in the social sciences The Protestant Ethic;
explained in essence why Americans don’t like their jobs today. The
majority of North America’s charter immigrant groups were protestant.
Protestantism has an ideology of hard work and sacrifice as central to the
greater glory of god. Therefore, the harder you worked and the more wealth
you created, the better your chances of being seen as accepted into heaven.
Success in work equaled success in the afterlife. Also, if you weren’t
working hard you were going to go to hell. This ethic has evolved
throughout the years and lost its religious component but the same feelings
towards work are present in North American society today.
So what does this mean for you? Well as simple as I can put it, you’ve
been programmed to think that work is the only way to achieve happiness
but that work is painful and a sacrifice.

Anybody see a problem in that?

You have to first accept some fundamental rules about work. These
truths go against most of the things you’ve heard about when people talk
about the ‘right’ method to work. So, keep an open mind and reflect on each
of these rules for a moment before moving on to the next one.

First, let’s define what positive and negative ‘work’ is for us.
Negative work is anything you have to do more than once. Positive work is
any work that is independently creative of its context. So creatively thinking
about a paper is not necessarily work as your expanding your thoughts on a
new subject. Writing the paper however is negative work as the actual

41
process will be repeated throughout university many times. Maximizing
positive work will make you a more intelligent and interesting person. The
goal is to try to minimize the negative and maximize the positive.

Second, repetitive work equals ignorance. The more repetitive work

you do the more ignorant you will become. The more organized you are and
less time you take to get work done, the better you will be. The more you
waste your time doing things that you could systematize or replace
completely with a different work strategy, the stupider you will become. If
you take a look at materialism this is what they call intellectual materialism.

Third, being lazy has nothing to do with working hard. I’m really
lazy, like REALLY lazy. I usually spend less hours ‘working’ than any of
my friends. The difference is that I organize my work in such a way and am
so productive during the short periods in which I work that I’m able to
produce content that is quantitatively and qualitatively superior to most
people I know. So for me, working for one hour can equal another person’s
full work day. I accomplish this goal through three main tenants, allostasis,
outsourcing and thought mechanization.

Allostasis: Very simply, the process of allostasis is the adaptive

efforts of the body to maintain stability in response to stressors. A good
analogy would be when you’re exercising. If you work out hard for an
extended period and eat properly your body achieves a point of healthy
stability. This stability point (it’s called homeostasis) becomes your body’s
new standard and it actually tries to stay at that set point. That’s why when
you’re in good shape for an extended period it becomes harder for you to get
out of shape. When you’re out of shape it takes a few weeks for your body
to start to change. So if I’m working out my mind and thinking creatively
on a regular basis I will automatically stay creative. If I do a repetitive task
that doesn’t require thought, the parts of my mind responsible for creative
thought will be suppressed and it will require a lot of work to get them
working again.

Outsourcing: I outsource as many repetitive tasks as possible to

others: taxes, bills, filling out forms, marketing, research, shopping, reading
etc. I try to either get rid of these jobs or I make them as quick as possible.
For instance, I know how much of the basic stable foods I eat a week.

42
Therefore, I get food orders every two weeks, exactly what I want every
time. This food is delivered to my door and costs me nothing as the
supermarket loves that I have a standing order with them and they actually
give me a discount. I’ve calculated that I probably save about 3 hours a
week doing this. That’s 12 hours a month, 144 hours a year. What could
you do with 144 more hours?

Mechanization: The most complex thinking processes I have

systematized so I know exactly what to do to break them down. My main
method is critical thinking which you will learn about later on. I have a
system of steps that I take for everything I do from writing this book to
taking out the trash which saves me years of my life, freeing me up to do
things I really want to do and getting more new experiences in my life rather
than boring ones.

Review these rules and reflect a little on each one in your notes.
Think about what each ones means to you and where you are falling into bad
habits of negative work instead of challenging your mind with positive
work.

Organization

Becoming more organized is central to keeping yourself out of

negative work and maximizing positive work. First off, note taking,
research, essay writing and test prep are all separate from this chapter so we
won’t be touching on them all that much just yet. What I am going to be
looking at is how to get your environment, your thoughts and your body
organized.

Your environment

Here is a quick quiz question. Do you know when all your

assignments are due in your classes for this semester? Like right now, don’t
look at the syllabus.

U’huh. I thought so.

43
Don’t worry, if you knew them all I would be both shocked and disgusted at
how much of a dork you are. What you need to do is develop a system to
figure out when things are due.
Planners: You first need a daily planner, I like digital ones but paper
does just as well. Here are my two favorite digital ones:

Ical: Great calendar program for Macs and can be synced up with your ipod
if you’ve got one. It’s also bundled with any Macintosh you buy so it’s in
essence free if you have a Mac. Check it out here.

Google Calendar: Love this one, its free, it syncs up with a tone of other
programs and most importantly it’s virtual. If you have internet you can
access this program from any computer. Check it out here.

You will also need a semester whiteboard planner. Here is an example of

mine.

44
 Notice how each course is a different color? Get a different colored
pen for each course so that you can keep your thoughts straight. I lovingly
call this my battle map as I outline what I’m going to do all semester.
Notice how I wrote down start dates and end dates for each assignment.
You must have a start date for each assignment that you absolutely follow,
your VTA can keep you accountable as you’re going to need to submit
assignments to your VTA at least a few days before it’s due for review. You
should be recreating the same thing in your daily planner.
Create a to-do list for each day of work. I like to use sticky notes as
they are the perfect size for writing down one to two things that you must get
done. Do NOT do more than two things a day unless you have absolutely no
choice. For instance here is an example of how to do and not do a list
properly.

Bad to do list:
- Get my sociology assignment done
- Talk to Greg about the group project
- Clean up the house
- Work out
- Start researching my economics paper

Good to do list:
- Call Greg about when to meet for our group assignment, suggest Thursday
at 3pm in starbucks his number is 555-5555
- Email my VTA the outline of what I’d like to do for my economics paper
before noon and ask that he source the top 5 articles for me.

Our bad list has 5 things to do and each point wasn’t described
properly. List two has two things to do. Each point is properly outlined and
to the point. Do not be vague, look at each thing you’ve written down and
ask these questions.
- Do I need any more information to accomplish this?
- Do I have the time to do this, if so when will it be finished?
- Are there any things out of my control that will affect me finishing?

45
Study Space vs Social Space

Keep your social space and your study space completely separate. I
mean COMPLETELY SEPARATE, please write that down. I sometimes let
my study space creep into my social space but usually there is a strict
division. Why? Well, if you mix your work space and social space your
brain won’t know when to work and when to play. Here are some examples
of work spaces that I have used.

Work spaces

My teaching assistant office: Concrete walls, no internet access, in a

basement, more or less the most boring place you could think of which
focuses me to get work done.

In class: I’m all about work when I sit down for class. You can talk my head
off before or after the lecture but during, I’m focused on paying attention.

24 hour coffee shop: I like to work at night a lot of the time, 24 hour coffee
shops are great as they have internet access and they have the white noise of
people walking around. I suggest you wear headphones and throw on some
music as people will bother you less.

The couch in my apartment: I have a small table that attaches to the couch
and once my laptop goes on it and I’m working everyone knows I’m
working and should not be disturbed. I also use headphones and put the TV
on mute to recreate some white noise.

My laptop: Usually when my laptop is open and my earphones are on, I’m
doing work on it. I use leechblock to keep me focused and have instructed
people not to bother me. If people do bother me, I usually say “I’m just in
the middle of something and only have a minute, how can I help you?”
Keep people to under a minute. If they do bother you, this will usually only
happen once or twice before they get the message.

Social Spaces

The bar: Head out to my favorite bar and hang out with some of my buddies.

46
My apartment except for my work spot: My entire apartment is a social
space except for one spot on my couch. If I’m sitting there, it’s for work.

Any time I’m eating: I try to make a division between eating and working as
I prefer to enjoy my food. Also, if I’m studying and eating at the same time
I tend to eat junk food which only makes my studying worse in the long
term.

Whenever I’m around my friends: I am usually focused on having a good

time when I’m with my buddies. If I’m working while hanging out with
them it makes me less fun and does not let me disconnect from work.

When you should study

This is a question that you’re going to have to work out yourself.

Data shows that young people need more sleep than adults. Therefore, you
should focus your schedule around your own personal circadian rhythm. As
an example I like to study from 10pm till 2-3am at my 24 hour coffee shop
by myself or with my study buddy. I then go to bed for an average of 8
hours and wake up for my 11:30 class. I have scheduled all my classes for
noon or later so that I can adjust to my preferred sleeping schedule. If you
know you want to stay up late, don’t schedule early morning classes. I know
that sounds simple but many students do this and it hurts you in the long run.
If you’re going to sleep at 9 on the weekdays and going out till 4 in
the morning on the weekends this is absolutely horrible for your circadian
rhythm which studies show is connected with healthy brain activity. Look at
your schedule and find out if you can reschedule classes so they all have
minimum starting times. I like noon as I can get up around 10, work out, get
a good breakfast in and get to school at my leisure.

Computer organization

Your computer is your main academic tool. If you don’t have a good
one that is reliable, go get one right now. This is probably the most
important piece of equipment you’re going to need for university so get
something that you’re happy with. A recent study has shown that monitor
size is incredibly important for overall productivity. It was found that a 24

47
inch monitor in comparison to an 18 incher enables you to get work done
52% faster when using programs such as excel and Microsoft word. I
personally us a dual monitor system which I picked up through doing
research for this book. You can place digital articles on one monitor and
write on the other. This saves you a tone of time having to switch back and
forth and a nice flat panel monitor can cost you 150 bucks.
Once you have your computer, your next step is to organize you’re
your classes files. When filing course work on your computer you should
have a very intuitive and easy to understand system. Below is a screenshot
of how I organize my files.

Here is a cross section of classes in my Undergrad:

Here is an example of how I organize a class file:

48
 Each class gets a file; the file name should have the course code, and
the title of the course (a complete stranger should be able to navigate your
database). Each class should have a few standard files in it.
- Your class notes file
- Your main assignments
- A digital copy of the syllabus
- Any lectures the prof has posted, properly labeled
You should make sure to log all files as you input them. This will save
you a lot of time later on and will quickly become second nature if you keep
on top of it. The ingenious nature of this system is that the more classes you
add the bigger you database becomes which you can access in future classes.

How to think faster automatically

A great way to increase your thinking and organization skills is the

strategy of putting like tasks together, what some people call batch learning.
As an example, your not going to do your physics and english readings one
after the other. Organize like tasks together and you will save a lot of time.
Stay in good shape. People who are physically fit are proven to be
received better by society. They appear more attractive, friendlier and most
importantly more intelligent! Not only will this help you appear more
intelligent it will also literally make you more intelligent as studies show that
healthy bodies are able to think faster than unhealthy ones. A recent study
showed that 20 minutes of cardiovascular activity three times a week
significantly increased brain function. So, take the time to work out a couple
times a week or do some kind of extra curricular activity. I did this and
automatically got better results. Whether these were real or in my mind I
don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter as this is all going to help you
reprogram your brain. I would suggest P90X as I went from 18 to 10% body
fat and got a six pack in 10 weeks. I can also suggest a free program here
which I know is effective. I suggest taking a look at this later once you get
the academic aspects of your life handled. However, a quick run before a
test is quick, easy, incredibly effective and again free!
Oxygenating is crucially important to higher brain activity and can
also increase your productivity. A recent study showed that three different
types of plants placed in different locations throughout your home can

49
increase human productivity by more than 20% and increase blood oxygen
levels.
The three plants are:
Areca Palm (removes co2 and converts it into oxygen) 4 plants are required
per person.
Mother-in-law’s Tongue (converts co2 at night and should be placed in the
bedroom) 6-8 plants are required per person.
Money Plant (removes formaldehyde and other damaging toxins) 2-3 plants
throughout the home per person.
This option is very useful if you live in a cold climate and spend the winters
inside. If you’d like to take a look at the study go here.
Eating properly is very important. Don’t eat junk food, eat brain
smart foods. Here is a quick rundown of the best foods to eat for increased
mental acuity but a general rule is to eat foods that are high in protein, good
carbohydrates, fats and fibre while minimizing simple carbohydrates and
bad fats.

- Banana’s, blueberries and other berries are high in anti-oxidants which are
linked with higher rates of mental acuity.

- Dark green vegetables such as Kale or Spinach can provide you with most
of your vitamins and minerals in a single cup with very little calories.

- Drink a bucket load of water every day which can increase test scores by
20% in some studies. I try to drink 4 liters a day but I would experiment
with different amounts so that you can find your optimum ratio.

- Eggs are incredibly high in protein. I like to eat one full egg with 2-3 egg
whites a day which you can buy separately.

- Fish oil, flaxseed oil, avocados and olive oil are all positive fats that help
you think faster and help you lose weight. I eat guacamole almost every day
and it’s so easy and tasty to make, go here for a great recipe.

- Eat 6 small meals a day instead of 3 large ones. This will help your
metabolism which makes you think faster as well as keeping you in better
shape than sitting down to larger meals.

50
- Try to suppress your sugar and fat intake. Sugar and fat intake slows down
your metabolism and blood flow which in turn slows down the blood flow to
your brain. Ever notice after a large meal you feel sleepy and slow?
Congratulations, studies show you’ve literally made yourself about 20%
stupider (in terms of IQ) for 2-3 hours!

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So in Review
- Review where working hard comes from to free yourself from that mental
burden
- Review the fundamental aspects of allostasis, outsourcing and
mechanization
- Get yourself a daily planner and white board planner to mark out all your
assignments. Make sure you write daily to do lists to focus your day.
- Define your study space and social spaces
- Mechanize your computer filing system for easy access to course material
and easy recall later in your degree
- Review the tips on how to think faster

52
CHAPTER 5: How to be a Star in Class
In this chapter you will learn how to
- Become the smartest-sounding person in class
- Specific strategies to differentiate yourself from everyone else

53
Different types of Profs you will meet

First thing you have to know about how most university courses are
put together is that they’re built on a lecture not teaching paradigm. The
professor is unable to interact with students on an individual level which is
the best way to teach a student. The average first year class contains about
250 students with usually a small army of teaching assistants that are both
underpaid and over-used. You also may think that these professors are
making either a large amount of money or really enjoy lecturing. Again, this
is wrong… dead wrong. Most profs that are teaching first year classes got
stuck with them. The majority of profs that get stuck with these large
classes can be categorized into lecturers and researchers.
Lecturers are the foot soldiers of university education. These are
graduate students or professors that do not have a full time position at your
university and do not do any/much university funded research. From the
interviews that I have done, the average income for one of these people is
approximately 4-5 grand per course.

Yeah, that’s not a typo. The $20,000 a year that you’re spending for
university is being used on an overworked and almost criminally underpaid
prof that has to deal with 250 students per course for the entire semester.

- These people are usually pretty bitter

- These people are usually pretty stressed out
- And, they usually don’t really care about most students

If they’re a graduate student they have their own research to deal with.
They’re usually doing this course for the money as they have tens of
thousands of dollars in student debt and need to eat, or they are doing it for
their resume. You should hope for the second option as the prof will care
about the student reviews and will be more attentive. If they are full time
lecturers they usually do 4-5 of these classes to make ends meet. Full time
lecturers are either young profs who are trying to get full time positions,
(which is again not a bad person to have teaching as they are VERY
concerned about the student reviews) or they are a professor who has never
gotten a full time position, does no research and just teaches classes. These
profs you usually want to avoid as they are bitter about not getting full time
positions and could care less about you.

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If you can get out of these classes, get out NOW!

I’m serious, get on the net to check out your options right now - just
do it. Trust me on this, your life will be easier. Unless the class is incredibly
easy or you really want to take it, drop it. Try to research whether the class
will be given by a full time professor next semester, or if you have to take
the class, see if there are classes which have a smaller student lecturer ratio.
As a special note, go check out www.ratemyprofessor.com for valuable
‘intel’ on profs. You get ratings and personal comments from students.

The second group is what I’m defining as the researcher group.

These are professors who usually have full time positions at your university.
They are teaching these courses because they are forced to by the
department, straight up. They don’t want to be there, they would much
rather be researching full time. But, unless the professor has tenure, or is an
upcoming star they usually have to deal with those big disgusting classes.
This has advantages and disadvantages for you. These profs usually have
more free time for office hours, they usually have their own office and don’t
share it with other professors.
For anyone who is interested in graduate school, these are the people
that should be writing your letters of recommendation. So standing out to
them as early in your university career as possible is usually a great idea.
Keep in mind that these profs are research minded so they usually offload
most of the class work to their teaching assistants. They sometimes get the
teaching assistants to give the lectures and you may only see the prof a few
times during the year. Overall, if the prof is teaching the class, you can get
more face time with the prof, and you’re going to get better course content.
Better content only helps you develop a better base later in your university
career.

So you’ve made your decision on which type of prof you’re going to

choose. Class is the usually the first place to impress the professor and
teaching assistants. Your ability to appear intelligent is the best way to plant
the seeds of a high final mark (whether you’re actually intelligent isn’t
usually all that important). With that in mind, I have a few suggestions
about what should be doing in class.

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 - Dress for confident comfort. When I suggest that people dress
confidently comfortable, that does not give you free reign to show up in your
pajamas and that ripped spring break t-shirt you got on your trip to Jamaica.
Would you meet a boyfriend or girlfriend looking like that? Dress up in
what you feel confident in. This is often cheaper than you think. For
instance, I usually dress in some dark wash slim jeans, sneakers or leather
shoes and a plain t-shirt. My outfits usually cost me about 150 bucks, shoes
included. All my stuff is clean and most importantly I feel powerful when I
wear it. If you feel powerful you’ll project that feeling onto other people
(which is the point).
- Your laptop with a good battery. Some classes can last three
hours; your going to need to make sure your laptop can get through all your
daily courses without being recharged. You’re going to be taking down your
notes on this thing all day so make sure it’s up to the task, and remember to
back up as much as possible. I’ve lost assignments, I’ve had students who
have lost assignments, and I know one guy that lost his thesis! There are
some programs that will do it automatically for you but I personally use an
usb key with auto backup.
- A notebook for each class. Even if you have a laptop, notebooks
are an excellent idea because they act as a backup for your laptop and are
quite easy to use when writing graphs/equations. Do not use loose leaf
pages, a single large notebook with divisions for different classes are fine
but just make sure you can divide your class notes for study later. You can
get a good notebook for a buck at any school supplies store.
- Sit in the proper spot. Don’t sit in the front of the class and don’t
sit in the back, I’d suggest the second row as you have a great view of the
prof and the board while still keeping your distance and not openly sucking
up to the prof. Sitting in the back won’t get you access to the professor and
will not enable you to ask validation questions (I’ll get into that later).

Asking intelligent questions

There are specific techniques that have been developed, primarily

through debating that are completely applicable and crucial to asking
intelligent and thoughtful questions in class. But let’s first go through how
you shouldn’t ask a question in class.

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 - Nobody wants to hear what I’ll call ‘your personal story question’.
You find these questions are mostly posed by adult students and most of the
time the questions are just stories about something that happened to them
that relates to the lecture. In a lecture on bureaucracy I was TAing, a student
who put up her hand and proceeded to discuss how when she was working in
a law office she had to fill out forms for her boss. She didn’t really
understand why they were necessary as the cases were already over and the
court had already filled out the very same forms but the law office was….
blah blah blah. This went on for a few minutes. We as TA’s and profs do
not want to hear this, this is boring, adds almost nothing to the course
content and slows down the entire lecture.
- Questions that are obviously combative are also not a good idea.
You can challenge a question. You can even respectively disagree with a
question. But under no circumstances should you be combative without
offering constructive solutions or criticism of the statement. Example:

Asking a question in this manner is ok…

- Well I don’t really understand how…
- I don’t understand how (this concept) works with (this concept)
- Can you explain how (this) and (that) connect?
Asking a question in this manner is not ok…
- What you just said isn’t making any sense
- I’m sorry but that doesn’t make any sense
- How does this have anything to do with (point of lecture)?

So what should you use to premise questions that appear intelligent and well
thought out? Here are some general strategies that debaters call fallacies of
argument. I’m only going to review the main fallacies here but I’ll have
some more resources to follow up on this later in the chapter. You should be
accustomed to recognizing these fallacies in lectures so that you can
deconstruct them and be comfortable enough to recognize them in your own
questions.

Generalization argument: Extrapolating an assumption of an entire group

based on a small sample. Another word for this would be stereotyping. So
all blonde girls are dumb is a great example.

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Weak analogy: Comparing objects that have only a few similar
characteristics or objects that have weak similarities. So marijuana and
hemp both come from the same family of plants therefore they should both
be banned. In reality, hemp has an insufficient amount of THC to get people
high and should not be compared to pot in terms of getting high. This is a
tricky fallacy to spot, try to look at whether the comparison being made
relate to the same premise.

Post Hoc argument: Assuming just because one action happened after
another that the first action resulted in the second. So studying a lot results in
a high mark is a post hoc fallacy. Their may be other factors that led to a
higher mark such as reading this book.

Chain reaction argument: If we start one action it will result in a chain

reaction that will lead to an undesirable conclusion. I’ve also heard this
being called the slippery slope argument. For instance, marijuana being a
gateway drug to harsher drugs is a popular chain reaction argument.

Authority argument: Using a respected source to reinforce the evidence

supplying the conclusion. Studies show that smoking pot leads to significant
brain damage is a great example. Great way to challenge this argument is to
investigate the source. I would ask which studies you citing and to explain
the imprecise words such as ‘significant.’

Ad populum argument: Everyone is agreeing with me so you should too,

is the core of this argument. Just because everyone agrees doesn’t mean you
should. This argument is usually supported with statistics. For example,
90% of people polled in 2008 say that marijuana should be legalized. Just
because 90% of people believe that, doesn’t mean they are right.

Ad hominem argument: This is where the person attacks a person rather

than his/her argument(s). An example being, Ooglack’s study has shown
that marijuana does not create brain damage but I know him and he’s the
biggest pot head I know. The guy doesn’t know the difference between a
test tube and a Bunsen burner.

Ignorance argument: The argument is premised on the idea that there is no

conclusive evidence to prove the conclusion; therefore you should accept

58
their conclusion. Even if we aren’t sure pot creates brain damage it
shouldn’t be legal because there might be a chance that it does create brain
damage. Best way to break down this argument is to study the evidence that
the conclusion is based on. As an example for the following argument I
could suggest that the same risk factors for brain damage could be found in
liquor or cigarettes.

Straw man argument: When you build up a wimpy version of your

opponent’s argument and then defeat it. An example being, “pot heads want
to legalize pot so that they can smoke all day and screw around.” A defense
for the straw man is to restate your argument in a stronger way. An example
being, “Actually, the majority of politicians and criminologists suggest that
legalizing marijuana will lower the instances of crime and suppress higher
marijuana use through taxation and regulation.”

Oversimplification argument: When an argument excludes the more

complex premises that effect the conclusion. Whenever an argument is too
simple, you should usually be looking for other factors that will be making
the ideas more complex. If the United States leaves the Middle East we will
help to breed terrorists. This argument does not take into consideration the
social capital the U.S. is losing in remaining and the larger international
variables.

Hobsons choice: You are forced to choose between conclusions that the
arguer has forced you into even though there are other possible avenues of
choice to investigate. I use to pull this on a girlfriend all the time when we
went to the movies and asked her if she wanted to see Batman or Spiderman
for instance. Best way to get out of this situation is to think outside the
question and suggest different solutions like watching ‘The Notebook’ for
instance (which I actually liked).

These are the major arguments you’re going to encounter. I’ve found
some excellent online resources here and here that have helped shape this
section. Usually everyone uses a version of these arguments to prove their
points so train yourself to recognize them and you’ll be able to respond in an
intelligent way.

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How You Should Talk in Class

Sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it. Have you ever
looked at speeches and tried to figure out how one person can produce a
great speech and another guy saying the same stuff falls flat? Well it’s
because it’s all about how you say things, not what you say.
I’m going to have you take a look at this video of Barack Obama
giving a speech. He is one of the best contemporary examples of a great
public speaker. He commands respect without being overbearing, he seems
polite but still dominates most people he interacts with.
When you ask a question or make a comment in class you want
everyone paying attention to you. There is something about everyone
paying attention to what you say that makes it much more important than if
some people are busily tapping away at their laptops or whispering to each
other while you’re speaking. There are a few general tricks that many
politicians use to engross their audience that you can practice to
automatically demand more attention while asking a question in class.

- Pause: When the prof asks you to speak, pause for half a second
before speaking, almost as if you’re thinking about what you’re going to say.
I’ve used this in smaller classes and within that half second you get everyone
looking at you immediately. They are all thinking “why isn’t he saying
something? Oh, its going to be something really deep we better pay
attention.” I know it sounds dumb but it has to do with neuro linguistic
programming (as do most of these tips). Trust me it works.

- Speak slowly: Speak in a low, even, slow, calm voice. Do not speak
quickly, take your time, keep it short and above all try not to stutter.

- Lean back: Lean back in your chair when you speak, this projects a
feeling of ‘laissez faire’ and instantly makes you look more confident in
your statement.

- Wait for ‘chimps’: Let one or two other people answer that same
question before you then answer it properly. If chimp one and two give
really badly formulated answers to a question and you show up with a really
good answer that is well thought out, you automatically look smarter than
the others.

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 - Your answers should be a gift: Appear kinda like you’re doing the
class a favor by answering a question or asking a question yourself. Be
about 10% cocky and 90% inquisitive (warning: don’t be an ass when you’re
answering the question).

- Be selective: Don’t answer every question, only answer questions

you think you can answer. Only ask questions that you really think need to
be asked. Don’t prattle on and keep your statements to under a minute.
Short, sweet and to the point will make the most impact without getting lost
in the statement. I suggest writing out the main points on your notebook so
that you have a clear concise idea of what you want to say.

- Eye contact: Make eye contact with the prof. Make a connection,
and don’t worry about being nervous. By this point with the other exercises
you’ve done, you shouldn’t have a problem looking a prof or anybody for
that matter in the eye. If you’re still nervous, focus in on the left eye as it’s
less intimidating (warning: don’t stare the prof down, but the prof should be
the one to break contact first).

- Don’t be a suck up: The main idea is to get respect from speaking
in class. Don’t suck up, profs don’t like suck ups, they are annoying and we
don’t really like them. I know this as I’ve sat down for beers with profs and
they rip on students like that all the time. Don’t suck up, get respect.

How Wikipedia and Google will make you look like a genius

The greatest tool to help put intelligent and thoughtful questions

together is your laptop on the internet. It’s the greatest library ever
compiled at your fingertips. I want you to take your web browser out, I use
Firefox because it’s fast and free. Go to www.wikipedia.org take the front
page and turn it into a hot button that you can put right in your browser. Just
drag the website address down into the grey area below the address.
Do NOT use Wikipedia as an academic source in a paper. TA’s hate
this and will automatically remove marks for using it in papers. It is not a
peer reviewed journal, it therefore cannot be used in an academic article.
What you can use Wikipedia for is to get a general idea about almost any
subject. It presents information in a quick and easy to read format. I suggest

61
that before you ask a question just confirm that what you’re basing your
concept on is correct. You can also throw in some advanced knowledge
which will undoubtedly impress the prof. Just remember to not literally read
from your laptop, look them in the eye, put the question in your own words
and you look like a genius.

62
So in review

- Figure out what kind of professor you’re getting for each class (lecturer or
researcher)
- If you feel like the class is going to be too difficult and you can change,
change right now!
- Have everything prepared in class, dress, laptop, notebook, where you’re
going to sit.
- Don’t ask combative questions and review the classic argument fallacies
- It’s usually not what you say but how you say it, review good speeches and
make sure you
- Pause before speaking
- Be calm
- Lean back
- Don’t answer first
- Be 10% cocky 90% inquisitive
- Only answer the questions you know
- Make eye contact
- Don’t suck up, get respect
- Make sure you have Wikipedia or google available all the time; this
automatically makes your questions and answers better.

63
Chapter 6: How to Take Notes Down like
an Academic Ninja
In this chapter you will learn:
- How to figure out what you should and shouldn’t write down
- How to take down notes in half the time
- The best note taking method

64
 Taking notes is more important than preparing for an exam, writing a
paper or doing the assigned readings. The majority of exam questions come
from lecture. I’m always amazed at the amount of students that come to me
for help and don’t go to lectures. The professor is in essence pointing a big
neon arrow at what you should be studying and what you shouldn’t.
Notes come in many forms and I’ll be going over different methods
that I’ve encountered to take down notes for social sciences, arts and pure
sciences. However there are some fundamental aspects of note taking that
every student should implement if they want to be successful.

First, let’s look at the philosophy of notes.

Notes are a reflection of the lectures, they are not a transcription. If

you write down 10 pages of notes for each class, multiply that by 24 classes
and you end up with 240 pages of notes! I know that’s an extreme example
but I’ve had students who have done it and very quickly get lost when exam
time rolls around. They are left with a textbook of notes and since you
already have a text book assigned to you for the course, you really don’t
need to put together another one in lecture.
Notes are only supposed to grasp the main ideas of the lecture. With
that said, I want you to make sure you record your interpretation of the profs
ideas, not the profs ideas themselves. This is a really important point to
keep in mind while recording notes. The professor might talk about a
concept and if you mindlessly record it, when it comes time to review it for
the exam; you’re not going to understand it. So, here is a sample of notes I
took down in a course on religion.

1. Zoastriansim: human suffering explained by dualism in god, good god/bad

god 2. Karma theory: your actions accumulate, when reborn these actions will
affect you. 3. Calvanism: God is all powerful and transcendent that we cannot
understand god’s actions.

This is based on about 10 minutes of lecture. As you can see, all the
information was boiled down, not just to a few lines, but to lines ‘I’ could
understand. This is crucially important for two reasons.

65
- First, this presents the information in an easy to read way. Just like the
way I write this book, write your information like you are talking to
yourself.

- Second, if the information is rewritten in your own words, you are in

essence teaching it to yourself again. This will massively increase your
recall ability; which brings me to my next point.

Take down notes so that you’ll still be able to learn from them 20
years later. This is crucial. Everyone has been stuck trying to keep up with
a prof who is teaching too quickly. You write something down and think to
yourself, ‘oh, I’ll know what that’s going to be about in a few months.’

You probably know that subconsciously, you won’t.

Therefore, write notes for an unforeseen future, not for the present. It
is a pain to have to spend time re-reviewing a concept in your notes because
you don’t understand what you put down. I use the 40 year old rule. Ever
time I review my notes I ask myself whether my 40 year old self will
understand it.

Systematizing your notes

One of the most important goals for any student is to take down notes
in a fast and efficient manner. I’ve seen a lot of different strategies from the
students I’ve interviewed. Some student’s audio recorded lectures and
didn’t write a thing down. Some students restricted themselves to one page
of notes per lecture. The most successful students however, developed a
note taking shorthand and usually took down 3-4 pages per 1.5 hours of
lecture. I personally use an easy to use short hand that you can apply to
most classes. Very simply, any long words, you want to shorten down to a
single syllable.

So let me show you.

You can shorten words used in specific courses

Globalization- gbz
Globalized –gbzd

66
Transnationalism- Tran
Because- bc
Difference- Dif
You can also use symbols across all your notes
Therefore- :.
And- /
Does not connect- -/
Correct- =
This idea has three, four, components- 3Æ 4Æ (the arrow symbol is made
with two dashes - - followed by a right bracket >)

I encourage you to go through your notes and pick out what words
you use most often. Work on shortening them first and then see how far you
can take your system. Remember to create a legend at the beginning of your
notes with all these terms and add terms to the legend as you work through
your notes. Don’t assume your going to know what gbzd is going to mean
in a few months.

Two methods of note taking that will cover almost all classes in
university

Method 1: Sequential Method

The first method I’m going to define as the Social science method of
taking down notes. The majority of students that should use this method are
going to encounter a humanities or arts class in university. These are classes
like

Sociology
Psychology
Philosophy
English

If there isn’t math in the class and you’re looking at theories rather
than hard facts, use this method of note taking. If you are using equations in
lecture the same method can be used but I would suggest you use a notebook
as I have yet to find an effective equation word processor. The majority of
professors teaching these classes produce lectures with a few main points

67
and supporting evidence in a sequential format. Here is an actual example
that is directly from one of my lectures. I would be expanding on each point
but for the most part I’ve only put down the central points and then discuss
those points in greater detail in lecture.

Approaches to Ethnicity and Race: (Main title of lecture)

Three sociological paradigms: (First main point I’m going to discuss, which
will have three components)

Functionalism: (First main point) (Look at how I explain each paradigm in

the same general format)

Social reality as a whole –a system made up of interdependent parts. Each

has a function. Could be dysfunctional as well.

Some social patterns and relations contribute to social solidarity. Some have
unintended, negative consequences.

Look at ethnic relations to see how it contributes to integration of society,

consequences etc.

Assimilation as a positive force.

Conflict paradigm: (Second main point)

Conflicts and struggles central.

Traditionally, social class as the main variable.

Power (a scarce resource) also central.

Ethnic groups seen as actual or potential interest groups, and actual or

potential partners in social conflict.

Assimilation seen as negative.

Symbolic interactionism: (Third main point)

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Individuals creating meaning within different social contexts, and given the
existing social structures.

Symbols important in the creation of meanings.

Inter-group relations not defined by conflict, or by the needs of the system.

Race, ethnicity as resources in defining situations and as bases of

interaction.

Ethnicity as an aspect of one’s system of meanings, as defining one’s

identity.

Conflict not neglected. It could be significant. Perception of our own group,

and the “others” important determinant explaining how and why we act the
way we do.

Assimilation a negative process – especially at the individual level.

Ok so this lecture would take maybe 45 minutes to complete with

many examples and questions from students. Here is an example of what
my notes would look like if I were a student. Notice my use of PN (personal
notes). This allows me to reorganize my thoughts in my own words which
are particularly useful when you review.

March 5th 2008

Legend: Soc= sociology/ical Soli= solidarity PN= personal note
Pheno= Phenomenon Indi= Individual

Approaches to Ethnicity and Race:

Three soc paradigms: (Functionalism, Conflict, Symbolic Interactionism)

Func: social reality is a system made up of interdependent parts, each with a

function that may help or hinder the system
- IE, some patterns may reinforce soli, some may have unintended negative
consequences.

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- Assimilation seen as a positive force.
PN: Like a black criminal seems dysfunctional to soc but also reinforces
white social stigma’s and solidarity.

Conf: Struggles are central with social class and power as the main variable,
Ethnic groups seen as potential interest groups or partners in social conflict.
PN: Like the Asian American Group tries to push forward pro-asian ethnic
issues and by consequence is doing this in comparison to other racial groups.
- Assimilation is seen as negative

Symbolic Interactionism: Individuals creating meaning in diff social

contexts within the existing social structures with symbols important to the
creation of meaning. Inter-group relations are not defined by conflict or the
needs of the system. Ethnicity is a part of the system of meanings, ie one’s
identity. Conflict isn’t neglected as it may determine why we act the way we
do
PN: Individual people, through symbols (of which ethnicity is one) inhabit
and evolve the social structure. Conflict is just a large version of this pheno.
-Assimilation seen as negative, especially at the indi level.

Method 2: Pictographic method

This method uses pictographic representations to explain complex

subjects. I personally do not use this method as it requires you to reorganize
your notes from the stereotypical sequential format. This method is also a
pain to digitize as you have to write it out on paper then scan it if you want it
on your computer. From experimentation with the pictographic method, I
found that I recalled more but also left out more information than the
sequential method. But, if you’re a visual learner or are learning complex or
abstract concepts, this method may be useful to you.
From the example below, you can see that I’ve represented a lot of the
complex concepts with pictures. For instance, functionalism is represented
as two puzzle pieces and assimilation is represented by a pacman eating a
pacdots. The pacman represents the dominant group and the pacdot
represents the minority group. The more extreme you can make your
imagery the better. Try experimenting with this method and see if it works
for you. You may be surprised by the result.

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Power point lecture

There are two fundamental ways in which you’re going to get your
lectures from Profs. The majority of young profs use powerpoints as they
are an easy way to get the information out to students. Profs don’t have to
write anything down on the board and they can post the lecture before class
so that students can download the presentation and follow along on their
laptop. If your prof is going to give out lectures pre-emptively, you’re in
luck as this is relatively rare.

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 ‘Profs who don’t give out lectures before class usually say it’s
because students don’t pay attention to the lecturer if you’re
staring at your laptop. This is half true; a lot of profs don’t really
know what they want to say or don’t have a lecture prepared until
the day before. I’ve used that excuse a few times.’

I’m going to assume the worst-case scenario, that the prof has not submitted
the powerpoints before class so you’re following along with your laptop.

Powerpoints offer you a few great advantages. You can bet that they
will be on the exam, or at the least the professor is highly considering
putting them on a test. In comparison to lectures, they are very easy to read
and understand. You can also review each powerpoint at your own pace as
apposed to the prof just talking where you may lose some relevant points.
Rewrite all powerpoints in your own words. Even if you have the
powerpoints on your laptop, take your own notes independently of the
powerpoints. You can always review them later but it’s more important you
take your own version of the information that was written by you so you can
interpret them easily later.
If the prof keeps flying through powerpoints, tell him/her very politely
to slow down, or better yet convince one of your friends to bug the prof
instead. You don’t want to look like your whining about not being able to
keep up. I would suggest whispering to buddies stuff like this.
“Are you keeping up with the powerpoints?”
“Is it just me or is he/she going way to fast?”
“We should get him to slow down”
“I wish he/she would slow down”
You can also use fellow student’s laptops as secondary note screens, if
you miss a point, take a look at what your neighbour has written down and
pick up a few points. Just make sure you’re sitting next to people that know
what they are doing. It’s no use copying bad notes.

Spoken word lecture

Spoken word lectures are somewhat more difficult to turn into notes
as it’s harder to figure out the most important points to take down. This
lecture method is mostly used by older profs and you don’t usually see much
of this lecturing style in pure science classes.

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 Even though this method of lecturing is quite a bit more difficult than
the powerpoint method. You can still get great notes with a couple little
tricks. Pay attention to what the prof says when he/she is speaking about a
particular issue. Have a note pad where you can jot down a couple notes but
don’t break your concentration until he/she is finished with their point.
Once they are finished reinterpret the point in your own words and put it
down on the page.
If you mindlessly try to write down what the prof is saying at a
continual rate you’re going to lose crucial points in the lecture. It is very
difficult to write down the last thought while trying to interpret the next.
Students have a desire deep inside of them to write down everything as
quickly as possible which I understand as I did it myself.

Fight this urge.

Let me restate, you’re not transcribing the lecture, unless it’s a class on
transcribing then by all means knock yourself out :)
If you can’t keep up with the prof, you can always ask him/her to
repeat points or just reuse the lines I’ve given you above to try to get others
to bug the prof for you. You want to appear like you know what you’re
doing, but don’t sacrifice your notes for it. If nobody will speak up, you
speak up. Profs sometimes get lost in the moment and don’t watch the room
for pens to go down before moving on. I always listen for keyboards and
look for pens before moving on to another slide. Some profs do this but if
they need to cover a lot of material or if they’ve just run out of things to say
for the current slide or point, they usually move on.

Reviewing notes before and after class

I learned this trick from an old professor of mine, he was a lecturer

(not a researcher) who had been doing classes for years and he had first year
sociology courses down to a science. He had no notes, but if you came back
the next semester to the same lecture, his lecture would be almost
indistinguishable from the last semester. He was old school, he just talked,
no acetates, no powerpoint. But he did something that I haven’t seen any
other prof do anywhere near as well. Before class started, he quietly walked
into the room and made sure he had four to six clean blackboards. He would
take one blackboard and write a short review of exactly what the last class

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was about. Main points only, what I’d call the ‘meat’ of the last lecture. He
then proceeded to lay out the lecture on the remaining blackboards from
beginning to end. He wrote maybe 20 points down on the board along with
some graphs or pictographs which helped him describe his ideas.
He would spend the first 10 minutes of the class going over what we
had learned in the last lecture and then describe what we were going to learn
today. This, ‘what I’ll call’ pre-post lecture layout method is a general
trend that I found in most of the successful students I’ve interviewed.
Integrating this yourself will completely change your recall and review
abilities during exam time; it’s also the simplest thing in the world to do!
Before class starts I want you to read over your notes and write down
a maximum of three points that were central to the previous lecture. Pop it
down at the bottom of your lecture. This will not only help you remember
the lecture before class but it will also help you when you’re reviewing your
notes for the final exam. Also, when you finish the lecture, take a quick
skim (I’m talking under a minute) and come up with the central point of the
lecture, write it down. Don’t worry about everyone jumping up and your
friends wanting to leave. It’s only going to take a minute and doing this will
help hard wire the main idea of the lecture, it will probably save you at least
a few hours of study time at the end of the semester.

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So in review

- Notes are a reflection not a transcription

- Notes are only supposed to grasp main ideas
- Write notes so that when you’re 40, you’ll understand them
- Use a coding method, writing gbzd is faster than globalized
- Review the methods of note taking and pick the method that’s best for you
- Use the pre-post layout method to hard wire lectures

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Chapter 7: How to Read Smarter not Longer
In this chapter you will learn how:
- To read 200% faster in 5 minutes
- To cut the amount of reading you have to do in half
- To get your comprehension up by at least 50%

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 Ah readings, they suck, if you’re already in university and have done
a few classes you probably haven’t done most of the readings you’ve been
assigned. I know this as I usually didn’t do most of mine. During my
undergraduate degree I probably did 20% of the readings in the first few
years (which is the average for university students in North America). Once
I decided to figure out the keys to academic success I jumped my readings
up another 5%.

Nope that’s not a typo, I almost imperceptibly increased my readings and

went from B’s to A+’s.

How did I do this you ask? Well settle down I’m going to tell you!

First let’s talk about readings in general and the philosophy behind them.

Philosophy of readings

If you think the amount of readings you’re doing now is bad, try grad
school. There are these things called comprehensive exams. You are given
3-6 months to read 200+ books and about the same amount of articles.
You’re then given one question that you have 24-48 hours to answer,
implementing all the works you’ve read. If you tried to read 400 separate
pieces of work in three months your head would explode. Grad students
don’t do this, and you’re making way too much work for yourself if you
attempt to do this as well.

They go through a process I’m going to call the ‘academic sift’

The first step in this process looks at how we can cut the fat which I’ve
broken down into the three T’s, ‘throw, talk and take’

Throw: Look through the readings that you have, what is suggested
and not required readings? Are there readings you’ve already done in other
classes? Are there readings that will be covered in lecture? Get all suggested
readings on the back burner, they are last priority, you’re throwing them to
the back of the line, if we have time we can get to them.

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 Talk: What readings are either not central to you understanding the
class or are incredibly complex. These go in the talk pile. Go to somebody
that knows about these readings and ask them. Talking about a subject is a
much better way to learn than reading (see kinesthetic/active learning).
Fellow students or your virtual teaching assistant are best but TA’s and even
profs are good options as well.

Take: Figure out which readings are the most important to you
succeeding in the course. Not the ones that are the most interesting as those
should be second priority. Make a list from most important to least
important right now. I have a worksheet at the end of the chapter that can
help you out with this.

From this simple academic sift you should have cut your readings
down to around 50%. We are half way there! If you’re not at 50% that’s ok,
but I’d take another look at your readings and try to cut a little more fat.

The second step is to take these readings and turn them into different forms
of media or increase the speed in which the information gets into your head.

Many of the readings that are being distributed to university students

today are available as audio books. A short qualitative audit of syllabi that I
performed found that 25% of student’s readings in first and second year
social science classes were available on audio book. Studies have shown
that hearing information is much more effective that reading information for
both recall and comprehension. With the use of mp3 players like IPods it
becomes incredibly easy to get the info into your head without actually
picking up a book. Think of this, instead of sitting down in your dorm room
with your roommate nagging you and the TV blaring. You can grab your
IPod, go for a run and get a few chapters of your reading done.

Isn’t technology wonderful!

There is another option that I would suggest to get rid of a significant

chunk of your readings without actually reading them. New technology has
come along that can scan books automatically into pdf formatting. The
equipment hasn’t been around for a while but I’ve tested a few of these
methods and they are close to perfect. I’ve recently tested a few of these

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machines with dictation software attached. So once your book is scanned it
can be turned into guess what… an audio book!
Obviously this won’t work for some readings like textbooks with lost
of information boxes, but the technology is about 95% accurate and if you
can afford it I highly suggest this option. As a bonus to readers I got you a
10% discount on my current favorite which you can take a look at here. If
you’d like the discount just contact www.virtualteachingassistant.com and
once we confirm that you’re a student with us we can send you the discount.
Also I don’t make any profit on passing the savings on to you. This option
is expensive, but if you’re starting university this is going to pay for itself
many times over. Think of it this way.

On average you have let’s say 10 readings a semester

Multiply your average readings per semester times four years.
4x20=80 readings scanned, divide that by the price of my favorite
scanner (500 USD) and you’re looking at 6.25 per scan.

As an added bonus you could always make a little extra money

scanning other student’s books for a price. Or do it for free and become the
dorm hero! Print shops will also offer to scan your book for a price. If you
find it cheaper to go this route than it may be a good option for you.

Websites that carry audio books:

www.Audible.com The first stop for audio books. They have a huge
collection and can offer you discounts on larger orders.
www.itunes.com You can download many audio books off the itunes library
and pop them directly into your IPod.
www.amazon.com The biggest book store in the world with a large
collection of audio books. You can also buy textbooks here for cheaper than
the campus bookstore. Take a look to see if your campus bookstore is
owned by a large corporation, if it’s a mom and pop store, try to give them
the business. If not, Amazon is better.

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Mp3 Players:

www.apple.com IPods are great, I personally would suggest you go with this
option first, you can get them as cheap as 70 dollars currently and if you are
registered as a student go here for a 10-15% discount, shhh it’s a secret!

Book Viewers:

www.adobe.com Adobe Reader is the best pdf viewer and it will also dictate
text to you if you get the professional version. They also offer a free version
that I suggest you start out with.
www.kindle.com This little guy can also dictate audio books. I haven’t
tested it all that much but if you have one already, this could be a good
option for you.

Speed reading

So hopefully you’re left with something close to 25-35% of your

readings at this point. I know it still looks like a lot of reading. But what if I
told you that you can read this information twice as fast in 5 minutes? Step
three is all about speeding up your reading. There have been quite a few
speed reading programs and techniques out on the market for years; I’m
going to give you an overall breakdown of the best tricks to speed up your
reading. I’m also going to suggest a few programs that I’ve looked at which
will really help you double or even triple your reading speed.

There are a few techniques on speed reading and I have tested them
all. Included are a few speed reading packages you can buy below, so if
you’re interested go check them out. The three most useful tricks I’ve come
across are as follows.

Eye Focus: As you’re reading this line your eye is darting into various
other parts of the page. For instance you might be reading this but also see
‘other’ which is right above this line. This significantly slows down your
reading speed. By using a pointer, your finger or a ruler for each line you
can focus in on exactly what you’re reading and cut down on interference.
Another important thing to remember is that your vision has a hot spot of
about the size of a quarter if you took that quarter and held it out as far as

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your arm could reach. This area is where the majority of your conscious
reading takes place. Unfortunately when we move from line to line we
usually start at the very beginning of the word. Notice the big white gaps on
either side, popularly known as margins :) If you’re seeing them with that
quarter you’re wasting valuable visual hot spot. Instead move your eye
focus one word in from each line so instead of looking at ‘either’, look at
‘side’. Your hot spot will pick up both words simultaneously. It takes some
practice but after a few hours of continual reading it will become second
nature.

Passive reading: This method is meant to speed up your reading rate

while only losing a small amount of comprehension. I’ll explain this
through the example of highway versus street driving. Ever notice when you
start driving on the street and switch to the highway then switch back to the
street the street feels incredibly slow? You then end up unconsciously
developing a lead foot. Same premise is found in reading. Read a few pages
as fast as possible so that you are barely hanging on to your comprehension.
Read the following pages for comprehension, not speed. You will actually
read significantly faster than if you hadn’t sped up in the first place.

Expanding saccades: Most people don’t read individual letters or

even individual words. We don’t look at apple as a-p-p-l-e, we see it as a
single symbol. You do the same thing with words. Within your reading hot
spot you don’t just scan each-word-individually but instead look at a
grouping of words and translate them all into knowledge at the same time.
This process of grouping words is what speed readers called saccades. You
can expand your saccadic movements and there are a few great computer
programs that can train your eyes to improve the size of your saccades. A
free option however is to try to train your eyes to take in larger amounts of
words in a single look. So instead of just looking at (my dog spot), force
yourself to look at (my dog spot ate), then (my dog spot ate a bug) and so on.
You want to get to the point where you only have to make 2-3 saccadic
movements per line to quickly understand the entire phrase.

Here is a quick experiment you can try to test these strategies. Get a
watch out and read 3 pages of a book. This will be your average reading
speed. Next I want you to read 6 pages as quickly as possible applying the
eye focus saccadic movements and comprehension reading techniques I just

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used. Right after you finish the 6 pages I want you to read another 3 pages
while timing yourself. On average you should have increased your reading
speed by 100-200%. Apply these methods to the remainder of your readings
and you should be getting them finished in at least half the time. If you’re
still interested in speed reading and want to learn more, here are a few
programs that I’ve tested and found really useful.

www.pxmethod.com The best one I’ve come across. You can fire up your
reading speed by 300% and don’t lose any comprehension. It’s pretty
expensive but if you feel like you need a boost and have the extra cash. I
suggest this route.
Break through Rapid Reading by Peter Kump. Great cheap option for
somebody who just wants to get started on speed reading, you can check it
out here

At this point you should only have a few of the readings left, with
them either on your iPod or being read at 200% the regular speed. Now to
make sure that this information stays in your head. There are a couple really
quick things you can do to help remember readings after you’ve finished
them.
After completing a reading I want you to do a précis. A précis is a
review of the article’s main thesis, any crucial points you needed to put
down and any quotes that you’ll need for papers later. I have an example
and a blank précis form that you can use as a guide. I suggest that these all
be digital as I’m going to show you how to turn these into a database in a
later chapter. Try to keep the précis short and to the point. Again use the
same fundamental rules that you applied in the note taking chapter. Keep it
short, write simply, and write for your 40 year old self.
Regardless of what the prof says, try to do the readings in bulk, don’t
cut them up. This is really important because your recall rate will be
significantly higher. If you’re reading a book, read the whole thing,
preferably in a single sitting. When you cut the readings up, you have to
review what had happened before, you may be doing some readings in
between which will lower comprehension and recall for your final exam.
When you’re finished a reading, talk to another person about it as
soon as possible. This refers back to the teaching method of learning and the
second T in the academic sift. If you can teach something you usually know
it. My personal choice for discussing readings are fellow students,

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preferably students in your class as they can either add to the conversation or
be incredibly grateful your teaching them the reading.

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Academic Sift
Throw: (Which readings are not important to complete to get an A on
the course)
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

Talk: (Which of these books can I learn through discussion with VTA,
TA’s Profs, Students etc)
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________

Take: (Define which books you need to read in order of importance for
each course)
First Priority: __________________________________________
Second Priority: __________________________________________
Third Priority: __________________________________________

Questions to ask: Which of these books can I turn into Audio books?
Which of these books can I simply skim through? Which of these books
need my full attention?

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Précis form: (This will also be available in a word file, feel free to
shorten or expand on this form as you see fit)
AUTHOR:

TITLE:

LEVEL OF USEFULNESS FOR PROJECT/EXAM RANKED FROM 1 - 10.

(Idea here is whether it is directly and highly related, or

whether it might be tangentially related and or whether it might
be useful in veering in another fruitful direction given the
data/ideas being pursued.)

TOPIC AND THESIS:

DATA USED AND SOURCES:

KEY FINDINGS:

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

REFERENCES OBTAINED FROM BOOK/ARTICLE:

IDEAS THIS BOOK/ARTICLE GENERATED:

THEORETICAL, HYPOTHESES, THINGS THAT RANG FALSE, ETC.

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So to review

- Cut down your readings using the academic sift method

- Step one, throw, talk and take
- Step two, turn readings into audio books
- Step three, speed reading techniques
- When you finish a reading, do a précis of the article or book so that you
can use it later
- Make sure to talk to somebody about the reading as well, if you can teach
it, you know it

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Chapter 8: Time Management: Spend more
time partying and less time working
In this Chapter you will learn how:
- To use stress to your advantage
- To focus your concentration
- To focus other peoples concentration (Group work)

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 Time Management is one of the most difficult skills to master in
university but one of the best ways to free up time. This chapter is the ‘a
stitch in time saves nine’ masters course. I suggest you read this chapter
over again if you find you haven’t gotten the concepts down or if you find
yourself slipping (which will happen). We have already touched on the
main concepts behind organization so I’m going to concentrate on the
management of your time. Keep in mind that organization is the base you
need to properly build strong time management.
I’m going to present you with some outside the box thinking in this
chapter that has only become available within the last few years with the rise
of technology and globalization. I have always been challenged with time
management. Constant procrastination led to me starting to write papers at
8pm for a 9am class the next morning, studying for tests an hour before I
had to take them and not even opening books. I really started to become a
great manager of my time in graduate school. I can remember sitting down
and looking at a data set I had to program for a stats class and realized that I
had 9 hours of me pushing the same keys on a computer over and over and
OVER again. Ever 10 minutes I would stare out the window, do some
pushups (it does help me stay on track sometimes), or many other things that
drew the entire process out.

All of a sudden, like a lightning bolt, I had an epiphany.

The way in which I conquered time management was kind of counter

intuitive.

Get ready for this one.

The best way to manage your time is NOT to manage it at all.

Write that down.

Students who can’t manage their time properly can improve to a

degree but don’t get anywhere near those genius kids that always seem to
have their work done and projects finished.

So I suggest you don’t manage your time at all, it’s foolish to think
that you can keep yourself on the straight and narrow at university when you

88
couldn’t during high school and grade school. Your brain is pretty much
hard wired at this point. You can improve your time management skills but
a complete shift is doubtful.

So you’re asking yourself, “Ok, what the hell am I supposed to do with this
chapter.”

Well here is the second component, do not manage your time get others to
manage it for you!

Let’s take an example of working out at a gym. If you just decide to

start working out with a plan you put together yourself, your chances of
success is pretty low. But, if you sign up for a trainer who teaches you the
best techniques to work out effectively and every time your at the gym he’s
yelling at you to push harder and keep going, what do you think is going to
happen?

I think you already know…

It’s amazing how we get experts to train us on so many things but one
of the most fundamental skills you need help with you’re left with no help or
direction at all. Once I had this realization, everything changed. I used three
main sources to manage my time.

- Virtual Assistants: I hired virtual assistants to manage everything from

helping me with research, proofreading papers, to managing my facebook
profile (which wasn’t all that successful). I went through a large amount of
trial and error with these people. I got burned a few times with virtual
assistants that didn’t get me the results I wanted and didn’t get work back to
me on time. I’ve worked very hard to take this idea and turn it into the
virtual teaching assistant service that you’ve signed up for. They are all
professionals who have had teaching assistant experience and are either
finished or going through graduate school. How often do you get your own
PhD student to look over your papers personally? The VTA program is the
best option but if you don’t want to go this direction I’ll have a couple more
options for you throughout the chapter.

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- Fellow Students: Other students will keep you motivated and are a huge
resource. I made sure I had a buddy in each class that was interested in
getting things done as efficiently as possible in each class. Study buddies
are great for a few reasons. First, they are going through the same thing as
you and they won’t sabotage your time. A ‘time sabotager’ is somebody
who asks you about your weekend in class, they pass you silly notes all the
time and they can’t stay on task when you set up a study date. These people,
you do NOT want to be around. If they are friends of yours, keep away
from them in class. Hang out with them after class. As I said in the
organization chapter, define your work space and your social space. The
dorms are a social space; the bar is a social space. In class is not a social
space, study hall is not a social space. Keep them divided and you’ll
actually have more time to socialize. Second, you can share the load with
fellow students on tests and assignments which can halve or even quarter the
time you’ll need to get a great mark.

- TA’s and Profs: I started to make sure I was emailing and talking to my
prof’s and TA’s. First week of classes I came in to talk to professors and
TA’s about courses. Teaching assistants are this amazingly free resource
available to all students. They are smart, they are easier to talk to then
professors and they will be marking your tests and papers. They have also
seen or in some cases written the exams. Some TA’s will hand over exactly
what’s on the exam if you come to their office hours (when you ask the right
questions).
TA’s are also starved for attention throughout the semester. In the
five years I was a teaching assistant I got a line up out of my office door the
week before midterms, papers and final exams. Other than that, I got maybe
one student a week. Students who regularly see their TA get higher marks,
period. Profs are also useful, they will take less time to talk to you on
average in comparison to teaching assistants but, if you are interested in
moving on past your undergraduate degree. I suggest talking to them soon
and often. It never hurts to know the person in charge of your final grade.

Main components of time management

So what are the main components of time management and how can
you outsource these responsibilities. Let’s go through the main components
of good time management.

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- Reading preparation
- Test/Exam preparation
- Paper/project preparation
- Note preparation

Reading Preparation: We already went over reading methods in the last

chapter. But there are a few points you should keep in mind when you’re
trying to manage your reading time. If you’re stuck with actually reading
something that cannot be turned into another form of media, get it done as
quickly as possible. Share the load with other students and get them to teach
you sections that you haven’t read. Go to your TA and ask one or two
questions about the readings. The majority of the time they will give you
exactly what you need to know without asking whether you’ve done the
reading or not. If you’re absolutely stuck with reading, go to a work space,
open the book and get lost in the book. Take one to two minutes before you
begin, read the title and think about what the book will be about and what
you are looking to get out of the book. This will focus your mind onto the
task at hand and remove stray thoughts that may encroach on your focus.
Ever read the same line 10 times over? If that happens, a very easy fix is to
switch to the next page. It will launch you right out of your procrastination
and get you back on track.
If you absolutely can’t stand the reading you have to complete there is
another great strategy to get about 90% of the comprehension in a very short
period of time. This method is to be used as a LAST RESORT as it will
not replace full comprehension reading. Open up your book and look at the
title. Spend 10 seconds trying to understand the title and theorize on what
the readings going to be about. Go directly to the conclusion and read the
last paragraph. Then go immediately to the beginning and read the first
three paragraphs. From then on, read the first line and last line on every
paragraph and any bolded or italicized text if present. After completion
write down your précis as you will not be able to retain this information for
longer than a few hours. This method is also very useful if you’re stuck
cramming for an exam or have to quickly come up with something creative
to say for a reading in class.

Note Preparation: As I already reviewed note taking in an earlier chapter

I’m just going to throw in a few extra points. Make sure to develop good

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shorthand for your notes, putting an hour in to figure out a great system at
the beginning of the semester will save you days worth of headaches and
hand cramps. Make sure to review notes after each class. Anything you
don’t understand should not wait to be understood later as it usually is
forgotten 5 minutes after the lecture until it’s time to prepare for the exam.
Talk to your study buddy or the TA/Prof. A method I use which I find the
most time effective is to just email them. Throw out a quick email and you
usually get a response that is to the point and can quickly be integrated into
your notes. Showing up to actually ‘take’ notes is really important. Lecture
is the most productive learning period during an entire course as you can
successfully integrate all learning styles simultaneously. I would rather you
miss the readings than the lecture.

Exam Preparation: Exam preparation is an accumulation of your note and

reading preparation. You are going to be spending 10 times the amount of
time studying for the exam if you don’t have good notes and haven’t done
the readings. So just do them! I’ll deal with procrastination next chapter but
keep in mind spending a little time at the beginning can save you a tone at
the end. Here are some steps I want you to take when exam time rolls
around.
Figure out when all your exams are. I want you to set them a day
back on your calendar. It’s important that you only move it back by one
day. If you pull it back earlier, the system I’m suggesting for maximum
retention will not be effective (i.e. most of the information will leave you
before you take the exam). Get a study buddy, or buddies to go over the test
material with you. You should usually have two meetings. A meeting three
to four days before the exam and a meeting either the day before or day of
the exam. Your first meeting will be to go over what you have studied ‘I
have a specific exam study method later in the book’. Figure out what
you’re going to be doing, figure out what your study buddies are doing, and
see if they match up. If they don’t; investigate as to whether you’re studying
the right material.
Keep this meeting short, a half an hour would be best and have this
meeting in a work space, don’t socialize till you get to a social space. If
people get off track, get them back on it. If the meeting is finished and you
want to socialize, suggest you all go out to the bar for a drink, don’t poison
your work space with socializing. The second meeting is what I call the
confidence meeting; this can be done the day before or the day of the exam.

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You’ve gotten all the needed information in your mind. You know it
forward and backwards and are ready to quiz each other. You shouldn’t be
learning anything at this point; you’re just reviewing and building up your
confidence. Nothing in a test is more powerful than knowing that you know
all the material by heart.

Paper/project Preparation: Paper and project preparation is one of the

greatest black holes for time management. Again, I’ve dedicated a whole
chapter to papers and projects later in the book. For right now let’s talk
about how you can cut down the amount of time it takes to write these
things. First, figure out exactly what you want to do. Get a clear idea of
your thesis; pass it by your VTA or your TA/prof and class mates before
going forward. This will help to make sure that the project is doable and
will also get you an idea of what kind of research has already been done on
it. Do not start a paper without knowing something about the subject
beforehand. I’m a sociologist, I could write a paper on migration theory in a
heartbeat but string theory… not so much. Usually choosing a subject that
you’re interested in and has been touched on in class is best. Let me make
this incredibly clear research should be outsourced. Let me state first that
this is not plagiarism to have somebody else do the research for you. If that
were true then all professors would be liable due to their army of research
assistants writing all their books for them. Your virtual TA will be able to
do this faster and better than you. They can also suggest specific directions
to take the paper that you probably didn’t think of. Virtual TA’s are also
paid professionals, they are interested in you succeeding and don’t care
about bell curving, the university, your class or any other averaging behavior
that TA’s and profs are forced into. You can get the same kinds of help
from TA’s, Profs and other students but this is by far the fastest and easiest
way. Don’t spend more time producing bad research when your VTA can
do it better than you in a fraction of the time.
Try to write the paper in a single sitting, if you stop and start not only
will this stop your thinking process you will literally lose time restarting a
paper. How long do you think it takes to turn on your computer, get out
your sources, re-read what you’ve written and get yourself in the state of
mind again to write? Conservatively it takes 15 minutes, and it usually takes
another 5 to put everything away. If you start and stop four times, you’ve
blown an hour. I’ll have specific procrastination strategies you can
implement later in the book. But just try to keep in mind that if you’re

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writing, write from beginning to end. Through using my method I’ve had
students write 20 double spaced pages of A+ material in two hours. Don’t
spend days writing when an hour will do.
This brings me to my second point. Write first, everything second.
Once you have made the decision to write stick with it, do not multitask.
That means no instant messaging, no networking sites, no blogs, just you
and the material. Your time audit that you’re going to do or already have
done should show you how much time you spend doing those things. This
takes you off your main goal, getting the paper done as quickly as possible.
Facebook will still be there after you’re done, I promise.
Ever think about how amazing a paper is going to be but when you
actually write it all your ideas come out like verbal diarrhea? It’s sometimes
better to get your ideas out improperly than properly. I know that this seems
like you’ll be creating more work for yourself. In some instances you’re
absolutely right as you’ll have to rework some of the sections that didn’t
come out quite right. But if you just write your ideas, they have moved from
your head to the page which is the biggest step. If you get out of your
writing zone, it sometimes takes a long time to get back in. Keep yourself
on track and write dammit!
Stress is sometimes the fertilizer of creativity. Ever just write a paper
from start to finish the day before it was due and get a better than expected
result back? Well that is the great phenomenon of allostasis which I
discussed earlier. The assignment you have usually expands into the time
you have to complete it. If you have two days to complete an assignment its
usually just as good if you had two weeks. The way you can turn this into an
advantage is to move your assignments back on your calendar and write
everything in a pre-defined amount of time. Don’t let them draw out. Finish
that paper in two days, not two weeks. The great thing about our method is
that you will be forced to hand in assignments that need correction by your
VTA at least three days in advance of the actual submission date. So you
won’t be managing your own time, the system will do it for you.

The big picture for time management

The key to time management is to understand when you’re working

and when you’re not working. Keep a strict division between the two. A lot
of people today constantly have email, blackberries, computers and phone
calls attacking them beyond the 9-5 day. The goal is NOT to work all the

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time. University time management can be conquered by getting rid of those
distractions. As I have said in previous chapters. Try to mechanize and
systematize as many repetitive processes as possible. If you’re not doing
something new, it usually isn’t important and doesn’t need your attention.
Check email ONCE A DAY, check your social networking site ONCE A
DAY, and check your voicemail ONCE A DAY! Those messages don’t
have an expiration date. Get that protestant ethic OUT and you’ll manage
your time better than you ever have before. Remember, you want to get
information in as quickly and richly as possible so do things right the first
time and stay focused.

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So in Review

- The best way to manage your time is to get somebody else to manage it for
you.
- Capitalize on Profs and TA’s, fellow students and most importantly your
virtual TA.
- Review the management plan for the four components of time management
- Reading preparation
- Test/Exam preparation
- Paper/project preparation
- Note preparation
- Remember, you want to get information in as quickly and richly as
possible

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Chapter 9: Stopping Procrastination
In this chapter you will learn:
-Why we procrastinate
-Why procrastination isn’t your fault
- How to solve it.

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 Ok I’m going to give you another weird concept to get your head
around so get ready…

I have become one of the most productive people I know and I’m also
one of the greatest procrastinators I know. I have also interviewed many
successful students that are horrible procrastinators and are incredibly
productive.

Wait… what? How can I be productive and a procrastinator? Well its

simple, I’m a procrastinator that realizes that I’m terrible at being
responsible for my own actions. I therefore have placed that onus of self
regulation on other systems to force myself into productivity. I have read a
mountain of books on how to become productive. I’m going to include my
version of those strategies throughout this book but the chances of you
implementing all of those strategies are slim to nil (I know this from
personal experience as I struggled with procrastination all my life). Instead,
I would suggest you look at this process from the opposite point of view.
I’m going to get you to force yourself into being productive by removing
most of the avenues of procrastination.

Let’s first go over why we procrastinate.

I want you to first go back to a point in your mind when you were
procrastinating. You might be procrastinating on something right now! I
have my taxes on my desk which I’m going to send out to my accountant
this afternoon. Why this afternoon? Well because I’ve set up a meeting
with my accountant and if I miss it, I’ll be charged for the meeting without
getting anything done. Now, I’d like you to pause for a minute and give me
the reason why you procrastinate.

Take a minute right now. I’ll wait…

Ok now you should have fallen into a few categorical excuses. The
most illogical reason is that ‘you just didn’t wanna.’ This is a valid answer
but is based on some deeper psychological basis that I can’t really get into
right now. You are probably procrastinating for the thrill of failure or that
you had an overly structured childhood and are rebelling against that
structure. If that’s you I would suggest you take a deep look inside yourself

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and ask why you just ‘don’t’ want to do things as you must conquer that
form of procrastination to be successful throughout your life. You probably
have mom/dad issues and I suggest you read a little bit on the psychological
basis of these problems. Here is a great starting link.
Another good reason for procrastination is that you lack the skills to
accomplish the task. I have come across this reason quite a lot in my
personal life and my research. Looking at the new skills you have to learn
and the amount of work you have to do to accomplish a task can be
daunting. Another reason to procrastinate is when you lack motivation.
Don’t fear the consequences or believe a project is not important. Stress and
fear is usually seen as a negative thing but research has shown that in
completing tasks, stress can actually be positive and can make you complete
certain tasks faster and better than if you weren’t stressed in the first place.
You can also have a fear of decisions. A student called it the ‘failure to
launch’ phenomenon. You know exactly what you have to do but you don’t
make that initial decision to actually do it.
Keep in mind that procrastination is not about time management, it’s
about making a decision to stay on task. Many procrastinators can manage
their time perfectly, it’s actually implementing the program they have set up
which gives them trouble. You can have every reason to start a project and
then lie to yourself saying “Oh, I’ll do this tomorrow” even though deep
down you know you never will. I’m going to be showing you techniques on
how to suppress or force you out of these excuses but keeping yourself
internally accountable for your success is paramount (read chapter two again
if you need more help on this).

My personal story, a case study in procrastination

If you’re interested in getting the highest marks possible and

suppressing procrastination you usually must choose classes and projects
that: you are interested in, have great content, are as easy as possible, are
based off information you already know and that you have a good support
group in. Now if you can’t get out of the class that doesn’t meet those
criteria, what you need to do is break down the information as quickly and as
easily as possible. As a personal example I had a statistics course that I had
very little experience in but had to take. Here are the anti-procrastination
steps I took to complete the course easily and with a mark that I was happy
with (A-).

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1) I first had a meeting with the professor to have a chat.
- I asked “What is the course exactly about?” (in this case the class
was about statistics and regression analysis).
- I told the professor exactly what I wanted to accomplish in the
course and asked him how difficult it would be to achieve that. I said I
wanted an A in the course and wanted to learn how to run and interpret
regressions so that I would appear like I knew what I was doing during a job
talk 3.
- Next I asked him what kind of content we are going to have and
what the best strategies were to learn them as easily as possible. The second
part of this statement is crucially important because if you simply ask for
extra content the professor will usually name off 10 incredibly complex
books that you don’t have time to read. I’m also making sure he understands
that I’m looking for an A (See the chapter on befriending professors to
understand why this is important).

2) The second thing I did was look over the content for the course to find out
some shortcuts.
- The internet had a lot of easy to use guides on regression analysis. I
searched for the easiest and shortest guides; there is a great resource here
that gives you notes on most subjects.
- I emailed the prof and after reviewing the content asked whether
certain pieces of content would be covered through lecture. At this point he
actually told me that the textbook wasn’t all that important as most of the
stuff I would need to learn would be covered in class and that I should use
the book as a reference tool.

Another book on the not read pile Hooray!

3) I had a conversation over beers with upperclassmen who had taken the
course already.
- I asked them how difficult the course was and the main problems
they faced with the content and prof.

3
A Job Talk is a term used in academia for the interviewing process of new professors to a department. It
is a good term to use with profs as it suggests that you are working towards the goal of teaching yourself
one day (even if your not) which makes you more relatable than the majority of students.

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 - I asked if they knew what I should do in terms of keeping on task
and if anyone could ‘help me out’. (I got the best student in last years class
to personally tutor me from this talk)

4) I got a Tutor.
- As I said in step three, I convinced the best student in last year’s
class to help me with the course. He helped me through all the assignments
and practically handed over assignments to me when I couldn’t understand
them and coached me through the difficult theoretical concepts. I paid him
in beer.

5) I got two study buddies

- I got myself two study buddies who were at the same overall level as
me. I used the rules from the group assignment chapter to make us all
accountable for assignments being finished on time.
- We shared content and in essence broke the work up three ways
which enabled me to work a third of the time while still understanding the
main concepts behind what was being taught.

6) I started assignments immediately

- Most of the time the reason why you can’t finish a project is because
you can’t start it. When an assignment was given to us I would spend 5
minutes opening up a new word file, writing the title and introductory
paragraph with a general outline of what I wanted to accomplish. Getting
your assignment started is the best indicator of completing it. The
preparation is already done and all you have to do is open up the word file to
start typing.

7) I made accountability meetings

- When I had an assignment due or specifically when the final project
was due, I made accountability meetings with my prof and study buddies.
Here is an example of an email I sent to my prof.

Dr I’mnottellingyouhisrealname

I’m thinking of doing my project on resource based transnational

statistical indicators using logit regression. I’d like to take 15 minutes to ask
you a couple questions on running logit through STATA and whether you

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think the subject will be viable as a final project. I’m thinking about
meeting you at your office hours on Monday. If that’s not a good time, what
other time can I meet with you this week?

LM

- So if you look at this email, there are some very important tips you
should keep in mind. I first said exactly what I wanted to do. Next, I said
exactly what I needed from him and when I’m going to meet with him, plus
whether he will be available at that time. If he won’t be available, I
restricted his options to meet with me to a specified period (in this case the
remainder of the week).
- During that meeting I had a few things ready. I finished my research
and had a theoretical basis of what I wanted to do my project on. (I did a
little of my own research in conjunction with my tutor and a few buddies
who work on the same thing all throwing in some articles) I had a main
statement of intent (i.e. what I wanted to accomplish in this project). I then
asked him whether this would be viable as a final project (this is code for, is
this project going to get me the mark I want).
- The purpose of the meeting was to get me motivated to finish the
first sections of the project. You will embarrass yourself if you aren’t
prepared, it’s better to automatically make a meeting first then work towards
that meeting through the fear of embarrassment. Remember that it doesn’t
matter if you have five days or one; you’re usually going to produce the
same quality of work.

8) I looked at projects in pieces rather than a single job

- I broke every project I had down into its base parts and started
grouping them together so that I could do like tasks together. This allowed
me to start projects immediately as I usually could at least do a part of it
without any prior knowledge
- This is really one of the greatest problems for procrastinators in my
own personal experiences and in interviewing students. Let’s take a look at
a classic example of an essay that has to be completed. If you’re looking at
a 10 page essay you might think, this is so much work; how much
brainstorming, research, writing and editing is this going to take?
Yet, if you instead look at it in terms of writing a thesis statement,
figuring out the main components that support that thesis statement,

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researching each component, writing each component separately etc… You
begin to realize that the essay is not a single project but a multifaceted set of
smaller projects, each being relatively achievable in a short amount of time.
I don’t want to get into the methodology of this just yet as we will be
covering how to break down this process formally in future chapters using
the critical thinking method.

So you can see that there are many avenues that you can take to
become more accountable without concentrating on consciously being
accountable. A one minute email to a prof forces me to have half the project
done, I have no choice. Talking to my tutor about an assignment forces me
into an hour long discussion on the assignment. In group work, making a
promise to be finished my part of the project three days before its due forces
me to work on that part and allows the other parts to be done automatically
for me way before the due date.

How to Solve Procrastination

Here are some important rules to take into consideration when dealing
with procrastination. Just keep these idioms in mind and you should become
more accountable to your work instantaneously.

Break it down: Don’t look at a project and get scared… ever. Fear and
stress is only useful at the end of a project, not the beginning (more about
that in a later chapter). Take your project and break it down into chunks,
once you break it down into its components its usually very easy to
accomplish in a short amount of time.

Just Start it Dammit!: Start everything, I know this seems like a bit of a
waste of time as you might throw out that initial start but the point of starting
a project is to make it less scary. The longest journey begins with a single
step… so step, right now!

Set Study Times: You have to study every day, think of it like brushing
your teeth or taking a shower (I hope you do that every day). I like to study
from 3-3:30pm Monday to Friday. I can study at other times but that time is
for me to lock myself down. This will be hard at first but it will get easier

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after about two weeks. You can expand on your study time but try to keep it
small initially so you don’t get frustrated and fall out of your new routine.

Accountability Backups: There are a few accountability systems you can

implement immediately to force you to stay on task. Your virtual teaching
assistant can be your first line of defense. You can set up your VTA to
email/phone you when you need to accomplish a goal. As an example,
VTA’s need a minimum of three days to turn a paper around. It’s much
safer to fail your VTA then it is to fail your prof. You can also set up
accountability backups through your study buddies. They particularly like
this as they get something out of it as well.

Visual Reminders: I like sticky notes, you can post them anywhere and they
are a great little reminder when you unconsciously fall off task. I have a
buddy that had horrible posture; he solved the problem by writing down
‘Posture’ on a sticky note and putting it on his monitor. Here are a couple
anti-procrastination notes you could use to stay accountable that I use.
- Is what I’m doing important?
- Stop playing and work for 5 minutes.
- Work now
- Don’t procrastinate

Study Space: Again this relates to time management but is central to

procrastination as well. If you have programmed your mind to only do work
in a certain spot, all you have to do is force yourself to that spot. How long
do you think you’ll last in front of facebook, a couple friends and the TV
blaring before you fall off task? Focus your environment and you will focus
yourself.

Make your tasks meaningful: If you have to do a task that you’re really
not interested in, try to make it interesting (even though its not). Just like
you trick yourself into thinking that you’ll ‘get that done tomorrow’. Trick
yourself into thinking that what you’re doing is interesting and meaningful.

Write down what you’re going to do and do it: Make a list of what you’re
going to do and make sure it gets done. Write down achievable and specific
points, putting down ‘finish paper’ won’t do. A better point will be ‘Will
research 5 articles on jewish immigration rates by 3pm tonight, go to

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Blackwell-snyergy.com to start search.’ This gives you a concrete
completion date and a specific target that you have to meet.

Get a timer: Get a timer for study or paper writing and set it for 5 minutes.
For those 5 minutes do NOTHING BUT WORK. Anybody can work for 5
minutes uninterrupted. The trick is that after the alarm goes off you’ll be in
such a great work flow that you won’t want to stop. Keep the timer around
for when you lose your focus and just reset the timer for another 5 minutes.

Procrastination is hard, but failing is harder. Keep points like that in

mind whenever you feel yourself falling back into the deep dark hole of time
waste. Use the systems offered by your VTA’s and this book to keep
yourself from wasting time. Remember stopping the pattern is much easier
when you systematize your success.

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So in Review

- Review the reasons why you procrastinate so that you can figure out how
to conquer it.
- Review how you solve this problem by:
- Breaking it down
- Just starting it dammit!
- Creating accountability backups
- Using visual reminders
- Using your study space
- Make your tasks meaningful
- Write down what you’re going to do and do it
- Getting a study timer

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Chapter 10: Why Professors are your
friends, ‘Or Should be’
In this chapter you will learn:
- How the university system is put together
- How to deal with female and male professors
- Why TA’s are your friends
- How to hold off taking your exam or test
- How to change your mark after your test/paper has been submitted

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 I have an unfortunate truth that I’d like to share with you right now,
your going to get a little depressed about this but don’t worry, keep reading.

Universities are not really interested in teaching students. They

frankly could care less about the students. Universities primary concern is
research funding. Research becomes increasingly important the more
important your university is. Now, don’t get me wrong, the advantages of
going to a really good university offers you great advantages in terms of
access to great professors and job opportunities after you get out of school.
But, don’t fool yourself; the universities main goal is making money through
research and to raise their state/national/international ranking. If you doubt
this take a look at the highest ranked universities in the world and how much
they make from research. Unfortunately this same trend is becoming more
popular with professors. Here are some points that will scare you.

- Student reviews are becoming less important to profs getting promotions as

the university accounts for them less and less.
- More part time profs are being hired than ever before which saves the
university money and creates two different types of profs, low paid teaching
lecturers and highly paid research profs.
- First and second year classes have a minimum and maximum average that
the university sets and the professor cannot mark out of. Therefore, it
doesn’t matter how good the teacher is or how well the class does, the
majority of students must get B’s.
- Most university students rarely interact with a tenured professor during
their undergraduate degree.
- Tenured professors do not have to teach any classes.
- School teachers have to get an undergraduate degree plus teaching college.
The vast majority of professors have no formal training in teaching,
whatsoever.

These facts aren’t meant to scare you. I found university one of the
best experiences in my life and there are many committed profs out there. I
just want you to understand the way the system is set up. Once you know
how universities work, I can show you strategies to circumvent these pitfalls
and maximize your chance at success.

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How to deal with professors

The following sections come out of my experiences from interacting

with professors during my undergraduate, graduate and teaching career.
During your undergrad you are mostly seen by professors as a student.
However, graduate school gave me the opportunity to be treated more as a
colleague rather than a student. You switch to first names with your profs,
you work on papers together, you go out to the bars with them etc. Based on
conversations with profs, I’ve come up with some fundamental ideals that
every professor and for that matter person, respects.

Confidence: Being confident is probably the most important thing to be

when interacting with any person. I’m not saying that you should be
browbeating people. Take Barrack Obama again as an ideal example of what
you want to communicate. Chapter 2 should help you with becoming more
confident in a very short time.

Positivity: Negative people are generally much less successful in society

than positive people. One of the main reasons why this is true is because
they are generally received by people better and are able to convince people
to their way of thinking better than negative people. The adage “you catch
more bees with honey than with vinegar” can sum positivity up quite nicely.

Respect: Having respect for your prof is crucially important. Respect is not
sucking up. If you suck up and kiss his/her butt the prof will usually say to
themselves “oh another one of those” and count the tiles on the ceiling while
you try to tell him how much his paper meant to you. Instead, finding
respectable, intelligent faults in a paper he/she wrote and asking him/her for
clarification will get you a tone of respect if it reflects the subject of your
class or an assignment you are doing.

Passion: If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you will usually get
the same passion back. If you’re not really interested in what you’re doing,
you’re usually going to get the same responses from profs. You usually find
this in class lectures as some professors can make the content really exciting,
while other profs present the content in a flat and really boring way.

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Composure: If you’re composed and calm, this shows everyone around you
that you are in control of your environment. People who react sharply to a
situation do not gain respect from others. They will see you as someone
who can’t keep it together.

Preparedness: The last and probably most important ideal, being prepared
in front of a prof is next to godliness in their eyes. I have had hundreds of
students come and see me who wanted to talk about an upcoming test or
assignment and have no preparation whatever. This wastes my time and
unconsciously makes me place the student in a negative light. Be
PREPARED, it’s important.

There are also fundamental ideals that every professor and person does not
respect.

Trying to Hard: Most profs I’ve talked to after a few beers have told me the
absolute worst kind of student is a ‘suck-up’. Kids who are trying too hard
infuriate professors as they usually waste their time. They waste time
through asking questions that aren’t relevant and ask ‘story questions’ rather
than directed questions. If this is you, stop right now. JUST STOP! Your
marks will go up by 5-10% just from doing this one thing guaranteed. Most
profs are actually a little harder on these kids as they feel like they should be
punished for wasting their time (every prof will deny this publically but it’s
true, I’ve heard it dozens of times).

Nervousness: If you are nervous, chapter 2 will help you to get over this.
I’ve had students that have come to see me and been uncontrollably shaking.
I’ve actually told some to calm down and take a deep breath. It is ok to be
nervous but use the strategies throughout this book to cut down on this.
Also the more you do something the easier it will be. So just keep at it.

Lack of focus: If you make an appointment about a paper with a prof and
talk about 10 different things of which maybe one is directly related to the
assignment, this bugs the hell out of profs. This relates to being prepared
but more importantly it relates to being on task. Have a specific point to the
meeting. Don’t waste their time and they will thank you for it.

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Unpreparedness: Read the section on preparedness above. If you’re not
prepared to talk to profs they won’t give you the time of day and will see
you in a negative light. I’ve had kids come in two days before an exam with
loose leaf notes from three different subjects as their study material. If
you’re unprepared, it’s better to not even talk to the prof.

Being Apologetic: This last point may seem somewhat counterintuitive as

being apologetic would seem like a positive trait to have. It definitely is a
positive trait… to a point. This is linked to confidence and respect. If you
completely crumble on the slightest critique of your work, profs will not
respect you. Don’t apologize for your work, embrace it and take the
initiative to discuss and even ‘respectfully’ challenge their critique of your
work. It shows that you’re thinking and that you’re not willing to go down
without a bit of a fight.

On meeting with profs

Ok, now that you have the general ideals down lets go through what
you need to do to actually set up, prepare for and go to a meeting. A lot of
students that read the first draft of this book told me they didn’t understand
the importance of talking to profs. Well here is another point you should
right down.

Meetings with profs are the easiest way to bring up your marks without
study.

Why is that? Well profs like any other human on this planet are open
to persuasion. If you expect a prof to have a godly sense of equality, think
again, they have favorites and you want to be one. This can be
accomplished in many ways, whether through directly being impressed by
the student, non-verbal communication, neuro-linguistic programming or
low level hypnotization. I was a salesman during my undergrad and I
learned a tone of tricks from the marketing and sales world that are
applicable to convincing profs to do what you want. I have also found this
trend in the students that I interviewed and in my own personal experience I
believe it gave me approximately a 10% jump in my marks overall.

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The theory of rapport

Let’s take a look at the story of two students. Each have the same
level of intelligence and have the same study habits. On the first quiz, both
students get a B+ and aren’t happy with their results. Student one goes and
bitches to his fellow students that he should have gotten a higher mark
because the questioning was unfair and vague. Student two goes to the prof
prepared with reasons why he should have gotten a higher mark and gets one
of two outcomes. He either gets a higher mark on the quiz or he doesn’t.
Yet I will guarantee that he does automatically get a higher mark later on as
the prof remembers him and doesn’t want to go through the same process
again. Many students are intimidated from trying this stuff but if you take
the time to learn how to approach and convince professors your GPA will
thank you.

First let’s break down what kinds of profs you’re going to meet and
how to deal with each type. I’ve built this categorization system off Jungian
archetypes and the Myers Briggs test for personality types. There are four
types of professors you’re going to see.

Theorizer: This individual looks to come up with new and interesting

theories all the time. They are usually introverted and are uncomfortable
with the opposite sex. They are usually the smartest out of all the groups but
have a very low emotional intelligence and lack significant socializing skills.
They are also very intimated by confident people.

Artist: The person who wants to be the life of the party. The archetypal
extrovert, they like speaking and can go off topic very easily. They can
adapt to different social situations relatively easily and can speak to anyone
about pretty much any subject. Even if they know almost nothing about a
subject they can still convincingly make a statement.

Controller: Controllers always have to have a project on the go. They want
to micro-manage students and will give you incredibly detailed notes for
instance for an assignment. They are usually a little introverted and try to
control situations in order to gain social acceptance and power.

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Analyzer: Incredibly analytical. Analyzers will look at an issue from all
directions before coming to a conclusion. Unlike a theorizer however, this
person is usually less creative and more matter of fact. They lack the ability
to think outside the box which they secretly wish they could always do.
They are excellent managers and are incredibly logical.

Before speaking to your professor, you should try to place them in one
of these personality types. You can use these personality types to decide on
which strategies will work best with each professor. If you would like to
study some more complex models, check out the Myers Briggs test which
has 16 personality types.

Before you meet up with a prof

Warm the Pot: Do not have a meeting with a prof about upgrading a mark
if you haven’t had a meeting with him before. This is a sure fire way to not
get what you want. You must build rapport with your professor if you hope
to get a higher mark. Profs like all people, will help students who work
hard, are nice and don’t suck up.

Talk to other people: Talk to students and even other profs about the
professor in question. They will usually be able to tell you quite a lot about
the professor and what they are like. You can also go to
www.ratemyprofessor.com which will give you a break down of what the
professor is like and whether other students have found him/her easy to work
with.

Be Prepared: Do not walk into a meeting without knowing exactly what

you want the meeting to be about. Write it out on a piece of paper and
define exactly what the problem is and how you would like to solve it. Take
into consideration that the majority of the profs you meet are going to be
prepared for you, so you better be prepared for them.

Loosen yourself up: Loosen yourself up before you speak to the prof. I
would suggest talking to a few friends or the secretarial staff before going to
see the professor. It gets your mind in the mood to converse and will calm
you down if you’re nervous. Also remember to speak and move in a slow

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calm manner. This non-verbally communicates that you are in control of
yourself.

Prepare good questions: Again take a look at chapter 5 for a full workup
on how to put together a good question. Take the time to go over the
strategies for compiling good questions and come up with a few main ones
with some backups in case the primary ones are easily thrown aside.

During the Meeting

Befriend the professor: If you are speaking to the prof about a mark that
you want upgraded you better have spoken to him/her earlier about the
course to befriend the prof. If not, profs will look at you as a student who is
simply coming in for a shot at higher marks, that isn’t really interested in the
class at all. Before the meeting, ask the professor how they are, this will
loosen them up and help the befriending process.

Mirroring: During the entire conversation you will want to use the method
of mirroring to non-verbally copy the profs movements. For instance if the
prof crosses his/her legs, you should cross the opposite leg creating a mirror
image. Pay attention to their non-verbal communication and copy it. There
are complex neuro-linguistic explanations as to why this works but very
simply, by copying the movements you seem less combative and friendlier.
Try this with friends, it really works!

Using the word because: Using ‘because’ is incredibly powerful in

heightening your chance of getting a higher mark. A recent study showed
that when people used the word because in a request they tripled their
success rate in getting what they wanted. So here are some examples of
what I mean.
“I need to hold an A average because I’m applying to law school next year”
“I think I should have gotten a higher mark on number 5 because I went
through the entire equation and only got the last section wrong”
You can also use an ‘if then statement’. If/Then statements are not as
combative as making a straight demand on a prof. The key is to walk a line
between being demanding in your statement while only giving the prof a few
select socially acceptable responses. Here is an example of an If/Then
statement.

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“If I don’t hold an A average, then I’ll lose my scholarship”
“If I don’t get a an A in the final I won’t be able to play on the football team
next fall”

Assuming the Sale: If you’ve ever listened to a great salesman they never
ask you a direct question that you can answer no to. Salesman will never
say “so do you want to buy this product?” Studies have shown that the
majority of the time, even if they want to product, people will say no if you
give them the option. The same premise can be applied to professors
meetings. The assuming the sale technique requires internal and external
preparation. Before going into the meeting it’s important to believe that you
will get what you want. This seems kind of obvious but before going to the
meeting take a minute to reinforce the idea that you’re prepared and going to
succeed. You’d be surprised how many times students don’t take this step.
The phone number pick up in chapter two is a perfect example of how
you assume the sale. You don’t ask a person for their phone number, you
ask them your name (99% of the time they give it to you) then you write it
down and hand them the page telling them to write their email down. So,
saying something like

You: “I found many of the students I spoke to had a problem with this
question”
Prof: “Ya.. you’re right about that one”
You: “As you can see I finished the entire equation and only got one section
wrong”
Prof: “Yes I see that”
You: “Great, I thought this would be worth at least 7-8 points” (notice how
you give a range so that you’re only giving the prof two options)
Prof: “How about I just give you 8 points on that question”

Deal with each issue separately: If you want to speak to your prof about
three questions that you think you should get a higher mark on, deal with
each issue separately. Do not give them your entire story up front as you are
allowing the prof to discount all the questions at the same time. Start with
the question you believe is the most difficult to win over the prof with first.
If he/she gives you extra marks, you’re automatically going to have little
problem with the other two. If he/she doesn’t give you a higher mark on
your first question you have two other questions that are easier to convince

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the prof of. Real-estate salesman do this ALL THE TIME, they will always
show you the best house at the end of the day after you’ve seen all the
terrible ones.

Get rid of the No’s: So what do you do if the professor says no. You
should be ready to figure out exactly why he/she said no. Most of the time a
‘no’ response is a reflex reaction to a question. Do not just take a ‘no’ as the
end of the conversation. Here are some examples of what you can say after
the no.
“Any reason in particular?”
“Can you explain to me why this doesn’t deserve a higher mark?” (After the
explanation be ready to discount it)
This will usually stop about 25% of all no’s. Again the better you get at it,
the higher your ratios will go up. Try practicing this with friends in
discussions as well to refine your own personal technique.

Jonesing: Jonesing is a classic sales technique that has been around for more
than 50 years and is still incredibly effective in convincing profs. It’s based
of a sales technique in the 50’s where neighbours became increasingly
competitive to get the next consumer product. Salesman would say, well
your neighbour ‘The Jones’s’ just bought this vacuum cleaner. This one
technique helped to convince millions of people to buy worthless junk and it
is still just as effective today as it was 50 years ago. Here are some
examples you can use.
“Prof Jones is only giving us one long answer question for the final exam”
“Prof Jones cancelled the final exam because he knew we didn’t have the
time to study”
“Prof Jones gave me an extra week to finish my paper because he knew I
had a lot on my plate.”

Yes sell: This is a low level form of hypnotization that you can use to get
your professor to say yes to things he/she wouldn’t have previously. It’s
used in sales all the time and is built on the premise that if you say yes to a
bunch of easy questions (usually 7 is the best number), it’s much easier to
then say yes to a difficult question. So for instance, you could ask questions
like: Is the paper due next week? Is that a picture of your daughter? Did you
go to school at Yale? Ask any question as long as you know the answer is

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‘yes’. Then ask for an extension or a mark upgrade and you automatically
will have a better chance at getting a positive response.

The silence sell: This technique is best to push a professor or teaching

assistant that wants to give you the mark but is apprehensive. The idea
behind this strategy is to use silence to make the other party nervous. Here
is an example:
Prof: “Well I really don’t see what else we can do to move your mark up”
You: “Look the prof in the left eye and BE ABSOLUTELY SILENT, DO
NOT SPEAK UNTIL THE PROF SAYS SOMETHING. This can last 30
seconds to a minute. If you’re feeling really nervous sing a little song in
your head or sing the alphabet. Give this a try with friends first to refine
your technique. I’ve had multiple students try this and I’ve gotten a full
grade upgrade from this technique.

Make it up later sell: This is quite effective if you have already tried all the
other techniques. You can ask to supplement your bad mark in a test or
paper with writing another paper to either replace or upgrade your low mark.

Options sell: (WARNING) This is somewhat of an extreme technique that I

suggest you only try at your own risk. I’ve personally tried it three times
and it’s worked twice. Most of the time, the person with the most options
seems to win in negotiation. The options sell is an extreme If/Then
statement. If I don’t get what I want then I’m going to drop the course.
You have to be ready to quit the class if you’re going to try this technique. I
have gotten a 15% and 10% jump in my midterm using this technique and
another prof called my bluff where I actually dropped his course.
The reason why this technique is so effective is because the university
tracks how many students leave a course and that information goes on
professors permanent records. If they have a trend of students leaving their
classes, it doesn’t bode well for them. Also, if you’re an active student, the
prof usually doesn’t want to lose you as they usually love students that
answer and pose interesting questions. If you’re interested in going on to a
graduate degree, this technique is very important as you want to hold an A
average. You can usually get 90% of your tuition back from a class if you
drop it within the first few months and it is far better to get four A’s than
three A’s and two B’s.

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Differences between TA’s and Profs

Think of teaching assistants as younger more overworked versions of

professors. They usually are given more of the heavy work like marking
tests and papers, test preparation and sometimes lecture preparation. They
are usually graduate students but sometimes (like in my experience) they can
also be undergraduate students. Let me get this out of the way first, if you
have the opportunity to become a teaching assistant, you should absolutely
take it. It is by far the best way to implement the rest of the strategies in the
book. It will also show you how tests and papers are put together and
marked which is very useful when you have to take tests.
Teaching assistants are usually the ones that are marking your tests. It
is useful to target the teaching assistant first rather than the professor. You
can usually be more direct with them and if you fail in convincing the
teaching assistant you can always go to the professor. I interviewed a
student that went to the TA first, got a 10% upgrade on a paper then went to
the professor and got another 10%. I suggest you do NOT try this at home
as you can get into pretty big trouble but I’m giving you this example to
show you the options you have.
Another option that I have found as a general trend in my interviews
is befriending teaching assistants on a personal level. Students who befriend
and/or flirt with their TA’s have told me that they usually get a higher mark.
Most universities do not have any rules against students and TA’s dating but
it is privately not encouraged. I’ve had some students come in and try to
seduce me throughout my TA career and I would say I have been somewhat
biased with some of them. The ones that are openly trying to flirt with me I
usually give out a lower mark to, the ones who are honestly interested in me
however I have been somewhat more lenient on. Now girls, don’t go in and
wear a low cut top and start bouncing around the office. TA’s will see
through this in a minute. But try adding your TA to facebook. Ask them out
for beers with a couple students. Be courteous and friendly with a slight
undertone of flirtiness or friendship and you will probably help warm the pot
for a higher mark. I can’t believe I’m writing about this stuff! It is a
personal choice, if you feel that what I’m suggesting is a little too far then
don’t do it.

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A note on scare tactics

Professors and teaching assistants have some scare tactics they use to
get students to not come to their office hours for higher marks. The vast
majority of these are just a bunch of hot air. They are usually implemented
about 10% of the time. A popular example is the suggestion that you might
get a lower mark if you come to the profs office hours to argue a mark.
Statistically your chances of trying are going to result in a much higher ratio
of success then if you didn’t try in the first place. I have known about 100
teaching assistants and I’ve only known of two incidents where a teaching
assistant gave the student a lower mark. If you’ve gone through all the other
tactics in this chapter you won’t have any problem with those scare tactics.
The professor or teaching assistant has already defined you as a ‘good’
student and you will usually get a higher mark.

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So in Review:

Methods to convince profs:

Before you speak to them:
Talk to other people
Loosen yourself up
Be Prepared
How to ask a good question

During conversation:
Befriending: Have a respectful friendly relationship with prof
Mirroring: Move the same way as the prof
Get you’re because ready: I need an A because I’m applying to grad school.
Assuming the sale
Deal with each issue separately
Get rid of the No’s
Jonesing: Dr Jones is only giving us one long answer for the exam (in
passing).
Options sell: Higher marks or I go (if then statement)

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Chapter 11: How to Take a Test
In this Chapter you will learn how to:
- Prepare for an exam
- Conquer the different types of tests

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 Tests are really a horrible way of tracking how much information you
have learned. Many students who have learned relatively little can do well
on tests and other students who know all the material but aren’t good at
taking tests do badly. In a perfect world we could each just learn. I
personally believe (and this is backed up through research) that if we
removed tests, students would learn much more than they usually do.
However, the harsh reality of society is that we need to rank people. This
ranking process usually has nothing to do with how much somebody has
learned or their level of intelligence (so don’t feel bad if you’re no good at
tests).

In essence you don’t have to be good at understanding the content; you

have to be good at taking the test.

I know that sounds incredibly depressing. I myself am a learner, I like

understanding how things work and thinking critically about how ideas and
arguments are put together. However, that has very little to do with the
actual method of writing and being marked on a test. This chapter is going
to concentrate on how you can become better at the art of test taking, which
ironically, has little to do with the art of learning. Your primary goal should
be for you to get an A on the test and the secondary goal is to hope that you
learned something during the process.

Test preparation

Let’s first review the two mental states during tests. A really
interesting experiment by psychologist Alice Isen looked at the difference
between focused and creative intelligence 4. She found that by giving candy
to groups of people which made them happy, they were more creative in
accomplishing tasks. So for instance, if you were in the beginning research
stage of a paper, you might want to be as happy and stress free as possible so
that you can come up with interesting ideas on how to put the paper together.
Conversely, if you’re stressed out and anxious, this stifles creativity
but can focus your mind on a single issue such as writing the paper. So,
when you’re happy you do out of the box thinking, when you’re stressed you
can achieve a focused goal. Extrapolating from this theory, it’s best to be

4
Here is a great Youtube video reviewing the experiment.

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happy when taking a long answer question test. When you’re taking a
multiple choice test, that doesn’t require much creativity, being stressed can
actually be an advantage. If you think creatively during a multiple choice
test your chances of success are probably going to be lower than if you were
focused. Many tests are simply based on rote memorization and therefore
creativity is the enemy. Thinking outside the box may give you an
interesting answer but tests usually don’t want interesting. They want
correct.
With creative vs focused mental states in mind here are a few
questions you should ask yourself before you take your test.

1) What kind of test are you doing? This is important as some tests
require completely different preparation than others (ie creative vs focused
mentalities).

2) What content are we being tested on? You’d be surprised how often
students study stuff they don’t really need to know for the exam. Figure out
exactly what you need to study from profs, TA’s and students in that order.
Don’t just ask fellow students as they can often be wrong. Also
upperclassmen can give you great intel on whether the professor is really
going to have ‘that chapter’ on the test or not.

3) Go to the library and get last years tests. This is HUGE! Wanna know
what the profs tests are like? Most universities keep tests on file at the
library. Very few students know about this, this is a good time to make
friends with a librarian as well. Just go up, explain your situation and they
will usually let you take a look at and photocopy the exams.

4) Review your plan of attack with your study buddies. Figure out when
you should have your notes reviewed, when you should meet to review the
content, whether you can cut up the work load etc. Get your army ready for
battle.

5) Email your virtual teaching assistant about the test, outlining exactly
what the test is going to be on. Your VTA may have some great intel or
secondary sources that can make the content easier to understand. They can
also make you accountable by keeping you on track with your exam
preparation.

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Three days before the exam

Most books on exam preparation suggest you start your studying a

week to a few weeks in advance. This is a waste of your time. In some
cases it might depend upon what kind of exam you’re going to do but overall
studying should be started at the earliest, three days before the exam. Before
I go any further, I’m not saying you shouldn’t know anything about your
notes up until three days before the exam starts. If you’re reviewing your
notes before and after class and asking questions on points you don’t
understand, you should already have a pretty good idea of what’s going on.
Plus you should know all the major concepts in the course. The majority of
tests are based on multiple choice, or short answers which are worthless to
memorize two weeks before the exam. Most rote memorization only lasts in
our mind for three days. This is your study window for rote memorization.
DO NOT memorize anything outside of the three day window. Instead of
memorizing, it is much better to understand the content holistically before
the three day window as this will stick in your head longer.
I cannot stress the three day study schedule enough. I’ve tried
studying from weeks to hours before an exam and the three day window is
by far the most effective method. Your three day study schedule can be
broken down in three very simple steps. Day one you should be all about
coding your notes. Day two should be your actual study day where you
implement your favorite memorization techniques. Day three should be
your review and confidence day where you review your material and
prepare your mind and body for the coming exam.

How to code your notes

At this point you should have a good collection of course notes that
have been reviewed and that you generally understand. All major questions
should have been answered by the teaching assistant or preferably the
professor. In general you should feel confident in the main concepts that the
content is trying to communicate.
When you wrote out your notes you were writing them well enough so
that even your 40 year old self could understand them. When you code your
notes for an exam you are not writing for your 40 year old self. When
coding notes, information compression is your primary goal. In most of my

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classes I was able to boil down my notes to approximately 2-3 pages. This
is important as you cut out the majority of redundant information in the
notes, the new coded notes are much easier to review and the papers can be
taken with you anywhere. I would suggest that you record a dictation of
your notes with short explanations of the main concepts. You should then be
playing it back for yourself over the three days. This will maximize both
auditory and visual forms of learning styles and can significantly cut your
memorization time.
I have provided you with an example of how I code notes below (I’ve
used the lecture notes from chapter 6). Keep in mind that these notes are for
my purposes only. So although I can understand them, others may have
difficulty. Even if you sacrifice a few secondary points keeping the notes
short should be your primary concern. The ability to quickly review and
take all your notes in within a few minutes is really important to memory
recall. One other note, if you think that you can get away with not coding
your notes, you are dead wrong. In my own experimentation with students,
the act of coding notes will cut your recall times down by at least 50%.
Based on this coding I’ve turned 22 lines of notes into 9 lines. Also notice
how I bold certain terms so I can passively scan my notes and further
increase recall, I suggest you do the same.

Eth and Race: 3Æ soc para’s (Func, Conf, Sym Int)

1) Func: soc reality system of parts, each part with function, may help/hurt
system. Assi seen as positive. (ex: parts reinforce or hinder soli)
2) Conf: Struggle central with social class and power central. Eth groups
seen as potential int groups in soc conflict. Assi seen as negative. (ex: AAG)
3) Sym Int: Indi create meaning in diff soc context within soc struct with
sym’s to create meaning. Inter-group rela not defined by conf or needs of
sys. Ethn is part of ones i.d. but conflict isn’t neg’d as it may detrm why we
act. Assi seen as negative, esp at indi level. (Indi’s through sym’s
inhabit/evolve social struc)

Methods to Remember notes

Rote Memorization: The simplest and most basic form or preparation for an
exam. You simply re-read all the content until you have it memorized.
Many books suggest other methods to memorize information that I will
review later. But do not discount this method as you should always have

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this as a backup method to remember things effectively. Try looking at a
collection of points and going over them on the page, writing each one down
in your minds eye. Now, put your hand over the content and recreate the
same points in your mind. Try to remember each one in order. It is also
useful to not memorize your entire notes in order. Randomly pick out
sections so that you can recall your notes in any order. I suggest you make
cue cards from your coded notes for this exact purpose.

Mnemonics: Mnemonics is a way to link a collection of connected terms

together into a compressed piece of information. For instance KISS is a
perfect mnemonic device for Keep It Simple Stupid. Mnemonics are very
useful for connecting like terms if you need to link random concepts. It is
also simpler to remember a mnemonic device rather than directly memorize
everything that is within it. You can open up the device during the exam
and work out all the components. Quick warning here, don’t just remember
the mnemonic device and trust that you’ll remember the components during
the exam.

Picture linking: This method links pictures in your mind together through a
mental rehearsal or ‘play in your mind.’ It is usually used by people that are
good visual, kinesthetic/active learners and is useful to remember
information that doesn’t have an obvious logical order. Let me take you
through a quick picture linking exercise.

Look at these words for 30 seconds then look away and try to remember
them.

Dog, apple, boat, ninja, fire, doctor, brick, toaster, flower

Ok, now I want you to go over this story in your minds eye.

A dog is walking through a field and finds an apple which starts talking to
him about how his fellow apples are being held hostage on a magic boat.
They go to the boat and the dog is immediately attacked by ninja’s. Our
dog hero uses a flame thrower and sets all the ninja’s on fire. The ships
doctor comes in to help the ninja’s burns but is all of a sudden hit in the
head with a brick by more ninja’s. Our doctor is pretty angry about this so

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grabs his trusty toaster and beats up the remaining ninja’s. The dog, doctor
and apple place flowers on the dead ninja’s and live happily ever after.

Each bolded word should be the central part of each scene. I’ve used this
method to memorize everything from very complex sociological theories to
numbers. The more extreme the story is the better; it forces your mind to
remember all the components in an interesting way. You in essence, trick
your mind to create links between random pieces of information.

Kinesthetic memorization: This is where you literally connect movements

of your body with concepts. It is very useful if you are an active learner. An
example I’ve remembered for years is the four different types of minority
group vs majority group relationships.
Integration: Each group exchanges cultural aspects (I take my two hands and
interlock my fingers)
Normative Pluralism: Each group does not share their culture but live in the
same community (Two fists side by side)
Division: The two groups are divided from each other, not exchanging
culture and not living in the same community (Two fists apart from each
other)
Assimilation: The dominant group forces their culture on the minority group
(One hand covers a fist)
You kind of look a little stupid during exams but it works like a charm.
You’re hard wiring your physical body to mental concepts and I have found
it very useful in long term recall.

Before your exam

Go to an exam prep session if it is offered: I have given over a dozen of

these sessions and they are the most useful way to understand what content
is being presented. In preparation for this book I performed a quantitative
analysis of student’s marks and found that students who attended my session
had a 10% higher overall average on the exam than students who hadn’t.
Although their might have been a selector bias (only good students came to
the session), by coming to the session you are statistically giving yourself a
better chance at getting a higher mark. The session is usually offered a few
days before the exam, if there isn’t one offered ask your TA to put one
together.

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Be satisfied with your studying: You must be confident in your studying as
this will be the most important determinant of whether you will be
successful in the exam. As I discussed earlier in the book, trick your mind
into being confident. Visualize success and it will literally happen.

Get a good night sleep: This means 8 hours for most of us. Your brain will
work much slower if you don’t get 8 hours of sleep if you are below the age
of 30. Now, if for some reason you haven’t taken any of my advice up until
this point and the exam is tomorrow and you’re going to cram till three
oclock in the morning for an 8 oclock exam it’s actually better to only sleep
for 15 minutes instead of a few hours. There is quite a bit of research on
why this works but it’s more or less linked to stages of sleep and how longer
sleeping periods requires a reboot of your brain when you wake up. Don’t
go for the reboot and just take a quick cat nap. The caffeine nap is another
popular option you can try which I’ve included in the blog as I’m not going
to officially recommend that in the book. One thing I will officially
recommend for cramming is chocolate, yep I said chocolate. Try eating
some chocolate every half hour to hour as this will keep you on a quasi sugar
high; make sure you have enough to make it through the night and exam
with plenty of water. If you run out of chocolate you will crash which will
undo the cramming. I think dark is the best as I can hold myself back from
eating buckets of it.

Never study till the last minute: This is really important as this is only
going to make you feel less confident. Trick your mind 10 minutes before
the exam starts that you’re completely ready for the exam and that you’re
going to get an A. It’s called positive reinforcement, and it works.

Meditation/Visualization: Many Olympic athletes use meditation right

before they go out to compete. I’ve had the pleasure of being taken through
this process with a few Olympic athletes and it allows you to do amazing
things. These athletes get in a comfortable state of mind and visualize
themselves completing the perfect dive or the perfect run. They actually
time they’re visualizations as well, visualizing a 10 second 100 meter sprint
in 10 seconds. The same concept can be applied to taking an exam. Keep
your cool, sit down and take five minutes visualizing yourself successfully
and confidently handing in a test that is absolutely perfect. Don’t mentally

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sabotage yourself by allowing negative thoughts into your mind. If you are
talking to students who are trying to sabotage themselves through negative
reinforcement, get away from them immediately, there thoughts can easily
infect your mindset.

Types of tests

Long Answer Questions: A longer review of long answer questions will be

covered in the next chapter on essay writing as they are in essence the same
thing. There are some tips that I can give you right now that specifically
relate to essay type questions.
- Read the Question: Some professors will try to trick you in the way
the question is put together. You may also be tired from writing for the past
two hours and not be paying attention to how the question is worded. Read
the question over and ask exactly what is being asked of you. Pay special
attention to adverbs and descriptors within the question as they can
completely change the question.
- Write out an outline: Although it appears as if this will waste time,
an outline will actually save you much more time and get you a better
answer. Have a scratch sheet available at all times so that you can quickly
write down what you want to say, including mnemonic devices so that you
can expand them on the page.
- Figure out how long you have to apply to your essay question: You
can usually write down a single page in 10 minutes. But, I’d time yourself
on your next exam so that you can get a general estimate of your test writing
speed. Give yourself adequate time plus five minutes to review the material.
Always look over your material.

Multiple Choice: Multiple choice questions are usually the most popular
kind of questions in first year courses for a few reasons. They are easy to
put together as you can easily come up with 50-60 M/C’s in two to three
hours. They require no marking as they are run through scantrons which do
all the marking for the prof. The majority of questions on M/C’s are not
made by the professor or TA’s but come from the teacher copy of the
textbook which comes with a database of 1000-2000 questions.
Fortunately for you, multiple choice questions don’t require you to
learn any of the content in a significant way to get a high mark. However, it
is very difficult to get a perfect mark on multiple choice tests as you must

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hold your focus through the entire exam. Statistically the chance of you
making a mistake in many M/C questions is higher than a few longer form
questions. It’s also easier to argue long form questions. Keeping that in
mind there are specific methods you can use to completely obliterate the
M/C exam.
You should be figuring out how many questions you have and divide
them by the amount of time you have for the exam. Remove 20 percent of
that time and that should be your average time per question ratio. For
instance, if you have 90 questions to complete in 2 hours the equation would
look something like this.
120(minutes)/90(questions) = 1.3(minutes) – 20% = 1.06(minutes per
question)
This will give you one minute and six second for each question with
approximately 25 minutes to review questions afterwards. The questions
themselves usually have four to five options that follow this kind of general
outline.
- One answer is the right one
- One answer is close
- One answer has nothing to do with the question
- One answer is loosely related
Usually your first insight is correct 80% of the time. When you first look at
the question note which one jumps out at you first, this is usually the right
answer.

What about the other 20% of the questions?

Those questions can usually be answered through a process of

elimination. I can usually cut this down to two questions and make an
educated guess which I have a 50/50 shot at. It is important if you are still
not sure about the answer to * the question for later review. Make sure to
read the beginning of the test very carefully. Some profs are worse than
lawyers using terms like “circle the answer that is the most correct” which is
a way to cover their butts if one of the M/C’s are incorrect, they can just
make a qualitative call. I’ve had tones of students come in to argue
questions I knew were correct but my boss told me NOT give in, so I didn’t.
It sucks, but you can usually break them down if you come in prepared to
argue. Here are a couple ways profs usually cover their butts on these types
of questions.

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- Many questions will have the statement “As defined in class, or as defined
in the readings” This is there so that if lectures and readings contradict each
other they can cover themselves by returning to the source they used. You
can usually argue out of these questions if you can prove there is a
discrepancy.
- Some questions are half right and half wrong, for instance if I were to pose
a question such as:
Why did Adam Smith famously state that “The workers of all lands should
unite”?
A) Because he believed historical materialism was the only way for the
people to gain their independence.
B) Because he believed capitalism was the greatest option for social
solidarity.
C) I don’t think he did
D) Because he believed a revolutionary moment was inevitable.
B relates to Adam Smith but he did not make the statement in the initial
question, it was Marx. A and D relate to Marxist ideals and would be a great
answer but in reality C is the right answer which seems like the stupidest
answer when you first read through it.
- Opinion questions are really horrible as there can be a few correct answers
(which is where the whole ‘most correct’ questioning comes from). Here is
an example:
If two coworkers have a disagreement between each other and come to you
for advice should you:
A) Go to your supervisor
B) Tell your coworkers to go to your supervisor
C) Do nothing; it’s not your problem
D) Deal with the problem yourself
Each answer is based on personal preference. These are ridiculous questions
but fortunately you can usually argue them, especially if you have evidence
to back up your claim.
- Questions will sometimes switch between choosing the correct or incorrect
answer to confuse the student. As an example, one question could be
“which one of these people were central to world war one” I could reword it
to mean something completely different by saying “which one of these
people were not central to world war one”. This is especially frustrating if
you’re quickly reading the questions and miss the ‘not’. Keep your eyes
open for these as they trick many students.

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- Comparison questions are where two separate issues are presented to the
student and you are asked as to whether A is (like/compares/does not
compare) to B. They are particularly tricky as they require you to think on
the fly and make judgment calls. Here is an example from a test I gave:
Compared to the cost of robbery, burglary, assault, and other street crimes,
white collar crime costs about:
A) One-tenth as much
B) Half as much
C) 88 times as much
D) 14 times as much
That answer had never particularly been given to the students. The answer
was quite obviously C but professors can make these questions much less
obvious which again makes them very difficult to quickly answer.

True/False Questions: True false questions follow the same logic as

multiple choice questions and are usually easier to answer. Statistically you
can always get at least 50% on true false questions so your rate of success on
these questions should be significantly higher than multiple choice
questions.

Matching Questions: Matching questions are usually found in first year

classes and mostly found in the arts or humanities. Two groups of words or
terms are presented and your job is to connect each term in the first group to
a term in the second. There are sometimes mismatched amounts of terms in
the two groups, so it becomes difficult if most of the answers do not
automatically present themselves through intuition. The best strategy is to
use intuition first, go back through the list and use the process of elimination
to get the remaining terms.

Equation questions: These are questions where you are given the answer to
a question and are then given a collection of possible equations that will get
you the needed answer. These types of questions are horrible for people that
think creatively as they rarely use the ‘prescribed’ methods to come to a
conclusion. I’ve found that students usually use the system of elimination
when they do not get the answer through intuition. Try to figure out what
methods will not work to get the answer and then discount those possible
answers. You will usually only end up with one or two possible answers.

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Fill in the Blanks: These types of questions are found rarely in university
but students have told me they have found them in history and language
exams so I’ll go over them really quickly. Take a look at the questions that
are being posed and try to answer as many as you can through intuition. If
the fill in the blanks are linked in a paragraph this should help you answer
the other questions that you passed over. Ask yourself what the sentence is
about and what it logically could be. Usually if your logic is good you’ll
come up with the right answer or you’ll be able to argue the point later.

Final notes on tests

If there is a single point I need to hammer into your head it’s that 90%
of the tests you will take in university have nothing to do with creative
knowledge. Ironically if you answer a question creatively it will usually
result in you getting a lower mark than if you just answered it legitimately in
the first place. You probably won’t encounter any questions that require
creativity until your last year of your undergrad or graduate school.
Remember that the exam has almost nothing to do with your learning;
therefore the goal is not to learn the content but to get an A. Learning
content should be done during the semester, NOT at exam time.

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So to Review

Test Preparation: (Code your notes, memorize, reinforce)

- Day one, Code your notes and make an audio tape
- Day two, Use your favorite study methods to get all the info in your head
- Day three, Reinforce and get confidence

Types of test: (Review each question type you think you’re going to
encounter)
- Long Answer questions
- Multiple Choice
- True False
- Matching
- Equations
- Fill in the Blank

Remember: The goal is to get an A, learning is secondary.

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Chapter 12: How to Write an A Paper
In this chapter you will learn how to:
- How to read and code an article
- How to create an academic database
- How to use the critical thinking writing method

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The four stages of any paper

Whether you’re in physics or English literature, everyone has to write

at least a few papers in university. I went from hating to loving paper
writing once I learned how to break down the fundamental aspects of what a
paper is. Although most papers look foreboding, realistically there are only
four major components to each paper.

Research: The first stage of any paper and the stage that sets the tone for the
rest of your assignment.

Brainstorming: The most important stage of your paper. If you don’t have
good ideas you’re not going to be able to accomplish much of anything.

Writing: This is the meat and potatoes of the entire process but probably
only consists of about 10-20% of the actual work for the paper.

Editing: A crucial stage that many students don’t give the proper attention
to and can seriously affect the quality of your paper.

Before we get into the steps, I want you to take a look at a paper that I
wrote for a third year course. I’m going to be using this essay as an example
throughout this chapter so passively read over the essay to pick up the main
points. I’ve left all the mistakes intact to show you that even with the
following paper you can still get an A+. I initially got a 95% on the paper
and later argued it up to 100%, the next highest paper in the class of 130 was
an 85%.

Barber, Wallerstein and Huntington: Globalized Avatar and Identity Dialectic

In recent years the debate over how world politics and globalization should shape
their ideology of the world community in the guise of international terrorism,
consumerism, culture and other global issues has been at the forefront of the social
consciousness both for society at large and in relation to individual identity. In this
debate we have found that there are major disagreements as to how society ‘particularly
western society’ should react to and impact the issues globalization and identity. One
side lead by Immanuel Wallerstein sees globalization as a long term process of capitalist
appropriation of the weak and at the same time a reinforcement of the strong. Another

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side led by Samuel Huntington sees globalization as a system poised to force civilizations
into a ‘clash’ not based on economics, politics or civil society but on the fault lines of
cultural religious/national ideology. Both Wallerstein and Huntington have merit,
however in reality both capitalist appropriation and cultural shifts both impacts global
society and succinctly individuals’ identity.
To further define the previous statement that appropriation and enculturation both
impact society and individual identity we must look at Benjamin Barber’s Jihad vs
McWorld which sees society in much the same way. Barber states that two forces are
currently working in global society. The forces of McWorld wish to construct a single
unified concept of society. Conversely, the forces of Jihad wish to deconstruct McWorld
and revolt against its imposed singular view through mechanical systems of domination
such as religious or tribalistic ideologies. Looking at these three concepts of
globalization and the individual we can see many similarities within the three views.
Each individual view has a component of global identity but no one theory adequately
produces the concept so the purpose of this paper will be to combine all three views to
conceptualize a complete theory of global identity. We will begin by looking at the main
usable components of each theory: Wallerstien’s concept of universalities and
particularisms on the basis of classic worlds system theory provides an excellent basis to
understand the homogenizing aspects of global identity. Huntington’s concept of
religiocultural division provides an excellent basis for understanding the de-fragmenting
aspects of global identity. Barber in Jihad vs McWorld provides an excellent frame to
understand how these two forces work against each other on the macro scale but does not
provide an adequate micro analysis which is central to understanding the dichotomy
between society and the individual. Therefore, by using Huntington and Wallerstein as
the forces of mechanical and organic ideology framed through Barber’s concept of Jihad
and McWorld we will hope to understand the crucial aspect of individual identity in
globalization which is not given enough attention in all three articles.
One can argue that Wallerstein’s concept of global society is not necessarily
negative but arguably pessimistic coming from a Marxian perspective. In his work
“Cultures in Conflict. Who we are? Who are the Others?” Wallerstein sees the global
society through the eyes of world systems theory which sees globalization as
“a hierarchical, unequal, polarizing system, whose political structure is that of an
interstate system in which some states are manifestly stronger than others. In
furtherance of the process of the endless accumulation of capital, stronger states
are constantly imposing on weaker states their will, to the degree that they can.”
(Wallerstein p.84)
On top of this process he also sees separate ideologies of the interstate system
which he calls universalisms, the major ones being religious, humanist scientific and
imperialist. (Wallerstein p.87) In the same breath Wallerstein also sees particularisms as
the response to universalisms. Together, both concepts produce a macro/micro concept
of how society and the individual is shaped and counter-shaped by globalization. What is
important to understand is that although there are various universalisms in play
throughout the world stage each is seen as an absolute by the people who follow it,
succinctly the particularisms which clash within this system do act on the individual to a

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point but are only shaped in relation to universalisms. Therefore, the model of
universalisms and particularisms are a perfect way to understand how the individual’s
identity is shaped by universalisms and reshaped by what appears to be particularisms but
in actuality a response to universalisms and therefore another form of universalisms
homogenizing tendencies. An example of this phenomenon would be the universalism of
religion being particularized by contemporary new age religion such as Raelian,
Scientology, Western Budhism and other religious movements. These religions are only
a response to universalism and cannot exist without its religion of context ‘in the west
being Catholicism’. Another example of this concept would be Canadian culture being
created in relation to Western and more specifically American culture. This is not simply
an issue of dialects but more importantly new age religion and Canadian culture is a
product of Catholicism and American domination which exists simply to redefine the
individual rather then truly assimilate him/her as apposed to Wallerstein who sees
particularisms as possible safe havens of identity.
Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” looks at cultural division rather then
economic or political division of groups of nations that have a culturally different way of
looking at the world primarily based on religion. Due to this difference which
Huntington believes is the base for conflict; civilizations which are “groups of nations
sharing the same language, history, religion customs, self identification…” (Huntington,
p.175) will inevitably clash on the geographic fault lines where contrasting cultures come
into contact. Huntington sees this clash happening at two distinct levels: At the micro
level he sees violent clashes on the fault lines of civilizations like Israel and the Middle
East. Also there is a clash at the macro level through states competing for economic and
military power to promote their own civilizations cultural values. (Huntington, p.176)
Before continuing we must look at Huntington’s argument in the contemporary
context comparatively to the early 90’s when this article was first published. The central
critique of Huntington’s argument is primarily that cultural civilizations exist but that this
produces micro level conflicts where the two civilizations come into contact. The classic
argument to confirm Huntington’s thesis is Islamic tensions due to Israel which is backed
primarily by the United States or Judeo-Christian ideology. Also one can see tensions
between India and Pakistan ‘Hindu’s and Muslism’s’ South America and the United
States etc. However, if one looks at civilizations in society closely we possibly find a
very different story.
Other civilizations that Huntington defines as ideologically apposed get along
very well together or have recently settled their differences since Huntington’s
publication. Protestants and Catholics in Ireland are producing one of the most peaceful
and profitable countries in the world. Russians and Chinese are creating a trading block
that may rival N.A.F.T.A. and the E.U. India and South Asia “Hindu’s and Buddhists”
are producing supply chains along with China to produce the greatest export industry the
world has ever seen. Finally, looking at the issue nationally, Canada has produced the
most diverse religious nation in the world today and possibly throughout history with
arguably some of the lowest rates of sectarian violence in the world as well. Although,
there are some fascist backlashes against these unifications on a micro level, at a macro

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level, all these societies are working together in relative harmony in their singular desire
for capitalist greed resulting in inevitable cultural and ideological exchange.
We must now ask the question, if there are so many examples where Huntington’s
thesis fails then why is this view at the forefront of the political sphere and is being
implemented throughout the world?. To answer this question we must look at the second
major section of Huntington’s work which is based not on how civilizations can end their
differences and come together or on a relativistic basis, or where Huntington suggests
possible tactics for all societies to reinforce their own culture but instead on how the west
can combat these civilizations and remain the dominant power in global society ‘the west
vs the rest doctrine’. This produces two large problems for the article. Number one; it
produces a view that cannot be adopted by anyone who does not define themselves as
belonging to the Western civilization. Number two; this further reinforces western
ideology to alienate the west from other cultures. Looking at contemporary politics we
find that Huntington’s views have become dominant primarily among the right. “This
struggle has been called a clash of civilizations…We are fighting to maintain the way of
life enjoyed by free nations.” (Bush presidential address, 9/11/06) In understanding why
right wing ‘particularly U.S.’ politics implements Huntington we can look at Myra Hird’s
concept of ‘Fact of the Matter’. Simply put, by producing facts to appear as material
reality one can produce a real material reality from a social construct. Therefore, by
producing the perception that the west is in conflict with the Muslim world rather then
simply being in conflict with extremism one can create the reality that the Muslim world
is in conflict with the West and ironically not only the west but the Muslim world
embrace this ideology and make it a reality. This fact of the matter is embraced by both
sides because it reinforces both parties by creating a global identity of fear in the
individual in relation to the world giving both sides a mechanical grasp on its people.
Therefore, Huntington’s Clash of civilizations creates a stage for the deconstruction of
global society through reproducing cultural conditions to appear material which
succinctly allows individual identity to be shaped on a mechanical basis and impact
social reality to combat ‘the other’ on macro, meso and micro levels.
In looking at Barber’s “Jihad vs McWorld” we see what is arguably the most
‘correct’ concept of global identity in comparison to Huntington and Wallerstein. Barber
sees global conflict stemming from two major forces, the forces of McWorld and the
forces of Jihad. The two forces of homogenization and upheaval work in dialectic to
continually construct and deconstruct global society. The only major aspect that Barber
is missing in Jihad vs McWorld is how this dialectic affects the individual. Primarily
Barber looks at the forces of Jihad and McWorld as a macro process that can affect
change from the societal level to the individual level but he sees this process as a one way
process and not stemming from the individual. McWorld is seen as a macro process
affecting the society and succinctly the individual, in conflict to this process Jihad is built
on the micro level but produces conflict that is macro in scope. An example of this
would be McDonalds coffee vs fair trade coffee. Although McDonalds goes from macro
to micro and fair trade coffee started at micro and now goes to macro, not enough
attention is placed on the individual identity of the consumer of the product; whether it is

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coffee, politics, religion or any other global issue or object. This is where the
implementation of Huntington and Wallerstein are crucial.
If the debate can be simplified, we can define Wallerstein’s world system theory
as the forces of McWorld that wish to impose a singular concept of universal truth
throughout the world ‘whatever that may be’. In doing this we create a Hobson’s choice,
we can choose whatever universal concept of reality as long as we make a choice rather
then instead choosing not to choose (Barber, p.220) Conversely, we can define
Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations as the forces of Jihad, producing through the fact of
matter a global identity of fear. As Barber states Jihad “Identifies the self by contrasting
it with an alien “other” and makes politics an exercise in exclusion and resentment…
creating a world where belonging is more important then empowerment” (Barber p.222).
This produces a conceptualization of macro/micro identity much like Huntington’s ‘west
vs the rest’ perspective on society where one is defined by the society they live in rather
then their own actions/identity. Creating a new model based on the three reviewed
articles we can use the frame of Barber’s Jihad vs McWorld to conceptualize the two
major forces that shape our world today. Huntington being the ideal type for Jihad and
Wallerstein being the ideal type for McWorld in the global typology construct. All three
articles are missing, or overlook a crucial aspect of the debate over global society, that
being the ability of the individual to shape society in relation to their own identity which
will be discussed in the following section.
All three authors see the world in context of society imposing its views upon the
individual, whether it is through simplifying people as citizens, consumers,
religious/nationalist/cultural pawns or choosing simplified universalities. In reality the
individual is not only central but is the basis on which global society is shaped and can
change the reality dependent on what we will call the identity dialectic and the globalized
avatar. The identity dialectic quite simply is the conflict between homogenization and
creativity, oppression and revolt, nationalism and cosmopolitanism etc. It is the
individual conflict between organic and mechanical solidarity or the conflict between
what we should do and what we want to do. A blatant example would be an individual
working at McDonalds knowing that this adds to homogenization of society but on the
other hand protesting against the world trade centre, the two actions are
counterproductive and hypocritical of each other but are necessary to both try to change
the world while still living within it. A more subtle example can be a student attending
university and at the same time being a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim. Again, a
secular institution and a fundamentalist religion are counterproductive to each other but
in relation to the individual the student must attend school to gain secure employment but
in doing this he/she is exposed to concepts alien and possibly destructive to religion.
On top of the identity dialectic there is also the production of the globalized avatar
as a result of individuals finding the medium between Jihad and McWorld. The
globalized avatar is a representation of the false self enacting primarily in McWorld but
also in Jihad as well. It is a production of the self ‘a version of ones identity that is used
in various spheres such as the business self, the academic self, the family self’
disconnected from the individual that helps to keep the individual safe from being
completely dominated by the forces of Jihad or McWorld. An example of this may be

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the McDonalds employee and the protestor. Both are constructs that are due to
globalization but both cannot exist within the same person at the same time so they are
able to present themselves only in the right times and the right places. Furthermore, ones
globalized avatar can also allow for the self to enjoy dialectically apposed concepts,
products and ideologies at the same time. For instance, wearing a Che Guevra shirt that
is manufactured using southern labour allows for the protestor self to make a statement
and the consumer self to follow the logic of free market capitalism. Also, most people
are unaware of the impacts of their global avatar on the world. For instance making tax
contributions used for military pre-emption, investing in corporations that impose harsh
labour laws on southern countries, reinforcing religious politics that gives politicians the
social capital to enact policy that is in no way religious and protesting against working
conditions forcing corporations to go to less developed markets where labour laws are
more lax are all examples of the globalized avatar.
The final aspect of the global avatar is that large actions like McWorld and their
dialectic relation of Jihad are not just a macro action which is imposed by large
corporations or religious zealots. Instead the power is handed over by the individuals
global avatars. When an individual purchases a product from the southern world it is not
simply just a purchase, more importantly then that it is reinforcing ones digital avatar in
the south. Furthermore, when choosing a single way of thinking regardless of relativity
one is again creating an avatar that gives that movement force. The major problem
occurring in society today is the feeling that the individual is powerless in society and
globalization is free to shape our identity. This is true to a point, globalization can shape
one’s identity but we can create a counter movement by taking control of our secondary
selves and forcing these avatars into acting between the extremes of Jihad Vs McWorld.
Wallerstein, Huntington and Barber have a good grasp of the macro concepts of
identity but lack the micro concepts of identity. Through using the concepts of the
identity dialectic and the globalized avatar we can produce a system of global identity
that does not simply look at how society impacts individual identity but also how the
individual identity can impact global society. Although micro identities can impact that
of the macro identity in globalization one must also state that a bottom up process is
arguably a much more complex and harder to reinforce then a top down process of
identity; however, it is possible… and more importantly it is going to become crucial as
globalization increases its ability to shape individual identity. We must be able to create
the identity dialectic and the globalized avatar to protect our true self and to produce
counter identities to combat global hegemony from the bottom up not just for ourselves
but for the rest of humanity.

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Research Stage

I have spoken to dozens of students in preparation for this book and

have personally gone over thousands of papers. Here is another counter-
intuitive point I want to make so write this down.
Fundamentally, the first step to any paper is an appropriate and selective
amount of research. One of the most destructive things you can do to your
paper is researching too much content and/or researching the wrong
content.

So what is the appropriate amount of research?

Well there are a few schools of thought on that, each of which has
their own logic; the amount of research you should be doing changes based
on what kind of paper your writing. For instance, if your writing a PhD
thesis you should know pretty much everything about your subject, in
comparison, a five page paper should probably only need a handful of
sources to get a good idea of the subject matter. I’m going to suggest a few
methods for research that you can use to hopefully concentrate your time
and effort.

Your VTA: Your virtual teaching assistant should be your first stop for help
on researching your paper. They will be able to collate the appropriate
material for you in a fraction of the time that it will take you. They will also
be able to point you in the right direction for further research. They have
been trained in exactly this task and are an invaluable resource. By
outsourcing research to your VTA you can cut your research time down by
at least 75%.

If you don’t have a VTA: If you don’t have a VTA you can take a look at
professors, teaching assistants and study buddies as resources. However,
they will not do research for you; they will only be able to point you in the
right direction and possible suggest a few general readings.

The meta sourcing method: If you have to do your own research the best
method I have found is what I’ll call the ‘meta sourcing method’. You start
with 5 random articles on the subject you’re interested in and figure out what
the most popular sources are. Discard articles that are only mentioned once

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or twice and you’re usually left with 5-10 articles that you can concentrate
on. Don’t waste your time reading an article unless it is central to your field
of study or paper. You can also check for articles that provide an annotated
bibliography which are an excellent resource to stop mindlessly walking
through the forest of academia.

Data basing articles: This is the most important step for long term success in
paper writing. The vast majority of students have no idea that there is a vast
collection of data basing programs for academic papers. Any student can
use these to completely remove the sourcing and bibliographies from any
paper. There are a collection of products out there and I have found Endnote
to be the best and most effective. Most university libraries will give you this
program absolutely free for your personal computer! Here is a quick run
down of exactly what the program does.
Endnote is a program you can install on your word processor that
takes article you download and records all the reference material
along with a pdf of the article. When you come to a section of the
paper where you want to reference the article you simply click on
the insert citation button, choose your sources and the source is
placed in any format you want along with a full bibliographic
reference at the end of your paper.
You can see how a program like this can simplify your life. Your
VTA will preferably be working in endnote when transferring you articles so
I suggest you install the program within the next few days and review the
main commands in their attached instructional booklet. Also, endnote just
doesn’t stop at articles, the program can database any book or set of notes
you want. I have my main endnote database set up with all my
undergraduate and graduate notes with all the fundamental books and
articles I need for sociological research. Since I have written all my notes
down on the computer and have scanned all my books I have my own
personal library at my fingertips. If you start in your first year, by third year
you won’t have to pick up another book again, everything will be
programmed into your endnote!

Coding Articles: Coding articles is the second crucial part of paper writing.
You need to create a quick to understand précis that your 40 year old self
can go back to. The goal is to create a great network of articles for you to
constantly work from. I’ve included a form that I use for breaking down

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articles and I suggest you use it to break down any academic work. When
you have completed each précis I want you to attach it to your endnote
network. This only increases the speed in which you can create and analyze
sources as now you only have to take a look at the précis instead of the
entire article.

Brainstorming Stage

The most important stage of your paper is trying to figure out exactly
what you’re going to say. Without a clear vision of what the papers about
you’re going to constantly tweak your papers construction taking twice as
long to finish. First step is to get out the syllabus and talk to the professor
and TA’s about what they want. Pull every piece of information you can out
of them so that you know exactly what the prof wants in the paper (many
students skip this step as a rookie mistake and end up writing papers that
don’t relate to the assignment).
Now here is something that is a little counter-intuitive but always
works. Ask the professors permission to write something on a different
subject from the assigned paper. This can automatically set you up for a
good mark for a few reasons. The prof sees that you’re taking initiative in
what you’re doing. Since you’re choosing your own subject you’ll be more
interested in it and it will hopefully relate to work you’ve already done. If
you’re enthusiastic about the subject matter you usually will always get to
go ahead with your own project. I’ve personally never been denied by a prof
and based on my interviews; it’s an incredibly rare occurrence.

Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is the ability to reason about a problem

or issue and mount a reasoned argument for your point-of-view and the
conclusions you come too. It is the process by which you can think your way
through your paper prior to actually writing the paper.

Even though I put research as the first step, a quick version of this critical
thinking exercise should be used before starting research. In my experience
this is the be all and end all of brainstorming methods. Many books on this
subject are pretty complicated which has stopped critical thinking from
becoming useful to the average student. I’ve put together a step by step
guide that will simplify the process. If you’d like to learn more about these
methods I suggest you check out Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide or

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check out the official website for critical thinking here.

Question one: What is being asked of me? Some papers will be asking you
to answer a question or to address an issue. Unless you are given completely
free reign to answer an essay question this should be the first question you
ask yourself. Let’s use my paper on globalized identity as a model.
The assignment was asking me to identify where I stood on globalization
and how it impacted and shaped collective identities. Specifically, I was to
answer whether globalization is creating a collective, mutually compatible
and possibly identical cultural identities or whether globalization is
producing antagonistic dichotomies, further differentiating collective
identities.

Question two: What exactly is the problem? Each paper has a problem that
it must engage. You are not looking for a thesis statement. You are instead
asking yourself what this paper is going to address and investigate.
The problem for my globalization paper was that we didn’t know whether
globalization was moving collective identities towards a single globalized
culture or further dividing us up into multiple identities. Although this seems
kind of redundant it’s actually a huge breakthrough. Figuring out this
problem led me to realize that I didn’t have to choose whether globalization
was making us the same or different but was actually making us both same
and different at the same time.

Question three: How can I simplify this problem? The next step is to take
the problem and break it down to its simplest form. This is important
because it allows you to get to the core issue being discussed. The
globalization paper’s problem is that we don’t know if our identities are
coming together or becoming different. I wrote this up at the top of my
outline. Whenever I got lost this would bring me right back to the focus of
my paper.

Question four: What information do I need to solve this problem? This is

somewhat simple but a crucial question to ask. So for my paper I came to the
conclusion that I needed two pieces of information. I needed to find
evidence on whether globalization was making us all the same. I needed to
find evidence on whether globalization was making us different. I also
needed to find evidence on whether neither of these things were happening

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or a combination of the two. Through using my ‘meta sourcing method’ I
boiled this down to three central articles.

Immanuel Wallerstein “Cultures in Conflict. Who we are? Who are the

Others?
Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”
Benjamin Barber’s “Jihad and McWorld in the New World Disorder”

Question five: How do the authors come to their conclusions? You should
boil down each premise to its absolute conclusion. A premise is the general
statement of truth or proposition that an author gives to base his conclusion
upon. Anytime you see the special generative words such as therefore,
consequently, thus, as such, because, this shows that, I suggest etc, look at
the statement before the connecting word or phrase and you should find the
premise followed by the conclusion. The special generative words that
works well for premises are if, provided, provided that, if' only, only, then,
therefore. Some of these words generate premises; others generate
conclusions. In fact, a premise formula could be established with the two
generative words if and then. Here is one as an example: Dogs hate me. Why
do I hate dogs? If each dog I meet bites me, then I will hate dogs. So in your
paper, take each article that you are going to use as an authoritative defense
of your position in your paper and write out the author’s main premises and
their conclusion. For the conclusions just finish this sentence (This is true
because…).

Question six: Based on the author’s evidence, do you believe their

conclusions? Question five asked you to find out what was the author’s
reasons for coming to his conclusions. Now I want you to break down the
actual conclusion and ask whether it is valid. Write down why you believe
or don’t believe what the author is saying. You can usually quickly decide
on whether you believe or disbelieve the author’s conclusion based on their
premise. As an example if you believe that each dog I’ve ever met has bitten
me then your either incredibly naïve or dumb as bricks. In other words it is
highly unlikely that every dog I have met has bitten me and therefore it is
highly unlikely that I hate dogs because they bite me (I may hate dogs for
other reasons but those reasons have not been stated). However, if it is true
that ever dog I have met did bite me then it would be reasonable for me to
hate dogs. To really get at the truth of an author’s views and conclusion it is

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helpful to know something about the subject and to be able to reason about
how likely the statements are to be true.

Question seven: Are there any hidden bias or assumptions in the authors
argument? This question tries to figure out where the author’s coming
from. As an example Samuel Huntington in his article “Clash of
Civilizations” sees culture homogenizing into civilizations that will
inevitably lead to ‘clashes’ and that the western civilization should suppress
this inevitability as long as possible to retain dominance over the world. A
possible bias of his argument is that he is a staunch conservative and this
article was central to the Bush administrations policies of international
diplomacy. There are usually a few biases or assumptions for each argument
that can be found in the premises that are untrue or lack sufficient evidence
to support the conclusions. In other words an author’s truth’s (premises) and
therefore the conclusions can be questioned for their validity.

Question eight: What are the implications if the author’s conclusions are
correct/incorrect? This is an important question because it will allow you
to explore each author’s argument to its logical conclusion. In my
globalization paper I asked what the implications for a homogenized
singular culture and a multifaceted set of different cultural identities would
be.

Question nine: Are there alternate ways to come to the same

conclusions? If there are other ways to come to the same conclusions as the
author, investigate them. You can use them to reformulate your papers
argument to integrate or improve the author’s arguments into your own. In
my paper this led me to come up with the concept of the globalized avatar
which my professor loved.

At this stage you should have more than enough information to write as
much as you would like. You should also have information that your
professor will think is ingenious. Remember to work through these questions
before writing your outline. Critical thinking is not an essay outline. It is
instead a way to get to the core problems that your paper will address and
the evidence that you are going to present. Only when you have this
information can you put together an effective outline.

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Writing Stage

If you have properly followed stages one and two, you should have
absolutely no problem with the writing of the paper. I presume that you
have written a paper before so I’ll skip the breakdown of the three issue
thesis paper as any high school has already taught you that. What most of
those high school teachers failed to teach you was that a paper is completely
qualitative. You’re coming up with your own subject, your own sources,
and your point of view. Therefore your success depends on convincing the
reader that your paper is worth an A. The writing stage like the
brainstorming stage can be mechanized into a few key concepts to make
your paper A worthy.

Writing an Outline: Once you finish your critical thinking exercise you
should put together a solid outline. Your outline will be your main thesis
statement and the points you will take to support your statement. Put down
the main ideas and their supporting evidence. Use the critical thinking
exercise to guide your outline and it should be very simple to put together.

Ease of Understanding: Making your paper easy to understand is

deceivingly easy. One trend that I found in interviewing newly successful
students paper strategies was that they made their papers incredibly easy to
understand in terms of diction, but complex in terms of ideas. This may
seem obvious but from my experience with marking thousands of essays,
many students fail this first simple step. I’m going to use a sociological term
‘verstehen’ to explain the first step. Verstehen is a tool sociologists use to
try to understand and interpret how people act in society by imagining how
their subject acts. So let’s use verstehen to take a look at your average
teaching assistant while he/she is marking a paper.

So it’s probably 2am, 150 essays have to be finished by tonight and your TA
is on 113 which just happens to be yours. Take a minute and think about
what he/she is going to look at first

-Ok, first he/she is going to look at your title page. A few marks will be
taken off for form errors like the class name being misspelled or the date put
down in an improper format.

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-Next, they will usually ‘passive read’ the first page until they find a thesis
statement. If they have to look for it, that’s more marks off.
-They then look at what evidence you’re going to use to support your thesis
statement and underline each one so they can go back to it if they forget it
(remember its 2am and he/she has been working for 9 hours).
-They are then going to completely disregard all the information except for
you answering the supporting evidence in your paper.
-Any large style, format or grammar errors will lose you more points.
-Sourcing incorrectly has lost you a couple more marks.
-Next they look at your bibliography; if you have the minimum number of
sources you’ll probably be losing a few marks. If your bibliography is not
according to the prescribed format you lose massive marks.
-Your TA will then take a look at the marking key and approximate what
you should be getting, which unfortunately for you since you screwed up on
the fundamentals is a B-.

Congratulations you are officially ordinary even though you potentially had
A+ ideas, have fun being frustrated and unsuccessful in university.

What should you learn from this little exercise?

Well your paper has very, VERY little to do with what you’ve done and
much more to do with what you have not done. Here is something you
should write down.

The content of your paper is not as important as its context.

When I figured this out I had a big wow moment. It’s kind of harsh
but an easy to understand, properly sourced and unimaginative paper will
beat the overcomplicated, badly sourced imaginative paper almost every
time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had students come in and talk to
me about their papers after the fact. They have amazing ideas but since they
can’t communicate them onto the page they are doomed to failure.

So how do we fix this?

Well first, I could suggest you go check out a writing course to make
your writing better. There are tones of them at universities and most offer
some free programs for students. However, most of them suck. I’ve sat in

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on a couple and they teach you how to make your writing more complex, not
simpler. Save the complex writing for somebody else, simplicity should be
your goal. One of the best resources I have found to automatically make
your writing simpler and easier to understand is a program called stylewriter.
This program is about 10 times better than the grammar and style check on
Microsoft word. The program can completely revolutionize the way you
write and can make it eloquently concise. It is a little expensive but there
are some free trials available which you can try out.

Formatting: The next step is to figure out exactly what kind of style you’re
supposed to be writing in and know it forwards and backwards. Most papers
are either written in MLA style or APA style. There are a few books out
there on the subject such as The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by
William Strunk Jr., which is my personal favorite. The great thing is that
endnote will do all the formatting for you except for your title page so just
by using endnote you’re going to be cleaning up most of your source
formatting.
Make sure your VTA has taken a look at your paper. Your buddies
will not help you here because they have no experience in marking exams.
Remember, the GOAL is to get an A, not to have an interesting paper
(although that doesn’t hurt). Your TA can offer some broad suggestions but
usually cannot guarantee you a mark as they need to cover their ass. Your
VTA can be as harsh as possible and can offer suggestions to make the paper
more streamlined and simple to understand.

How to streamline your writing: When you sit down to actually write there
are a few tricks you can use to make your writing flow faster. Make sure
you know what your writing about, this ties back to being prepared with a
good outline, if you are continually pausing to think of what to come up with
next you’re going to be wasting time. The paper should already be written
up in your head (and in your outline). Put on some music, I like using ear
phones as it cuts out outside distractions and if people start bugging you, you
can pretend you didn’t hear them. I’m writing right now with a pair of JBL
earbuds and listening to some techno. Why techno? It has no lyrics! Studies
have shown that listening to classical music increases test scores. I have
found in my experience through experimenting with different types of music
that the determining factor to focus is the lack of lyrics. Remember that
multitasking is bad, and when your brain is trying to write something and

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trying to understand what the hell Britney Spears is singing you’re going to
be pulling your mind in two different directions. I also like the random
white noise of coffee shops as all the words meld into an indistinguishable
mass. If you need sound, but music is too distracting, try a coffee shop or
bar.
If you’re not using endnote you’re going to be sourcing by hand. Do
NOT stop to look up sources while you’re writing. This gets you out of your
flow and opens up opportunities to procrastinate. Instead just pop a little
note in your writing. Here is a perfect example.
(That guy who talks about transnational Trinidadian technology)
states that, many of the social relationships between immigrants
and the national project are tied to their translocal identity (Trini
guy, P??).
I later go back over my article and pop in the references during the editing
stage. This is going to save you massive amounts of time. As the
organization chapter states, make sure you batch your activities, it will save
you time, I promise.
Here is a good point that’s worked for me at the end of my
undergraduate and throughout my graduate degree. Whether you agree with
what the prof says or not, when you write the paper do not completely
support or deny his/her position. I have tried some different ratio’s and have
reviewed other profs high grades after they have finished marking papers. I
found that if you agree with what the prof has to say, agree about 80% of the
time and disagree about 20% of the time. If you’re going to disagree with
what the prof has to say, agree about 20% of the time and disagree about
80% of the time in the paper. I really don’t know why this ratio is so
effective but I’ve based this off my own personal experience and reviewing
which students got A’s in papers from profs. It seems to work so give it a
try if you have the chance.

Provide many examples: Make sure you have provided examples for every
concept you discuss. I would even suggest you provide a few different
examples to explain the same concept. This is important because this only
makes your initial point easier to understand. Here is an example from my
globalization paper.
Simply put, by producing facts to appear as material reality one can produce
a real material reality from a social construct. Therefore, by producing the
perception that the west is in conflict with the Muslim world rather than

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 simply being in conflict with extremism one can create the reality that the
Muslim world is in conflict with the West and ironically not only the west but
the Muslim world embrace this ideology and make it a reality. This fact of
the matter is embraced by both sides because it reinforces both parties by
creating a global identity of fear in the individual in relation to the world
giving both sides a mechanical grasp on its people.

My main concept in blue is supported by three separate pieces of

evidence that say in essence, the same damn thing! I could have written this
in about half the space but by providing so many versions of the same
concept the main idea is pushed through into the subconscious mind. Even
if you’re passively reading this paragraph you will grasp onto the main
concept.

A warning if your prof is correcting your paper: If you know your professor
is going to mark your paper, I would suggest you tweak the preceding
writing strategies a bit. If you read my globalization paper I kept the
concepts very simple and obvious but my diction is complex. I’m writing at
a university level throughout that paper. I’m also using specific terminology
that only social scientists use. By using those terms I can make my
professor believe I know what I’m talking about, even if I don’t :) Take the
time to bump up your writing level a little bit for profs if they only have a
few papers to read because they will take more time to review them.

Editing Stage

Editing is a pretty important step in the paper writing process but most
students don’t give it proper attention. Now, I have had some really badly
edited papers. I’ve had kids who have rewritten paragraphs, left a page of a
different paper in their essay, misspelled the professor’s name etc. All these
problems can be solved with a quick 10 minute review which you should
absolutely be doing. Since you’re going to have your VTA help you edit
most of your papers, I’d like to concentrate on the philosophy behind the
editing process from the mindset of the prof and teaching assistant.

Marking Keys: Knowing what you’re being marked on is the most important
thing to remember when editing. Knowing where to concentrate your time
and resources is crucially important to getting you’re A. Below me is a copy

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of a marking key I had used for a first year class that has been edited slightly
to protect the class and the professor who wrote it up for me.

Hey Liam, here is a general outline for the papers, give me a call at 555-555-
5555 if you need me to explain anything.

Marking Key:

25% of final grade

Style 5 marks: ASA sourcing, Title page intact, Proper bibliography. Proper
amount of sources. Each mistake takes off one mark.
Grammar/Spelling 5 marks: Each major mistake take off one mark, 5/5 must
be perfect
Content 10 marks: Clear thesis, reflects question asked, good evidence to
support main point, clear concise content, Insightful conclusion, Each worth
two points, if one section is particularly bad take off more.
Overall Flow 5 marks: Is the writing of proper academic quality, are only
the minimum amount of sources being used, Are the conclusions logical.
Are you convinced of the thesis? Only perfect papers can get a 5/5.

Mark the first 50 and give me an idea of where you’re at. I’m thinking we
should be fine as long as you keep it around a 70 as they did a little too well
on the midterm.

So you can see very clearly that out of the three main categories of
marks, only about half the paper has anything to do with the content of the
paper. The rest has to do with the sourcing, bibliography, style etc. Keep in
mind that a perfect paper has to actually be imaginative, but a paper that
isn’t technically perfect will have a hard battle to get up to the A range.

Find your own biases and account for them: Once you finish the paper it is
useful to apply some of the critical thinking steps for your own paper. The
most important of those is to look for your own biases and account for them
in your paper. This can be the difference between an A and A+ paper for
many TA’s and Profs. Most of your markers are going to be able to catch
logical fallacies in your conclusions very easily; if you even just make
attempts to account for them this can completely change your marks.

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Don’t be ambiguous, be logical: If your ideas or evidence aren’t clear
through convincing evidence or adequate examples, your marker will get
confused and bored. The key is to make the main points as easy to follow as
possible. Read over you paper and ask yourself if a fifth grader could
understand the main concepts of your paper. If it isn’t clear make it clear!

A note on plagiarism

Plagiarism is an increasingly difficult problem in university students

and academia in general. With that said, DON’T PLAGIARISE! Please
don’t do it. It’s really dumb, and if you get caught you can have the class to
your entire degree taken away from you. I have gone after people for
academic plagiarism so I’d like to take you through the steps. The TA or
professor will first find a paper where academic plagiarism is suspected.
They then give it to a second reader who confirms the plagiarism. At this
point the prof can go the formal or informal route. 99% of the time they go
the informal route and talk to the student. The student will be forced to take
an F for the course, given an F on the paper or forced to rewrite the paper.
If the student denies that they plagiarized it then become a formal
matter. A board is formed (usually three profs, sometimes a student
representative is also included) and formal charges are brought up upon the
student. If the student is found guilty of plagiarism they can get anywhere
from a suspension of their academic records for a few years to a full ban
from the university and a black listing that will follow you to other
universities. If you do get caught, I suggest you throw yourself on the mercy
of the court. Profs usually understand and you’ll only lose a course or
semester at the most. If you fight it, you’re an idiot because I have not heard
of anybody winning.
Also, as an extra note, your VTA knows the difference between
plagiarism and tutoring you so don’t try to convince them to write your
papers for you. If I find that you have convinced your VTA to plagiarize.
You will be reported to the university and your VTA will be fired. This is
harsh but I didn’t spend the better part of a decade working legitimately for
students to poison the system.

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Critical thinking Quick Guide: This is the 9 critical thinking questions
you should be asking yourself during the brainstorming stage of your
paper. For more detailed explanations for each question go to page 141
(You can also submit this to your VTA for quick review).

1: What is being asked of me?

2: What exactly is the problem?

3: How can I simplify this problem?

4: What information do I need to solve this problem?

5: How do the authors come to their conclusions?

6: Based on the author’s evidence, do you believe their conclusions?

7: Are there any hidden bias or assumptions in the authors argument?

8: What are the implications if the author’s conclusions are

correct/incorrect?

9: Are there alternate ways to come to the same conclusions?

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So in review

There are four stages to a paper (research, brainstorming, writing, editing)

- Research Stage
- Get your VTA to help you
- Make sure you use your academic database (endnote)
- Brainstorming Stage
- Use Critical thinking to get to the core of your papers problem
- Writing Stage
- The content of your paper is not as important as its context
- Editing Stage
- Make it just as important as any other stage
- Get your VTA to help out

Plagiarism: DON’T DO IT

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Chapter 13: Putting it All Together
In this chapter you will:
- Review the major concepts of the book
- Get everything together for your VTA
- Learn how to use your VTA

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 Here is a quick review of the content that we have covered. Please
look over the information to see if there is any information you missed or
would like to review.

Make sure you are able to understand the micro and macro aspects of
your mental mind shift. Fill out your university goal form so that you can
submit it to your virtual teaching assistant. A fun activity is to try the
approach anxiety script (if you feel nervous try doing it with a friend).
Choose a week to reform your non-verbal communication and take a look at
what may make you more confident in feeling intelligent.

Take a look at each learning style and try to improve the styles you’re
not good at. As a review: Visual learners learn through pictures and
watching things happen. Auditory learners learn from listening to lectures
and audio books. Sequential learners learn by categorizing and putting
points into lists. Kinesthetic or active learners learn through physically
doing and through teaching others what you are trying to learn.

Remember the reasons why society values hard work to further

cement your mind shift. Look at the three main components of academic
success: allostasis, outsourcing and mechanization. Make sure you have a
daily planner, a white board and daily to-do lists to keep yourself
accountable. Define your study and social spaces. Take an hour to
mechanize your computer filing system. Review the main tips on how to
think faster.

Define whether you have a lecturer or professor in each class. Check

your schedule and availability of other classes for possible options to
rearrange your schedule. Make sure you are prepared for class with a laptop,
notebook, study buddy and place you’re going to sit. Review the classic
argument fallacies. Review how to ask effective questions and how they
should be presented. Make sure you have Wikipedia available to reinforce
intelligent questions with hard facts.

Notes are a reflection of the lecture not a transcription. Just grasp the
main ideas in the lecture and write them for your 40 year old self. Develop a
coding method to shorten notes, or use my method. Review the different

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methods of note taking to figure out what the best fit is for you. Remember
to use a pre-post review method to hard wire lectures.

Cut down on your readings using the academic sift method. Throw,
talk and take your needed articles then investigate whether you can turn your
remaining books into audio tapes. Read the remaining readings as quickly
as possible through using speed reading techniques. Remember to do a
précis of the reading after you finish it. Also, talk to somebody about the
reading after you’ve finished it, it will help your recall for the exam.

I can’t stress this point enough: The best way to manage your time
is for somebody else to manage it for you. Get your VTA, TA, prof and
fellow students to keep you accountable through mechanization. Review the
four cornerstones of time management: Reading, Text/Exam, Paper/Project
and Note preparation. Remember, you want to get information in a quickly
and as richly as possible.

Review your own personal reasons for procrastinating and how you
can conquer it (this relates to your mind shift). Review the steps to solving
problems by: breaking it down, starting, creating accountability backups,
using visual reminders, using your study space, making tasks meaningful,
writing down exactly what you’re going to do and getting a study timer.

Before you meet with a professor to argue a higher mark: Talk to

other people to loosen yourself up, be prepared for the meeting and ask
effective questions. When you actually meet the prof use the prescribed
methods in order: Befriend, Mirror, Because close, Assume the sale, Deal
with each issue separately, Get rid of the No’s, Jones, Options sell.

Before taking a test, review the three day system for test preparation.
Day one you should code and turn your notes into an audio book. Day two,
use your favorite study method(s) to memorize the information. Day three,
reinforce your confidence by reviewing notes and visualization. It is also
important to review what kind of test you’re going to take and apply the
applicable strategy to each type of test. Remember that the goal is to get an
A, tests are about memorization not learning.

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 Review the four stages of a paper and use the step by step system to
produce an A paper. The research stage should be run through your Virtual
Teaching Assistant and your endnote database to quickly file and review
each article. In the brainstorming stage, use the critical thinking exercise to
problematize your papers main purpose and supporting evidence. The
writing stage is a context, not a content rich exercise. Write clearly with
supporting examples, remember this is not an academic article it is an
undergraduate essay which are two very different things. During the editing
stage make sure to spend just as much time on editing as you did on writing.
Your VTA can help edit your paper as well. Above all, under no
circumstances should you plagiaries.

How to use your Virtual Teaching Assistant

Your virtual teaching assistant is the linchpin that makes this program
work. The VTA’s can help you break down every chapter in this book and
will be your academic guru you can turn to for anything university related.
In a few days you’re going to get an email from your VTA to submit your
university goal form and any online syllabi you have. Make sure to have
everything ready. You will then get a report from your VTA through email
or by phone of what direction he/she thinks you should go. If you’d like to
speak in person, download a copy of skype which allows for free phone calls
between users.

The standard VTA package

The basic monthly VTA package includes one full hour of service
plus a free initial one hour assessment. You can choose exactly what you’d
like to spend time on with your VTA but general estimates of assignment
times are as follows:

- Reviewing an outline for a paper: 10-15 minutes

- Researching 5 articles and databasing through endnote: 15 minutes
- Reviewing a 10 page first draft with simple edits: 15-25 minutes
- Reviewing a 10 page first draft with grammar edits: 30-35 minutes
- General email inquiries (one question): 5 minutes
- Time management reminders for a test or assignment: 15 minutes
- Skype call for in depth explanations: by the minute

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 Take into consideration that these are only estimates, dependent upon
the quality of submitted work; some assignments may take longer or shorter
than the general estimate. If you require more time with your VTA you can
double or triple the allotted time. Just confer with your VTA to make sure
he/she has the time and your VTA will make the appropriate changes to your
account. To make the most effective use of your time I would suggest you
email your VTA clear and concise emails that explain exactly what you
would like and by when. Remember that VTA’s require a 3 day turn around
time for all assignments so schedule your papers and tests accordingly.

Example of a good VTA email:

Dear VTA
Thanks for getting that last paper back to me so quickly. I need to
write another paper on Chinese immigrant identity. I’ve already written out
an outline and would like you to look it over and give me advice on whether
the thesis is A worthy. I have included a copy of the essay requirements. If
there aren’t any problems with the outline, I’d like you to research 5 articles
on the subject and send me back the endnote file by the 28th. Please email
me if you have any questions.

Ooglack

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Concluding points

I hope that this book has inspired you to completely rethink the
philosophy of work and how you can maximize your university career. If
you’ve gotten this far then I suggest you check out
www.virtualteachingassistant.com/blog for free tips and information that me
and my VTA’s post. I would also suggest that you join my emailing list to
get even more free tips and tricks and to keep yourself accountable to
becoming a 4.0 GPA student. If you have any questions or success stories I
want you to email me at lmartin@virtualteachingassistant.com. I love to
hear your stories and use them to motivate others to become better students.

Hoping for your continued success

Liam Martin

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Chapter 14: Forms and Activities
In this chapter you:
- Will get all the forms, guides and activities in one place

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For a review of how to fill this form out go to the second chapter. Also for
an interactive copy you can email to your VTA, check out the attachments.

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Academic Sift
Throw: (Which readings are not important to complete to get an A on
the course)
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

Talk: (Which of these books can I learn through discussion with VTA,
TA’s Profs, Students etc)
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________
Reading________________Who do I speak to?______________________
When can I speak to them?______________________________________

Take: (Define which books you need to read in order of importance for
each course)
First Priority: __________________________________________
Second Priority: __________________________________________
Third Priority: __________________________________________

Questions to ask: Which of these books can I turn into Audio books?
Which of these books can I simply skim through? Which of these books
need my full attention?

165
Précis form: (This will also be available in an interactive format, feel
free to shorten or expand on this form as you see fit)
AUTHOR:

TITLE:

LEVEL OF USEFULNESS FOR PROJECT/EXAM RANKED FROM 1 - 10.

(Idea here is whether it is directly and highly related, or

whether it might be tangentially related and or whether it might
be useful in veering in another fruitful direction given the
data/ideas being pursued.)

TOPIC AND THESIS:

DATA USED AND SOURCES:

KEY FINDINGS:

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

REFERENCES OBTAINED FROM BOOK/ARTICLE:

IDEAS THIS BOOK/ARTICLE GENERATED:

THEORETICAL, HYPOTHESES, THINGS THAT RANG FALSE, ETC.

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Critical thinking Quick Guide: This is the 9 critical questions you
should be asking yourself during the brainstorming stage of your paper.
For more detailed explanations go to chapter 12 (You can also submit
this to your VTA for quick review).

1: What is being asked of me?

2: What exactly is the problem?

3: How can I simplify this problem?

4: What information do I need to solve this problem?

5: How do the authors come to their conclusions?

6: Based on the author’s evidence, do you believe their conclusions?

7: Are there any hidden bias or assumptions in the authors argument?

8: What are the implications if the author’s conclusions are

correct/incorrect?

9: Are there alternate ways to come to the same conclusions?

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Other Resources that can help you study and resources that have been
central to my own academic development.

www.virtualteachingassistant.com/blog: Here you will find weekly

articles on our newest research and get access to the mailing list. I
would suggest you check out the site and register on the mailing list as I
give out lots of free tips and tricks.

http://calnewport.com/blog/: Great website on various forms of studying

strategies. A nice resource for anyone that wants to stay on top of
contemporary study methods.

Fundamentals of Social Research: An excellent book on research. I was

personally trained by one of the authors in graduate school and she
completely revolutionized my study methods and how I break down my
writing.

www.leechblock.com: Here you can get a great program that will

restrict your time on whichever websites you choose. I set the facebook
for 10 minutes a day and I set entertainment sites like youtube for a full
ban from 9-5 on weekdays. This makes sure you keep on track.
Remember, if you have systems in place, time management isn’t a
problem.

www.criticalthinking.org: The best site for everything critical thinking.

Some of the concepts are somewhat complex and they don’t offer any
simple guides like I do but a great resource if you want to follow up on
critical thinking.

Writing for Social Scientists: The best, best BEST book for anyone that
wants to improve their writing. Not just in the social scientists but for
all academic writing. It is required reading for most graduate students
and you should really take the time to give it a read.

Elements of Style: If you have problems with grammar, read this book.
It is a great read and is a better reference tool while you write. The
book also includes a full formatting reference guide.

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Online Formatting Guide: Here is a free online formatting guide that
reviews most of the popular formatting formats. I would suggest you
actually buy a book for this, but if that isn’t possible this is a great
mobile tool.

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