Study Prof

Double-click any word for the dictionary reference. Check back every day for more words.

absolve
address
alchemy
ample
antiquity
arcade
assumption
avocation
beeline
bigot
bombastic
brunt (more…)

What is a good way to study that will be fast and efficient?

Take notes in class and on your readings using some of the note taking techniques I’ve talked about before.  Study from those notes using this method, championed by Cal Newport…

• Take a page of notes and cover up everything but the key ideas written in the margins.
• Look at the first key idea and, out loud, give a lecture on that particular point to an imaginary class (or to your study group).  Take pains to explain thoroughly and give examples.  Imagine that the students are question-happy fifth graders. That means explain in (more…)

If you’re like me, the claims of speed reading courses rank right up there with magic beans and political promises.  Too bad.  Speed reading won’t enable you to read the RandomHouse unabridged dictionary in ten minutes with perfect comprehension.  However, it can easily help you read three or four times faster while keeping pretty good comprehension.

You’ll notice I’m not selling a speed reading course.  No ulterior motives here.  I’ve just seen what a little training and practice can do.  My reading speed about five years ago was around 150 words per minute.  Now it’s closer to 500.  That means what used to take me three hours to read I can now read in less than an hour!

That increase came from consistently practicing some techniques that are freely available on the web.  I practiced three or four times per week, thirty minutes at a time, for about two months, and that investment has (more…)

Since the days of Aristotle, Socrates, and Platyhelminthes, speakers intent on persuading the masses have relied on a tool chest of persuasive tricks to bamboozle, flummox, cajole, and convince. Here are three you can wrest from the evil clutches of politicoes and infomercial hosts, putting them to use For Good. On your next essay test or research paper, for example.

Use lists of three. Whether it’s the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker; the three little pigs; or Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod; some of our earliest memories are of nursery rhymes that present us with threes. Perhaps that’s because it’s a basic principal of persuasion and instruction; threes are easier to mentally grapple with.

Nursery rhymes not convincing? Then check out Obama’s ten minute victory speech; it contained 29 different (more…)

Check out this free downloadable, print-outable, bubble-inable form for helping you stick with those daily goals. Whitehatblackbox.com explains…

WatchKnow.org conveniently gathers helpful videos into categories for easy viewing online. They cover a variety of topics; math, science, history, social studies, etc. and pull their videos from various online repositories such as google videos and youtube. Most of the content is for younger kids, but some would be useful even in a college class. Worth stopping by…

Double-click any word for the dictionary reference. Check back every day for more words.

absolute
addle
alacrity
amphitheater
antique
arboretum
assuage
avid
bedraggle
bifurcated (more…)

So there I was, deep in the belly of the library beast, trying to crank out yet another research paper on precolonial MesoAmerican burial practices. But (contrary to what one might expect) that’s a HOOOGE topic. How can I make sure I’ve covered all the bases? I mean, Quetzalcoatl forbid I accidently leave out the ancient Bifstec* practice of cookies-n-cremation.

So before I can start sifting through sources and organizing my notes into topic areas–so as not to miss something as important as cookies-n-cremation–I have to I.D. ALL my topic areas very carefully. I don’t want to read and take notes for day after eyeball-busting (more…)

I luvz LifeHacker. Always something useful, just like this pithy collection of to-do list wizlets from Gina Trapani. The art of the doable to-do list – Email – Lifehacker.

Have a prof that is to teaching what Keanu Reeves is to acting? Try one of these lecturers instead…   free university lectures – computer science, mathematics, physics, chemistry.