If you are going to cram for the final, Here's a few hints,

OK, the steps to pass a final and get a good grade in a class are:

• Attend all your classes,
• Do all your assignments on time,
• Take good notes and study them,
• Complete all reading assignments,
• Ask the professor for help with anything you don't understand,

If you have done these things these next few weeks are not going to be overly stressful. However, there may be a few of you who did not make it to class as often as you could have, your notes don't really make a lot of sense and are spotty, your dog is at the vet from ink and paper poisoning, and your text book makes a cracking sound when you open it. Tomorrow is your final. You are going to have to cram.

Again this is not about how to learn anything or to do well in a class. This is about how to do what you can to pass your final.

• First look through your notes and see if there is anything underlined or that has stars or arrows next to it that you may have put their to remind you that it was important. If it is a word or a phrase look in a high quality dictionary, the glossary in your text book, adn the index in your text book and read up on the note,
• Next most text books start with an introduction that summarizes what the chapter is about and ends with a conclusion that does the same thing. Go through your text and read the first and last paragraph or section for each chapter,
• Most quality text books do not add images or charts arbitrarily, but use them to emphasize important points. As you go through the chapters look at the images and charts and study the captions, if necessary read some of the text until you understand the point they are trying to make,
• If your text has a glossary study that next, you can record your reading and listen to it the next day before class if you have time,
• If it is an essay final after completing the steps above, look up your topic in a good encyclopedia like Britannica, thoroughly learn the entry about President Lincoln or the Cold War or whatever your topic is, you can also record this to listen to before class, there are few if any professors that will expect you to know more than what is written in Britannica unless it is a very specific or arcane topic, if you can write the equivalent of an encyclopedia entry for an essay exam, you will most likely get a decent grade,

For those of you that have book reports due the next day on 600+ page books that you have not read and there are no cliff notes you may still have a chance.

• Again Read the first and last paragraph of each chapter,
• Read any image captions,
• Look in article databases for other reviews of the book, You must not copy these reviews but they can guide you to the major themes of a book,

Get some sleep, eat some healthy food and get some exercise like a relaxing walk. Studies have shown that material reviewed just prior to sleep is often transfered to long term memory and processed by the brain while you sleep. Exercise and healthy foods also increase brain power. Following these steps may make the information you need accessible during the exam the next day.

I make no promises about any of this working. The only way to be sure is to do the work when you are supposed to as first mentioned in this post. However, if you have to cram this systematic approach may be your best hope.

Good Luck

So what is the point with Wikipedia and Britannica?

In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education Jimmy Wales "founder" of Wikipedia warned students about Wikipedia. He goes on to say "For God sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia,".

When deciding to use Wikipedia or Britannica the first question is which can you get to? If I am at work at the library I will use Britannica. However if I am off campus and have to go through some kind of proxy verification or other hassle I will use Wikipedia. I would not use the free version of Britannica because of the excessive amount of advertising and the information provided is barely as much as you would find in a good biographical dictionary.

The problem is that this is not why I posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 The Tao of Searching: Wikipedia Britannica and missing the point. Or why even the Journal Nature missed the point. The point is: Encyclopedias are not a research destination. Encyclopedias are a starting point or a roadmap for research. Over the last few years web gurus have been using the term sticky (see Make Things Sticky) to describe a good web site. They don’t want users to just visit a page and then leave the site. They want them stay on the site. One problem with Wikipedia and Britannica is that they have great designers that adopted this philosophy. They too offer up more and more choices and links to keep the user on the site. The problem is when you are doing research you do not want to get stuck in an encyclopedia.

At Cornell University they put together a brief introduction on how to do research called “The Seven Steps of the Research Process”. Step two is: Look up your keywords in the indexes to subject encyclopedias. Read articles in these encyclopedias to set the context for your research. Note any relevant items in the bibliographies at the end of the encyclopedia articles.

This is how to use encyclopedias. If you will notice they specifically mentioned “subject encyclopedias”. Subject encyclopedias focus on one discipline or area of knowledge and therefore usually will cover a topic to a greater depth than a regular encyclopedia. It is also likely to be more authoritative in that particular field than a general encyclopedia. The quick and dirty way to find them at the library, is to go to the catalog and do a keyword search for “encyclopedia psychology” (or geology, religion or whatever your topic is). Then look for books with the word encyclopedia and your subject in the title Once you have a couple of call numbers, go to that section of the library and look at the encyclopedias you picked, also look at the books nearby. They will be on the same topic and there may be another book that will work better for you. Or you could just ASK A LIBRARIAN.

If you are on the web you can go to Google and type in “encyclopedia philosophy” (or whatever your topic is) and you should get a lot of results. When looking at the results you will want to look at the URL to see if it is a .com .org or an .edu site. A .com will probably be trying to sell you something. You will also want to read the description. Then visit a few of the sites and see which ones will work best for you. Better yet would be to go to The Open Directory Project (ODP) and type in encyclopedia and look at their collection. Or you could just ASK A LIBRARIAN.

Ultimately the only books that people claim inerrant are the Qur'an, Bible, and The Book of Mormon. Therefore, we may assume that everything else may have some errors and problems. Britannica has fewer errors by a wide margin. It is written and edited to professional academic standards, and it has years of experience in publishing encyclopedias. Unfortunately only a small portion is free, unless you have access through an institution like a library. This may involve proxy access or passwords or IP verification that may not work so well at your location or with your device. Of course you can buy access but an experienced researcher can probably find the equivalent amount and quality of information they need using the web, maybe even through Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is accessible from almost any type of web access device. It is free and is easy to use, and you can get sucked into editing entries on some of your favorite topics. It is surprising how enjoyable it is to contribute to or edit Wikipedia. On the downside any idiot like me can contribute or edit Wikipedia. It does have an unacceptable number of errors to be considered authoritative or equivalent to Britannica.

Despite the characteristics described here, the point again is that “the encyclopedia is not a research destination. Encyclopedias are a starting point or a roadmap for research.” It’s the things you discover along the way, the sense of accomplishment for finishing an assignment, or mastering a new area of knowledge, that is the destination.

Next maybe we will talk about how to pick out a book and then maybe how to evaluate information on web sites.

R Philip Reynolds