Grammarman's Guide to Academic Success

GRAMMARMAN’S GUIDE TO ACADEMIC SUCCESS, OR, LEARNING IS A LEARNED BEHAVIOR

Note: Making students obey the rules of grammar tends to make the instructor appear to be a tedious pedant. And, to be honest, grammar is not all that exciting. Humor, helps, So, I told students that I am Grammarman.

Forget all that you may have read about study habits. What works for one student usually does not work for another. If you do what is suggested below, learning will become so much fun that you will have no need to force yourself to do your schoolwork. Once you start receiving “A” grades, learning becomes additive. It’s exciting. And it’s one thrill that has positive consequences.

There are a variety of effective methods to improve learning and to raise grades. In this essay, I shall present the ones that have worked for me. Some of them, at least, will work for you. The underlying assumption of each method is simply this: learning happens will you engage your mental apparatus. Don’t take this the wrong way. Don’t think that learning must be, as Aristotle said, drudgery. Maybe it must be drudgery in the lower grades when you are learning the basics, but secondary and college level learning should be, and can be, exciting. If it already is, you don’t need my advice. But it you anticipate your social activities and/or sleeping more than learning, you need this.

Having successfully earned four degrees, I am qualified to proffer learning advice. My undergraduate degree is in teacher education but that is only because I switched to education after nearly completing four years of liberal arts. I have master’s degrees in library science and in education. The former allowed me to function for 15 years as an academic librarian. I also earned a doctoral degree in information studies. With that degree, I was a graduate level professor of library and information studies. In fact, except for 1989 and 1990, I have spent every September since 1945 until 2010 as a student, teacher, library director, or professor. My final position was secondary level school teacher. All this is relevant, but what really made the difference is that no one ever formally taught me how to learn. I had to learn the art of learning on my own. I did it very well.

I did not come from an educated family. My parents were Depression era children and so neither finished high school. When I was in elementary and secondary school from 1945-1959, teachers assumed that academic success simply depended on raw intelligence coupled with diligent work habits. That helps, but I now realize that learning is a learned behavior. Intelligence and work habits will not help much if you do not learn how to learn. Most students get through their programs, but they never learn how to learn. Consequently they waste time (one of God’s most precious gifts, and one so easily lost), they approach academic obligations with a feeling of dread, they fail to sufficiently comprehend what they learn in the classroom, they fail to retain it, and worse, they never learn how to apply it.

WHERE TO SIT

For classroom students, let’s start with choosing a seat. Remember the principle: You must actively engage your mental apparatus. Here, I shall give away a professional secret. Professors tend to be instantly impressed with students who choose to sit up front. Sitting up front sends impressive signals. It says, “I am taking this course seriously. I want to learn. I have confidence in myself.” Moreover, you are likely to internalize those signals. If you sit in the back rows, you will immediately put yourself at a self-imposed disadvantage. When you sit up front, you have the choice of volunteering to answer questions because professors usually call on those in the middle roles. You know why? Because we assume that the ones in the back roles are dullards until they prove otherwise. We assume that the ones in the front are the exceptional ones. So we call on those we are not sure about—the ones in the middle roles.

Once, as a college freshman, I sat in the back row during English class. The topic de jure was conformity—a common subject back in 1960. One after another, the students made the obligatory comments depicting the sad state of mindless conformity. Finally, one middle-aged gentleman, who always sat up front isolated by two rows from everyone else, firmly said, “If you are so opposed to conformity, why do you always huddle in the back rows? Why not sit up front with me?” That’s when I realized that students in the front row can control the classroom and impress the instructor at the same time. Forever after, whenever possible, I sat in the front row in every class I ever took for the remainder of my lengthy student career.

NOTE TAKING, READING, AND PREPARING FOR EXAMINATIONS

There is no substitute for attending classes regularly and taking copious notes during the lectures. Likewise, you must conscientiously complete the required readings and take copious notes on them too. Merely attending classes and/or merely doing the readings in insufficient because by themselves, neither engages your mental apparatus. And don’t think that because the instructor is such a spellbinding lecturer that you will recall his presentation. Recalling information is always problematic. There is a good reason for that. The brain is not so much a memory device as it is a reducing mechanism. That’s right. The brain receives so much information that if everything was retained, we would suffer from information overload. The mind must be trained to select and retain only highly desirable information. More on this below.

As you read, use a highlighter to mark especially significant passages. Define these as the passages in which the author is building his case. You need not mark his examples. Unless you are keystroking class notes into your computer during class, you must do so afterward. Even if you do keystroke the notes during class, read them again and make any corrections or additions later. This should be an almost nightly activity. The act of taking notes and the act of typing them will give you a second opportunity to decide what was really important. It will assist your comprehension and recall. Later, these notes will be available in organized format, which you need for examinations.

Now, here is how to prepare for examinations. Call it the “condensing method.” About three or preferably four days prior to an examination, print your notes, and then condense these notes from lectures and required readings into one side of one sheet of paper. It can be done. Make this study sheet by ruling the paper into five or six columns. Use abbreviations, very small letters, and acronyms. For example, if you must recall the names of the nations who occupy permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, create this acronym from the first letters of their respective names: FARCE, for France, America, Russia, China, and England.

Just the process of placing your notes onto paper will aid retention and recall. When your study sheet is completed, carry it around. At every available moment, read it or at least glance at it. If you are driving, look at it when stopped for a red light. If you are having dinner, put it on the table where you occasionally read some of it. If possible, have someone—a parent or friend, who can read the reduced material, quiz you on it.

Believe me, within three days you can memorize the contents of any course. Assuming that you understand the material, I can all but guarantee that you will earn at least a “B” grade because you will have near perfect recall. Since I begin employing this method as a college senior, I received an “A” grades on all but a few examinations.

WRITING PAPERS—THE BOXES AND ARROWS METHOD

In most, though not in all, academic subjects, you will be required to identify causation. History requires that, obviously. So do the natural science. In the social sciences, too, you must learn how events, systems, or perhaps legislation generate a chain of consequences, intended or otherwise. To convince your instructor, as well as yourself, that you have grasped the salient causes and their effects, employ the Boxes and Arrows Method.

This method is predicated on the assumption that what you are usually doing when writing research papers is identifying causes. Normally, there is no single variable cause of anything. However, there is usually an independent variable that is the primary cause. (Speaking of causation, I am indebted to my elementary level Catholic education because even at that level, it drew from philosophy and logic. Being able to think in terms of primary, necessary, proximate, and sufficient causes is illuminating.) Also, for each effect, there will be moderating variables, sometimes known as conditioning variables, which affect the dependent variable, i. e., the resultant effect. These moderating variables may affect the result either positively, as when they intensify the cause/s, or negatively, as when they work to some degree of opposition to the cause/s.

To use a simple example, let’s identify the variables involved in the freezing of water. Temperature is the independent variable. At 32F, water changes from a liquid to a solid we call ice. The ice is the dependent variable. Additional variables, i.e., moderating or conditioning variables, may be involved. Salt would act as a negative moderating variable because salt acts to keep the water from freezing.

Now let’s get a little more complicated. In medicine we talk about viruses as independent variables causing certain disease syndromes, which are dependent variables. However, for the host to exhibit the disease syndrome, certain other conditions must normally be present. These would include the host’s general health, his psychic condition, and his genetic makeup. These might be positive moderating variables, because, assuming, in this example, that the host has one, two, or all three of these attributes in good measure, they work to lessen the dependent variable, i.e., illness. To the extent that any of these variables is not present in good measure, to that extent they would work to cause that dependent variable.

To literally illustrate your meaning, draw boxes and arrows. The boxes will contain the independent, moderating, and dependent variables. The arrows will indicate causation. A moderating variable that positively affects an effect will be indicated by a plus sign. To indicate a negative effect, place a minus sign above the arrow/s. You will be delightfully surprised at how much quicker you grasp difficult material. Also, using boxes and arrows will assist your compositional efforts because, as every composition instructor knows, clear writing proceeds from clear thinking. Visualizing your thinking, which is what this method promotes, will illustrate any weak points. You may perceive a need for additional boxes. Finally, when you submit your paper, include the boxes and arrows. Your instructor will welcome a paper that clearly illustrates your thinking and your conclusion/s.

I first employed this method in a graduate level course titled Theories of Anthropology that I took at the University of Michigan. My first paper was poorly thought out and my professor let me know it. It was just at this time that I learned of the Boxes and Arrows method, which was imparted at a course from the University’s Institute of Social Research. I applied the method, complete with diagrams, to the remainder of my papers. I earned an A-. I was delighted and amused when my professor wrote on my final paper, “For better or for worse, you have learned to think like an anthropologist.”

THE BRILLIANT CONCLUSION—HOW TO DO IT USING CONCEPT IMPORTATION AND CONCEPT INTEGRATION

Nothing impresses an instructor more after grading a raft load of correct but uninspired, semi-identical papers, then a brilliant conclusion. Here’s how to arrive at it. First, after writing your paper, look up at the ceiling for ten minutes and ask yourself, “What now can I say about this subject that is original, brilliant, and illuminating?” At the suggestion of a colleague, a most successful business professor at Michigan State University, I did this and it helped. Eventually, I developed a method for it.

I call the method concept importation and concept integration. There is nothing difficult about it. It simply requires some intelligent imagination. What you must do is illuminate your thesis by taking a concept from another discipline and transporting it, that is, integrating it, into your paper. My fifth daughter, then a high school senior, used this method for a paper she wrote for an Advanced Placement course in American history.

Her assignment was to answer the question: Was slavery the cause of the Civil War? That was a fine AP question because it required students to think about causation in history. After conferring with me, she wrote in her paper that there are no single variable interpretations in history. In the case of the Civil War, there were several independent variables, the strength of which were affected by several moderating variables. She also employed boxes and arrows to illustrate how these variables worked together to produce the dependent variable, i. e., the Civil War. These variables included slavery, the states rights concept, the behavior of the political leadership, the Southern military tradition, the economic situation, religious concepts of slavery, the Southern sensitivity towards insults, and the Southern expectation that great Britain and France would support their cause.

That in itself would have been a good paper. But then she imported a concept from a totally unrelated discipline, i. e., physics, and, integrating it into a history paper, she used it to illuminate how the Civil War came about. Recall that force equals mass times acceleration, or F = MA. Applied to the causes of the Civil War, she explained that the several causes (those listed above) were masses that combined and thus accelerated over time until finally they became a historical force that made war inevitable. This is the importation and integration concept. Note that she was applying abstract concepts to realistic situations. Pedagogical theorists consider this evidence of high intellectual functioning. Furthermore, importing concepts from seemingly unrelated academic disciplines assists students to see the interrelatedness of knowledge.

My daughter received an A grade, compliments from other faculty members, and even a classroom visit from the school principal. Try it. Apply principles or concepts from the humanities to the social sciences, and/or to the natural sciences, or vice versa. In addition to writing impressive papers and earning “A” grades, you will re-enforce your learning. After all, nothing assists retention more than using what is learned. In fact, over time, you will learn to think well in many disciplines and that is one of the hoped-for end products of an education.

With a little imagination, you could probably think of illuminating instances to employ Newton’s familiar formula: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This may not seem to be the case in the humanities and/or the social sciences. A political candidate, for example, who has suddenly been the victim of a deliberate lie, would almost certainly react, although the reaction might be apparently greater than the original accusation. Such a reaction, however, might illuminate a psychological principle: When there is more effect then apparent cause, then you can be certain that you are not seeing the underlying cause/s.

A famous quotation might also serve to illuminate a conclusion. Ortega y Gasset’s dictum that “the first thing people do when there is a shortage of bread is burn down the bakery” might be an exaggerated, but still accurate, description of how too many Americans blame the oil companies and thus demand stifling regulations and even nationalization of the oil companies when gasoline prices substantially increase.

Of course you might import something from an identical academic discipline to make your point. While the dictum that “analogy is the weakest form of argument” is true, there are instances where an allegory will truly illustrate an event of a related nature. For example, when the ancient Romans lost the will to defend their borders, their cities were overrun by barbarian tribes, which hastened the demise of that once powerful Empire. A more clear analogy to illuminate what is happening along the southwest borders of the United States can hardly be imagined.

THE BRILLIANT CONCLUSION—VIA FLOW CHARTING, OR

CONSTRUCTING A DECISION TREE

Here’s a technique that lends itself especially well to papers in political science or economics. Principle: All legislation tends to have unintended consequences. That’s because in any society, but especially in a free country, the regulated can always move faster than the regulators. The best way to anticipate legislative consequences is to create a flowchart. Keep in mind that, whereas you cannot know how any one individual might react, you most certainly can anticipate what people in the aggregate will do. Remember—Collectively, people react as they are rewarded. Or, as is taught in business schools, administrators get what they reward—even though they often are not aware of what they are rewarding.

Example: When Congress increases taxes, the government expects to receive more revenue. That is only partially true. At a certain point, taxpayers will eschew additional work opportunities and/or they will make a determined effort to hide their incomes. Consequently, the expected additional revenue fails to materialize.

Specific example: In the hope of revenue enhancement, the state of Michigan levies excessive taxes and regulations on businesses. The unintended consequence has been fewer businesses created in Michigan and the emigration of many businesses to business friendly states.

RECALLING WHAT YOU LEARNED

There is a method to substantially re-enforce, retain, and recall what you have learned. Students insist that they cannot recall everything. That’s true—remember that the brain is a reduction instrument—but they can recall substantially more than they suppose. Think about it this way—You don’t have any trouble finding your way home from school, do you? That’s because it is important to you, and it is something you do often. Well then, do the same with the abstract concepts you learn in class and/or from reading.

Principle: You must apply what you learn. In other words, use it or lose it. This requires, and also stimulates, imagination. Incidentally, as a professor and as an instructor, I have noted that what separates good students from the outstanding ones is that the latter have a great deal of imagination. More on that later. Anyway, find opportunities to apply concepts. Only you can find ones meaningful to yourself, but here are examples of what I have done. Note: You can laugh about, but not at, the examples. Sometimes, creating amusing examples assists recall.

Example: While waiting for my family to finish shopping at a large mall, I was sitting where three long walkways came together. I watched hundreds of shoppers coming and going. I noted that younger, lighter persons tended to move in unpredictable patterns. Older, heavier persons tended to walk in straight lines. Suddenly I realized that they were all mimicking the actions of nuclear behavior. Lighter atoms tend to move more rapidly and less predictably than heavier atoms. The more I watched this phenomenon, the more I realized that I had discovered a way of watching atomic behavior, albeit with obvious limitations. I was providing myself with my personal “video” presentation.

Example: My eldest daughter and several friends created the following example. They had been shopping at the same mall (are malls educational, or what?) and called for a ride home. While waiting for me on a bitter cold night, they started jumping up and down in order to generate some body heat. Someone noticed that they were imitating the action of excited electrons. That led to an informative discussion of electron behavior. Again, silly or not, they were finding a way to re-enforce their classroom learning.

Example: Students complain that they cannot recall dates. Try this. When I check the time, I frequently try to match the time with a historically important date. If it is 6:22, I recall that in 622 Mohammed claimed to have a vision that led to the rise of Islam. If it is 7:32, I note that Charles Martel stopped the Islamic thrust into Europe in the Battle of Tours in 732. At 8:00, I can’t help but recalling that Charlemagne was crowned as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day, 800. At 10:54, it is the break of the Orthodox Churches from Rome. At 10:66 it is the Norman invasion. No, I do not do this all the time, but it is amusing and intellectually rewarding. It also helps past time during faculty meetings, an occupational hazard for professors and teachers.

Try to find instances where you can do similar matching of numbers to events. Opportunities abound. They will occur to you if you are ready. At Wayne State University, a colleague, well versed in Church history, was assigned locker 451. He immediately said, “Oh yes, the year of the Council of Chalcedon, which condemned the Monophysite Heresy.” Wish I had thought of that.

Watch license plate numbers. 1545? The Council of Trent convened that year. Or telephone numbers. 1815? Congress of Vienna. Sure, not every number can trigger some response. But try this method for a while and you might be surprised at how often you do match a number to an event. You might be thinking, “Wait, I don’t know many dates. How can I match numbers to dates I do not know?” You can’t. But once you start doing this, those dates are likely to occur to you. The game itself tends to improve your memory.

In all the above examples, I have provided methods to engage your mental apparatus. You can try those, or you can create your own. What you must do is keep your mind working all the time. Of course you must have regular “time-outs” for spiritual reflections. That is a subject beyond the scope of this essay. But if most of the time you are going through life with your mind disengaged, then you are not making use of a God-given gift. For mental matters, it really is a case of “use it or lose it.”

RECALLING, VIA CREATIVE GOOFING OFF, OR “WORK HARD, PLAY HARD”

Principle: Recall is dependent on what happens while you are learning. Principle: Retention is never a problem. The human memory is capable storing vast information quantities.

Principle: The problem is recalling information. Our early elementary teachers did something right when they had us take a break after a lesson. We would rise, shake a little, and maybe play for a while before going back to work. Experiments have proved that recall is substantially enhanced when, after you are taught something, you take a break, do something entirely unrelated, and then go back to work.

Why does this work? It works because your unconscious mind (Yes, there is such a faculty) needs a little time to assimilate new information. You can easily see that school days are organized to discourage recall. Students go to one class after another with only a five-minute break in between. Ideally, students should go to say literature class for 50 minutes, then take a 20-minute break. During break they could listen to classical music, meditate, take a karate class, or play basketball. What they do is not important. What they must do is take a non-academic break in order to allow the unconscious mind to assimilate the lesson. I suspect that recall of my high school material is especially acute because I daydreamed my way through classes.

The need for regular and fairly lengthy breaks between classes makes a powerful argument for home schooling. Because in formal schools, class sessions are organized to meet the needs of mass-produced students, the schools cannot organize in order to ensure maximum retention.

College students can structure their learning. When you are in college, avoid scheduling two academic classes consecutively, if at all possible. Take one class, then take a break during which time you do anything except study, then take another course. This is not to say that you must not be learning. By doing “anything but study” I mean that you should avoid the subject matter of the last course. Certainly you may watch TV news or read a book. One more point for college students: If you attend a university with a big time athletic program, and assuming you like sports, don’t eschew the games. If you have been working diligently at your studies all week, then spending several hours on Saturday cheering for your football team will not be time lost. Those games also allow the unconscious mind to assimilate new material so as to facilitate recall.

COMPREHENDING VIA CREATIVE GOOFING OFF, OR “WORK HARD, PLAY HARD”

Not only sports, but any “time out” session provides the unconscious mind with the time it needs to structure new material. Here’s what I mean. When presented with intellectually challenging new concepts, the mind requires a little time to, well, I am not sure what it does. So I call it “structuring, or making sense, of new material.” By experience and by personality, I perceive concepts as a liberal arts major does. But for various reasons, my professional career was in library and information science. And so in my middle forties I found myself doing doctoral work in that field. One summer I enrolled in two especially demanding social sciences courses in the University of Michigan’s Institute of Social Research.

I cannot recall the nature of the assignment that almost destroyed me, but one Saturday evening I worked on it from six until eleven o’clock. After five straight hours, I was baffled and frustrated. I simply could not understand what we were supposed to do. I did not want to quit until I was successful, but I realized I was getting nowhere. And so I went outside. About a 100 yards from our apartment was a playground. I sat on a swing. For fifteen minutes, I thought about nothing. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I perfectly comprehended the assignment. I rushed home, started typing, and within 45 minutes, it was done.

Fortunately, I had some background in psychology that somewhat explained what had happened, and more importantly, told me how to proceed in the future. I am not a cognitive psychologist, so I shall not attempt an in-depth explanation. Suffice to say that the mind needs a little time to come to terms with new and difficult concepts. That does not, repeat not, mean that you can understand these concepts simply by relaxing. Note what I had done—I worked five hours on that project. By that time, my mind somehow knew what I was trying to do. Then, and only then, I was ready for an answer. But it would not come unless and until I took time-out from the work.

This method can work for you too. It will, if you a) make a serious effort to understand subject matter, b) when you find that you cannot, take time out. Do something unrelated. I sat on a swing. Watching good television can help too. Anything can help, except trying to squeeze an answer when you are exasperated. The most important thing is to trust your unconscious mind. More than you might suppose, at some level, you know the answer. Trust that deep part of your mind and the answer will come.

MATHEMATICS

If, like me, you are, as they say, “mathematically challenged,” this section is for you.  I must admit that I am not well qualified to offer mathematical advice.  Therefore, what follows is a few brief notes from my son-in-law, who holds a doctorate in mathematics.

Doing math is really a matter of thinking logically. A very important outcome of higher education is the ability to think logically. A student should have control over his or her mind just as an athlete has control over his or her body. I will not go into the methods of logical thinking that you can learn from taking a course from a philosophy department. Suffice to say that in college, you should take such a course, and then use it.

In addition to logic, take courses in mathematics, including algebra and calculus. Wait! Come back! Remember, if you do as I advise, you will do well, even in advanced mathematics. You need not be a genius to do well even in advanced mathematics. In math, the basic requirements are intensive reading and a precise memory.

When you consider a math concept, theorem, or formula for the first time, don’t feel overwhelmed if it seems to make little sense. You are not expected to understand it immediately. The mathematician who developed it didn’t understand it right away either. Here’s what to do:

1. Read it. Then re-read it. Go back and read it again, word-by-word.

I have found that reading several different explanations of a concept is the best way to grasp really difficult math concepts. This is especially true when working with statistics concepts.

2. Write it. Now, copy it several times.

Don’t worry about understanding it, not yet. You may memorize it before you understand it. So what? Isn’t that how you cane to understand poetry and other non-academic concepts? Do not listen to those pedants who crusade against memorization by saying that there is no value in memorizing what you do not understand. When you memorize, you are giving awareness to that part of the mind that functions below the level of consciousness. That is why we so often suddenly develop an insight that we were not even thinking about. In those instances, our minds suddenly solved a problem. Trust your unconscious.

Note to teachers: Assign students to write an essay in which they explain a solution to a complex mathematical problem. The essay must not include numbers. Purpose: Requiring students to write about their mathematics concepts and then provide written solutions assists student comprehension. They need not write the underlying theory—that would be too demanding. They need only explain the problem and then provide a solution, in written form. In other words, do the problem, but do not use numbers.

3. Implement it. Try to do some easy problems.

As soon as you do these problems, return to the concept. I suggest that you try to re-write the concept as if you were writing a mathematics textbook, or as if you were a math tutor. When you can explain a concept, you understand it. You may find that you can improve on the author’s explanation. That’s a good sign. If you cannot solve the problems, don’t fall back on that ancient “excuse” that “I must be doing something wrong.” Instead, re-examine your understanding of the concept.

Remember, that math is not like other subjects. In the humanities or in the social sciences, you might only partially understand a concept and still be able to do well and receive a passing grade in the subject. In math, you understand the concept perfectly and totally, or not at all.