Learn More Study Less Review

Check out Learn More Study Less here

Scott Young has really outdone himself this time, the long term blogger has put together a program which I’m about half way through. If you’re not just looking for study skill tips but a multifaceted study skills system to improve your learning skills then I highly suggest you check it out. So I’m not going to beat around the bush, here is exactly what you’ll get.

Learn More Study Less Review – Here are all the videos you get

1. First Steps with the Guide
2. Create a Killer Productivity System
3. Understand More with Metaphors
4. Remember Better with Visceralization
5. Speed and Active Reading
6. How to Study for an Exam
7. Image Association for Vocabulary
8. Holistic Self-Education
9. How to Set Goals You’ll Actually Achieve
10. Flow-Based Notetaking
11. Which Tactics Should You Use?
12. Your Three Month Action Plan

What I’m going to add in to Learn More Study Less

If you pick up a copy of learn more study less I’m going to do two things for you.

1. I’m going to give you a free semester setup guide so you won’t forget about tests, exams, papers or labs. This costs 46 dollars regularly and I’m giving it to you for free when you buy Learn More Study Less.

2. I’m going to give you a free half hour tutoring session where you’ll be able to work with me personally. This costs 75 dollars regularly and you’re getting it free with your copy of Learn More Study Less.

So you really don’t have any excuses, go check it out now and if you’re going to buy, remember to send me your receipt to liam@vtamethod.com so I can give you you’re bonuses.

I have spoken about college study spaces vs social spaces at length throughout this blog and with my online tutoring program. I think finding a solid study space is probably the best thing any student can do to focus their study methodology and get ahead of the daily workload college demands. With that in mind here is a quick review of the fundamentals of college study spaces.

Location, location, location

The same thing they say about real-estate is true in college study spaces, location is EVERYTHING! I’ve had a few great study spaces throughout my undergrad and graduate degrees which have served me very well, all those places had excellent location in common. Here are the fundamental things I look for:

• Ideally you should be more than 10 minutes away from a social space. This is important because you don’t want to tempt yourself with a visit to a friends place or a beer that’s only 5 minutes away.
• Internet should be restricted or unavailable. I worked in a Teaching Assistant office which had thick cement walls which made wifi impossible. This was a blessing in disguise as it required me to walk out of my office and get files/do research out in the hallway. I would focus my time on the work I needed to do with the wifi in the hall then I would go back to my office work. No facebook or instant messenger bugging me. I currently work in coffee shops which are also great as my shop restricts me to 2 hours of wifi. I get on, do what I need to do and get off.
• Make sure there aren’t any distractions at your particular study space. I like music and the white noise of random chatting which is why I like coffee shops. If you require absolute silence, go check out a library, wherever you go just make sure your location isn’t overly distracting.  Only you can really make the call as to whether a space is overly distracting, but if you can’t concentrate or are interrupted every 10 minutes, I’d choose another spot.

Have a predefined goal in mind when you go to your study space

When I go to my study space I’m there to work, so that means no distractions like facebook, phone calls or instant messages. However, this is easier said than done. Without a predefined goal in mind the demon of procrastination will inevitable raise its ugly head as you won’t have a predefined set of goals. I’m a big time proponent of goals as many of my readers already know. Without a goal in mind you have nothing to work towards. I also suggest small goals, always aim for less than you’re truly capable of. So as an example instead of telling yourself you’re going to write 20 pages for your upcoming history paper instead make a specific smaller goal of writing 3 rough pages this hour and then after that define a new goal. This way you always stay motivated and always feel like you’ve accomplished what you’ve set out to do.

Make a STRICT division between your study spaces and social spaces

I’ve already touched on this above but it’s so important that I’m going to reiterate it here. It’s crucially important that you divide your study spaces and social spaces. This is important because if you infect your study space with socialization you’ll become socialized to that behaviour. As an example, the same concept can be applied to exercise; you wouldn’t eat a chocolate bar on a treadmill would you?

Here are some stereotypical distractions that can infect your social space and specific strategies to avoid them:

• People approaching you in your study space: This happens to me constantly in my social space (it just happened about 5 minutes ago). One way to nip this in the bud is with ear buds. You can pretend not to hear strangers and with friends you can pull out one bud, quickly return a response and replace your ear bud. After a couple interruptions friends get the message that you’re there to study.
• People having loud conversations beside you: This happens a lot in coffee shops but can be found anywhere (I once watched a screaming match between a couple in a library for 15 minutes, entertaining but not productive). Easiest way to stop this from happening is to turn on some music and tune them out. Noise cancelling earphones are another good option which I know a few of my students use.
• An important call/email/instant message that is coming in soon: This is a personal demon of mine, if I have a specific person I want to hear back from I sometimes fall into the habit of constantly checking my phone/email until it finally arrives. One way I’ve cut down on this is by employing a bit of a mental mind shift through the realization that checking will not make it arrive any faster. Trust me, no matter how many times you check your messages you’ll never be able to make that email or phone call arrive faster. So just sit back, relax and focus on the task at hand.

What will creating a study space do for your college career?

Very simply, everything… Creating a space in which you focus on a specific goal without the distractions of everyday life will completely revolutionize your study methodology. I suggest you try out a study space for 2 weeks as an experiment and see what it can do for you. I force each of my vtamethod students to do this and most see amazing results.



So my brother has opened up a new blog called psone classics. He’s written up a little article on responsible gaming in university. Please check out the post and take a look at the blog.

Video games are a great way to entertain yourself, they’re relatively cheap, engaging, and if you have friends that play as well, they can even be social. But sadly there is a dark side to gaming, and many of us have seen friends slowly disappear to the cave of their dorm rooms with a computer loaded with World of Warcraft, boxes full of energy drinks, with friends and homework forbidden inside.

This is a sad thing, seeing your friends disappear into that world, where nothing else matters but that next item they’ve been working towards, or that boss they need to slay before they can sleep for the night. It’s really tragic to see this take hold on a friend of yours, but even worse when you become that cave dwelling Red Bull guzzling potato.

How can you avoid this gruesome fate?

This list will help.

(I mean, if you don’t stay in school and get a good job, where will your gaming budget go? Down that’s where.)

Part One, Choose the right games.

The Campaign in this game took 5 hours, the online can span hundreds.... - Image via Wikipedia

First off, you need to move away from the “games with no end”. W.O.W. is the big one, but there are others out there, like the multi-player shooters, Team Fortress, Call of Duty, Left for Dead… These games are all a ton of fun, but because they have no end (W.O.W. more so and the others through multiplayer) it’s easy to get addicted, and because there’s no end, nothing is there to make you think twice about gaming all night (and it’s something that happens quite regularly). Playing games with a storyline that has a beginning, middle and end are a much safer bet, once the story is finished there’s a sense of closure. Afterwards sleep seems like an interesting reprieve, and of course, that paper that needs to get done by Friday.

Part Two, use games as your reward.

This is something I do a lot of. When I’m really looking forward to a new release, I’ll pre-order it, and put it on my TV. I also take a post-it note and write a goal on it, then stick it to that pristine box with that sure to be interesting game I’ve been waiting for inside.

This gives you something to work towards, perhaps it’s a reward for finishing your exams, or for completing your last assignment in this way you can make your gaming habit work for you instead of it working against you.

(there is also some research to suggest your gaming habit makes you smarter, check out the link at the bottom of this post)

Part 3, If you’re an online gamer.

If you’re an online gamer and many of you are, there is one trick that will help you not get SO addicted to playing online, that trick is to only play with people that you know in real life.

When someone gets addicted to an online game such as World of Warcraft, they not only get addicted to the gameplay, but to the social aspect as well. A few game companies have realized this and released games such as Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. on social media sites not only to get them to play those games, but make it so if they quit their habit (of playing an MMORPG or something like Farmville) they’ll lose those people they knew online.

If you were seriously addicted to playing Farmville for instance (a game on Facebook) you’d have to leave the site, because half of all the updates now are “Jenny found a sad little cow on her farm in Farmville, will you help her?” Imagine the power that has, making not only the work you put into the game something you’d lose, but friends as well.

Boiled down, if you play online, have a guild, etc, make it a local guild that does things other than play games together, then you’ll have real friends instead of just nameless people you meet on the internet (not real friends).

Part Four, Use your time wisely.

If you’re studying you need a lot of time to get all your assignments, labs, and papers finished and up to par. But you need time to unwind as well. Gaming works well in this regard as a great source of escapism, but there’s a time for it.

Make a schedule with all the classes, meetings, studying and workouts you have to do, and make some time specific for gaming. If you don’t you’ll run the risk of trading sleep time for game time, or friend time for game time. Even if you have a night of the week that you take off to unwind, that’s ok, but it’s important to keep to your schedule, and have your important goals (studying!!!) levied first.

Part Five, One game at a time.

One at a time Guys - Image by Adam Jarmon Brown via Flickr

If you’re a big gamer like me, you walk by the local game store and see those wonderfully cheap games sitting there in the used games bin, and sometimes you can’t help but pick one up. This is fine, but there’s one very important thing to remember, gaming is like studying, focusing at one thing will save you a lot of time. So in this regard, only play one game at a time!

Having many games on the go at one time will slow you down, and when one game isn’t going well, you’ll skip to the other one, and by the time you get to your third you’ll realize,

You haven’t had any fun, and spent your time being frustrated,

not progressed in any one game, just tread water in a few,

and made you think you need to buy a new game because these ones are either too hard or not fun enough.

Playing one game at a time, keeps you moving (in the game) and gives you that feeling of satisfaction when you finally complete it instead of it just going on your shelf, or under your bed, or… where ever you keep your games.

Bottom line is, Play one at a time, if it’s too hard, take a break (or read a walkthrough if you’re really stuck). Those problem solving skills will love you for it.

So, there you have it, a few tips on how to keep that gaming habit of yours in check. If this list prevents just one of you from chasing the World of Warcraft dragon I’ll have done my job. Keep studying hard and gaming right.

Brennan M Guest blogging from PSOneClassics.com

I’ve spoken at length about procrastination in previous posts however I had a recent conversation with a student who got me thinking about a new aspect of procrastination and how to conquer it. My student started out with a B- average and went to an A- average in a single semester based on what I’m going to share with you today.

But first a little history…

Historically I had always attacked procrastination the way most people do. I’d keep telling myself to ‘get shit done’ and when I didn’t get said shit done I would wonder why I wasn’t capable of getting said shit done. This followed me for years and years. I’ve also spoken to hundreds of students about this particular issue. I’ve also found a solution that works for me and most of my students but it’s more complex than you think. You see ‘and this will be difficult for quite a few of you’ I’m going to share with you a cold hard truth that very few students realize but nonetheless is central to your overall productivity and long term success.

As the head tutor for the virtual teaching assistant method I do an initial phone conversation with each of my students so I know which tutor to match them to and to answer any questions they have before beginning the program. I had a young student who had been battling procrastination. He asked me why he was constantly procrastinating on papers and studying and losing focus in lectures and readings. He had also told me that he had already tried all the stereotypical anti procrastination techniques like creating to do lists (which he didn’t follow), a semester plan (which he never followed) and keeping a daily planner (he had one but he used it four times during the entire semester). He said that he could never stay committed to any of these reminders and asked me what he was missing.

The Basis Of Procrastination

I sat there, going over what he had just told me and realized that he didn’t miss a thing. He was doing EVERYTHING RIGHT and none of what he was doing was resulting in winning marks. If you’re reading this then you’ve probably achieved at least a 6^th grade reading level and you’re probably a high school or college student who is trying to figure out how to banish distraction just like my student. You’re probably thinking that I have some kind of secret kernel of knowledge that I’m about to share with you that will automatically make you a focused and therefore successful student. Fortunately I do have a solution to overcoming procrastination; unfortunately it’s not what you think. You see the reality is that my student could become a ‘focused’ student and banish distraction by completely changing his mindset, personality and upbringing by reprogramming his mind to get his work done on time and I do offer those tools through my book but to be honest with you the insights I provide in 30 mins a day to a 4.0 gpa aren’t much different than any other study book when it comes to procrastination. The reality is that (and this will be hard for you) IF YOU ARE LAZY YOU WILL MOST LIKELY ALWAYS BE LAZY

Sorry, it’s true.

If you’re lazy now chances are you’ll be lazy for the rest of your life without a lot of due diligence or self reflexive work to change your mindset. But don’t worry I’m lazy as well and my student and we’ve both become amazingly successful based on this amazing and kind of weird insight.

Overcoming Procrastination Is a Team Sport

Lazy people need other people to keep them accountable, whether its friends, family, study buddies, roommates or trained professionals like those at the virtual teaching assistant method. The fastest and easiest way to success is getting somebody else to keep you accountable. To prove this to you I’m going to tell you exactly what I did with my student and the results.

My student started out with a B- average which to be honest with you isn’t that bad considering he was at a very competitive college and an even more competitive field. He saw some massive improvement after we implemented the following changes.

• My student bought 2 hours a tutoring per month
• He gave me his syllabi and I created auto responders for him 4 days before each test/exam/paper and gave him further auto responders 3, 2 and 1 day before each exam or paper.
• I got him to recreate the same auto responder sequence on a 4 semester white board which I got him to hang up in his study space. I also programmed google calendar with those same due dates which he could download to his ipod.
• I got him to submit his papers and exam study notes 3 days before it was due to his virtual teaching assistant. If it wasn’t submitted in time, his VTA gave him a call and started yelling at him.

The Result?

He went from a B- to an A- average in a single semester. He had all his assignments, papers, exams and tests finished or prepared for 2 days before the due dates and he ended up with a whole lot less stress at the end of the day. Even if you don’t hire one of us remember that changing yourself is difficult, making sure others keep you accountable to those changes are a lot easier. Overcoming procrastination isn’t easy, make sure you have someone with you to keep yourself accountable.

Hello fellow students

As the holiday season is quickly approaching I wanted to extend my warmest holiday wishes to everyone that has been supporting us over the last 6 months and I’d also like to provide everyone with an update on my little company, how it’s progressing and what other education programs I’m putting together in the new year.

Virtual Teaching Assistants Progress Thus Far

As of today, I’ve gotten dozens of students, hundreds of emails and 12 employees. Our students have done very well, some students have gone from failing classes to passing those same classes in a matter of weeks. Others have gone from B’s and C’s to A’s in the same amount of time. Also, we’ve had zero refunds which is really a testament to my virtual teaching assistants and their commitment to help students achieve academic success.

Challenges Virtual Teaching Assistant Method Has Faced

We’ve also had quite a few challenges, we currently updated to a completely new shopping cart system, I went through a lot of trial and error with pay per click adverting until figuring it out and I’ve been putting way too much work into my little company while it expands.

What’s coming to the Virtual Teaching Assistant Method

I’ve got a lot of new stuff coming down the pipe that we are all pretty excited about. Next year is going to be about specification. I’m going to offer programs specifically in tune with different degrees. I’m going to work on getting more tutors so I can serve you better and I’m going to start hiring some more people on so I can take some time off. For my students, thanks for staying with me and for those that aren’t what are you waiting for?

Liam McIvor Martin

First look at Learn More Study Less 2nd Ed

Hello fellow students, I’m excited to finally talk to everybody about a new project Scott H Young and I have been working on for the past few months and are now ready to debut to the world. Off the massive popularity of Learn More Study Less first edition, we are both happy to announce a second edition of the book which is packed with even more great content than the first edition. Here are some of the big changes we’ve made to the second edition.

A two and a half hour Video Course

We’ve added a full video course with me ‘Liam McIvor Martin’ and Scott H Young where I ask Scott the questions everyone has wanted to ask him since LMSL 1^st edition came out. He explains all his concepts from LMSL 1^st edition and expands on some new concepts that will really revolutionize your learning style.

A ton of bonuses

We’ve thrown in a ton of bonuses, such as a free one month subscription to the academic success club where you get monthly one on one interviews from university pro’s who have gotten into some of the best graduate schools in the world, gotten college completely paid for, gotten straight A’s without a lick of studying and much more. You also get a free copy of ‘How To Get Into Grad School’ which I’ve thrown in as a free bonus and another bonus we’ve been keeping under wraps just for those that sign up within the first month (trust me it’s really good).

A ridiculous guarantee

We’ve also thrown in a ridiculous guarantee to get as many people as possible interested in the book. First off we are giving everyone a 120 day guarantee! Scott twisted my arm on this one and in the end I agreed as everyone who bought the first edition of his book was very happy with it. Secondly, we are offering a learning guarantee, if you implement some of the changes in the book and can’t figure them out, we will sit down with you until you start to get it, absolutely free! Thirdly and most ridiculously, if you implement everything in the book and you aren’t on your way to becoming a super learner, we will give you DOUBLE what you paid for LMSL second edition.  We are both so confident that everyone will be so happy with this book that everyone will forget about the guarantees once they start reading it.

So if you’d like to see a free video on the book where we give you a free taste of the program, go check out effective study skills.

Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Hello Fellow Students!

The new semester is quickly approaching and I have gotten an email from a student who has asked me for some advice on preparation for the new semester.  I wrote him a pretty in depth email and thought I’d just repost it here.  Enjoy!

There are in my opinion four fundamental things you must prepare yourself for to be not just a successful student but a successful university participant.

Prepare a strong study skills plan

Get a plan on how to achieve college success and analyze it.  The best laid plans are sometimes doomed to failure from the start if you don’t analyze your plan for weak points and shore them up.  As a perfect example if you plan on studying 4 hours a day, is that realistic when you only studied 4 hours a week last year?  How are you going to stay accountable to your new plan? (hint hire a tutor, which this student already did)  What are the consequences when you don’t meet your study plan?

Stay in shape, eat healthy and don’t drink in excess this semester

Get some exercise at least three times a week.  What I define as exercise is actual sweating for 30+ minutes.  Eat a plate of live vegetables and drink a liter of water before consuming any junk food.  Have 2-4 drinks during an evening and try not to drink more than 3 nights a week, preferably only one if you can do it.  Also, don’t spend all your free time running after women, this can become a huge distraction for some guys and girls!  Keep yourself focused on your goal, which should be learning and getting a 4.0 GPA.

Have set college goals in place

In continuing on the goal theme, it is important to have a focused set of goals with specific dates.  Make these goals simple and achievable and plaster them everywhere.  On your computer screensaver, daily email reminders, on your ceiling and anywhere else you usually lose focus.  Also give your tutor a set of these goals and make sure to tell him/her that you want to be reminded of these goals regularly and should be asked for updates on how your goals are going.

Plan to do something extraordinary this semester

Plan to do something that you’ve always wanted to do.  This needn’t be expensive, just something ‘epic’.  Jump out of a plan; get in a cage fight etc.  Here are some examples of extraordinary things I’ve done:  When I spent a semester in Italy, I had to goal of getting in a fight with an Italian, which I accomplished within my first week.  I wrote an article that was published in a journal in third year.  I’m planning to go on a retreat within the next six months and become a Buddhist monk for a month.  I feel like many students get caught up with school and you should always try to pepper in a little extraordinary in the mix, something you can tell your friends about for years to come.

Hope this helps

Liam McIvor Martin

If anyone is interested in my program producing a complete study skills program for you, please check out our online tutoring program.

Michelle as a teenager

Hello Fellow Students

I recently watched the Ted Talk with Michelle Obama who was speaking about the future of education for women.  The part of the speech that impacted me the most which I believe transcends sex is her description of her study habits.

She quote “never cut class” and “liked getting A’s” and thought that “being smart was cooler than anything in the world.”  What an interesting concept!

Now even though my book is called “Study 30 Minutes A Day and Get A 4.0 GPA” I’m still a proponent of Michelle’s standpoint of education.  I get a LOT of flack from people who don’t agree with the title of the book.  But, once I explain to them that I teach students learning techniques rather than studying techniques and that I suggest to my students to take a class they might fail to expand their learning, they usually understand.

Learning and effective study skills is in my opinion the most important skill you can teach students, unfortunately many of the students I encounter lack the basic study skills necessary to think critically, or even think regularly lol.

So for all those that are interesested, please take a look at Ms Obama’s speech with the following question in your mind.  Do you think the philosophy of education Michelle is espousing is possible in our current society?  Or do you think we have to coax our students into this kind of thought process by buying them off with flashy titles like study 30 minutes a day and get a 4.0 GPA?

Liam McIvor martin

Hello fellow students.

As a tutor for university students I usually get hired not by unintelligent students or even lazy students but students that want to get ahead and truly compete in the increasingly competitive global economy.

I’d like to give you a few awe inspiring student statistics:

“Statistics indicate that the number of university students in China has increased rapidly in recent years, from 1.08 million in 1998 to over 17 million in 2003.” Asia Times

“The India Science Report, for instance, shows that India had a total of 48.7 million graduates in 2004, up sharply from 20.5 million in 1991. And while just around 29 per cent of those enrolled for graduate courses went in for science in 1995-96, this is now up to 35 per cent.” Rediff News

15.6 million students are enrolled in post secondary education within the United States in 2009 an increase of over 2 million from 2000 which saw 13.2 million students registered.  National Center for Education Statistics (Figure 10.2) with 2.2 million graduate students (Figure 11.1)

Here is the reality, right now for every western student who has a post secondary degree there are 10 more in non-western countries, who are just as smart or smarter, work for less money and have gone through 10 times more hell to get to where they are now.  They are GOOD students; they are going to be even better employees.  As a western student who is either beginning or finishing off their university career, it can be scary to think about this.  I mean once employers figure out they can hire 10 Indian MBA’s for the price of one western one, it’s going to be a new ballgame.

So how can students stay competitive?

There are still many advantages to a western degree, as an example, usually if you belong to an international caliber school (a top 10 school like Harvard, yale, oxford etc) you’re probably going to be ok, you might not automatically be pulling in six figures out of your undergrad but you’ll be ok.  Getting one of those fancy degrees myself, it definitely opens up doors.

Now for the rest of you that go to a good middle tier school, you are simply going to have to adapt to the new reality.  The new reality being, university does not automatically mean you are going to get a good job or any job at all.  You are going to have to learn how to be competitive in this economy.  Here are my personal top choices:

Do NOT specialize in University

Almost all students look to specialize in university, hell I did it!  But I quickly discovered that going to graduate school and specializing in transnational immigrant digital diasporas wasn’t automatically going to get me a job as the 5 jobs in the world that demanded my degree were already taken.   Be adaptable!  Choose huge topics and learn a little about all aspects of it.  The more specific you get the less jobs you will be open to.  Oh and by the way, the more education you have the smaller your chance of getting hired into entry level positions as most employers won’t take the chance on training a highly educated employee just to see them leave three months later for a better gig.

Don’t count on your education as your first tool in the globalized economy

Education shouldn’t be your first tool in staying competitive in the globalized economy.  Many of your international competitors have had to invest 16 hour days since they were twelve to get into university.  You on the other hand have had the advantage of not being an education thrall and have been able to hopefully fill your life with varying experiences.  Take advantage of this and make sure you have a multivariate set of skills.  Contemporary employers are looking for students that can do anything and everything. They are not looking for specialists or people who just have a lot of degrees; they can find those in India at 10 cents on the dollar.  I had a student who just recently got a great position because he added that he was an SEO (search engine optimization) expert along with his degree in psychology.  This extra skill got him his social worker job and unofficial website tech guy for the office.

Try to learn something that can’t be outsourced

Do not turn your nose up at being a plumber or carpenter, some make six figure salaries and are more creative in their jobs than any cubical gnome.  If you want something a little more respectable, try a doctor, social worker, or educator (although I make a good living at outsourcing that).  Here is a good rule of thumb to pass the outsource test that I came up with after I read The World Is Flat by Friedman, ask yourself, can my work be digitized?  If it can’t you’re safe, if it can, prepare to compete against your new Indian and Chinese co-workers.

What will the future hold for western students in the globalized world?

The reality is that education is still one of the most important things I think anyone can do to improve their life.  However, education doesn’t have to start and end in a classroom.  Or be the be all and end all of getting a new job.  I know many students who after getting their masters in philosophy for instance, went on to be great company managers, or entrepreneurs or plumbers!  Be adaptable, be broad in your educational outlook and above all be wary of your growing international competition.

I came across a wonderful little website ‘flashpapers,’ I would link to it in the post but I don’t want to be connected with them in any way.  This website claims it will give you a fully customized paper just in time for finals!

I’m sure this is an expanding market, where teams of highly educated outsourced third world employee’s labour away to give Johnny or Lucy a paper just in time for finals.  But, the risk of being charged with plagiarism or academic fraud far outweighs the gains.  I’ve been offered extravagant amounts of money to write papers and pass students as a teaching assistant and lecturer.  In my college tutoring business I’ve also been offered money from my own students to just ’solve their paper problem’.  Each time I’ve refused, first because it is fundamentally wrong and second because of the possible ramifications.

What happens when you are caught cheating

Although I’m sure most university students all get that flyer at the beginning of the semester outlining what plagiarism is and why it’s wrong, the majority of students don’t actually know what happens to you if you are caught plagiarizing.  I’ll start by defining how plagiarism is confirmed.  Other than using software which can scan papers for plagiarized content which is illegal in some schools, there are three steps.

Step 1: Your professor or TA suspect’s plagiarism while marking your paper and throws the suspected content into the search engines (google scholar, journal databases etc) to find if the content is directly copied.

Step 2:  If the content is not found online but plagiarism is still suspected, the paper is given to a second reader (usually a TA) who is told to look over the paper for inaccuracies.

Step 3: If the 2^nd reader comes to the same conclusion then the paper is officially suspected of plagiarism and the best punishment is decided.

There are three possible outcomes once plagiarism is suspected and confirmed.

Outcome 1: The student is confronted, if he/she confesses then the matter is dealt with unofficially with either the student taking a failing grade on the paper or even the entire course but not permanent mark is left on the final transcript.

Outcome 2: The student confesses but it is not his/her first offence.  In that case formal charges may be brought against the student where the student can be suspended for the semester and in most cases a permanent record of plagiarism is placed on the student’s transcript.  (Just as a side note, if this happens to you, grad schools won’t accept you, you won’t be able to get a government job and you’re all around screwed, so don’t do it)

Outcome 3: The student says they are innocent, a formal investigation is levied and a tribunal of professors and sometimes student representatives is formed to investigate the accusation.  If the student is found guilty (I haven’t heard of many cases that have found the student innocent) they usually have the year or degree completely taken away from them.  The lesson here is to confess, you’ll get off much easier if you do.

Why it’s better to fail then to plagiarize

With companies like ‘flashpapers’ who can create custom papers for you, it is becoming increasing easy to cheat and many of you might think of trying this as an alternative to failing your paper.  You may even think that this is a victimless crime, as nobody will know you cheated, and unfortunately you’d be right.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned but I believe university isn’t a place to just to get a mark but to actually learn.  Remember that education, much as life is about the journey not the destination and taken a short cut is not only wrong but I guarantee you’ll regret it eventually.

For those companies that are selling these papers.

Shame on you and get an honest job.

Liam McIvor Martin

For those that want to hire honest academic help go check out my online tutoring program.