3) The tips are written by actual scientists. In fact, that should say learning scientists.

This might be a controversial one – and I’m definitely not trying to say that teachers or journalists can’t effectively communicate about learning! It’s just that if the study tips are written by the people who actually researched them, it’s more likely that when they simplified the science, they picked the important points to focus on.

CAVEAT: A perfectly legit set of tips written by a learning scientist could get corrupted by the media. So if you know and trust the author, you may be more lenient on specific language, such as points 2 and 4 in this list.

4) The tips are not said to be “proven to work”, or even worse, “proven by science”.

The word “proven” is taboo in science. We don’t prove anything; we can only disprove, or find evidence consistent with an idea. Here is an excellent very short piece about this, which I recommend to all consumers of science.

5) You’re not told to “figure out whether you learn with pictures”, or any kind of style.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that matching learning strategies to preferred styles actually increases learning. So while you’re welcome to seek out the strategies that you enjoy, such as drawing what you know, if you see a questionnaire that purports to identify your “learning style”, run the other way.

6) They don’t contain platitudes like “everybody learns differently”.

I admit, this may be a personal pet peeve of mine, but I just can’t stand statements that are both totally true and totally false, to the point where they have no meaning. Is every individual unique? Sure. But do we all process and store information in the same way, and is it helpful to know how to use these processes most efficiently? I say yes. If you disagree, please provide evidence to the contrary.

7) You can find links to actual scientific studies that support the tips.

Although there’s a clear distinction between blog posts/journalism and academic writing, a good popular piece will include references or links to published papers. Beware of links to “evidence” which turns out to be other journalistic pieces that take you on an endless search for the original source (which then turns out to be an unpublished study done in 1972 on 8 boys).

Now, why don’t you try the following exercise: Google “Study Tips”, and see if the top 3 hits pass muster. And if you like, please feel free to post your analysis of a study tips page in the comments. This could also make a good student assignment!