Research Heresy: As a high school student it was my ambition to become a librarian. As a result, my first paying job, as well as years of volunteer jobs and classes, were spent in libraries, working, studying their systems, and hiding out. This put me at a singular advantage all through college and grad school, and I was generally regarded by students and faculty alike as a sort of guru of library research. I could, and did, do major graduate research papers on obscure subjects in 3-7 days, start to finish, and get highest marks. So it was no great surprise to me when the faculty asked me to do a seminar on research for the assembled faculty and students in the department’s weekly lecture series. The faculty sat down expecting I’d give a serious harangue to my fellow students encouraging them to stick their noses to the grindstone of the library, and the students braced to snooze through yet another “scholarly paper”. I seemed to shock everybody, pleasantly or unpleasantly as the case may be, by actually explaining how I did my research. You see, because I understood the system, I understood how to “cheat” the system. So I explained that one could get information out of the library in bulk, in less time, without so much “nose to the grindstone.” I was, I’m afraid, even flip about it. And I admitted that the recent research paper I wrote that was considered by the faculty to be “of publishable quality” on French Revolutionary Festivals, was in fact the product of one weekend’s cramming. Well, the students didn’t fall asleep, and my advisers were looking not at all happy with me, but, I thought: “I have a mission here—I must lead the righteous to the path of better grades, no matter what the cost!” So I did. And here is my lecture (with some new tricks I’ve learned since):