September 2025

There were 1,641 posts published in September 2025 (this is page 46 of 165).

Five of the Best Ways to Study (but Not Cheat) Using AI

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In the years since the launch of ChatGPT, AI tools have developed a bad reputation in the academic world for how easy they make it for students to cheat, passing off the work of a large language model as their own. Even if an LLM can produce writing for you that doesn’t come off as unnatural and riddled with hallucinations, you’ll be shortchanging yourself, because you won’t actually absorb any of the material.

But that’s not to say these tools serve no purpose in the academic world. If used correctly, they can actually help you study more efficiently. Here are five ways you can use AI in your schoolwork without cheating—or cheating yourself.

Use ChatGPT to discuss concepts

One study technique I’ve previously recommended is simply having a conversation with another person who doesn’t know anything about the topic you’re studying, to identify areas where your own understanding is lacking. It’s a great option because it helps you make connections between concepts as you’re working out how to explain them to someone else, and it boosts your confidence in the subject matter when you are able to present it as the expert. But you might not always have someone around to serve as the uninformed rube in your roleplaying, which is when ChatGPT can help you out.

When I was in grad school, I asked ChatGPT to allow me to “teach” it about a topic I was studying—community-based health interventions—and we “discussed” different levels of community engagement. ChatGPT actually had interesting questions that helped me think of creative solutions I could investigate in the course of my work.

As the American Psychological Association notes, going back and forth with the language model like this not only helps you think critically and creatively, it also helps you practice managing technology in our changing world—a win-win.

Use AI to summarize articles

If you have to read a ton of articles or reports, try getting an AI tool to summarize them for you. This is great when you need to compare similarities or differences between pieces of research or get top-line bullet points to help you round out a paper. I fed ChatGPT an old article and asked for a summary and the language model took about 30 seconds to condense 61 pages into one key paragraph, highlighting the study design, the study goals, its findings, and its recommendations. This gave me a good idea of whether it was worth further study.

If you’ve only got a few documents to read, it’s still best to do it yourself, but this trick that can come in handy if you’ve got a large number of them you’re looking to sort through quickly. Just make sure you double-check the summary against the source document before you take anything in it as gospel.

My favorite tool for doing this is Google’s NotebookLM. Despite my broader hesitancy about AI, I use this free software frequently because I find it’s more like a personal assistant than a source of knowledge. It is similar to ChatGPT and other language models in that you can ask it questions via text-entry box, but dissimilar in that it only pulls answers from resources you’ve provided it. You upload PDFs, links, YouTube videos, and whatever else you want to serve as source material, then NotebookLM helps you sort through that material.

When you’re using ChatGPT, it pulls answers from the entire internet, and can make serious mistakes as a result. With NotebookLM, anything it generates includes a citation you can click that reveals the exact spot it pulled the info from in your cache of resources. Instead of doing the work for you, this tool just helps you make sense of and organize all your materials.

Use ChatGPT to streamline your notes

If your notes are difficult to read or sort through, ChatGPT can help. In grad school, I assigned each of my classes a Google Doc and took notes in it all semester, but inevitably, each document eventually got disorganized, chaotic, and nearly impossible to navigate. As a test, I put my entire semester’s worth of notes for Research Methods into ChatGPT and asked it to pull out the most important information. Not only did it extract the nine steps of research planning and implementation and the principals of the Belmont Report (which were major parts of the midterm), but it reminded me how much of my grade was determined by each test, a fact I had apparently jotted down somewhere in that mess of words. It particularly emphasized things I had written down multiple times, creating a perfect study guide.

Use AI to create flashcards and quiz yourself

Flashcards and practice quizzes are excellent ways to study because they force you to use active recall to pull information from your memory. Making these materials yourself is smart, because even by sorting through your notes and writing down your practice questions, you’re studying. But I’ll be the first to admit that when I’m in charge of making my own quiz, I tend to go a little easy on myself. (When I’m both the student and the teacher, I somehow always get an A+. Funny how that works.) It’s better to outsource the creation of these materials to an unbiased third party, and here’s another area where AI can be helpful.

You can ask ChatGPT to make flashcards and quizzes, but its interface isn’t really designed for that, so what it will spit back is an outline of what your flashcards should include based on the notes or resources you upload. From there, you can make the cards yourself, and get to studying (I recommend drilling flashcards using the Leitner system, which is better for helping you retain information over the long-term). You can also ask ChatGPT to quiz you, but you have to be specific with your instructions: Ask ChatGPT to quiz you one question at a time, and to not move on to a new question until you’ve answered the previous one correctly.

But again, here’s where I recommend NotebookLM. It has built-in flashcard and quiz features that are much more interactive and easy to use. You can click a button to generate a multiple-choice quiz or flashcard deck based on the materials you uploaded. The quizzes and cards it creates are clickable, like a quiz you would take in an online class, and are based only on what you upload.

Use AI to outline essays and suggest sources

You definitely don’t want ChatGPT or similar language models to “write” your whole essay—more than cheating yourself out of the learning experience, consider the fact that your teacher may run your assignment through a tool like ZeroGPT to get a report on how much of it was likely written by AI, which probably won’t do wonders for your grade.

Instead, you can use AI tools to help you plan and organize your essays. I’ve already assembled a list of the best AI essay-helping tools, but here’s the gist: You can ask ChatGPT to help you brainstorm a topic or create an essay outline. You can also ask for suggestions for sources you can then research and add into your work that you wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

Two notes of caution: ChatGPT is sometimes known to make up citations, inventing a convincing article title and attributing it to a well-known source. This is why you don’t want to rely on it to fully do the work for you, whether writing or research—just use it to source suggestions that you can hunt down and evaluate on your own. It won’t take long to realize a source you’ve been given just doesn’t exist.

Likewise, when ChatGPT gives you a link to a source, it adds a little code at the end of the URL that says “/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.” Even if you’re being as ethical as possible and clicking every link to read the material fully and consider its merits, it’s a very bad look to have a bibliography full of links that make it clear you used ChatGPT for your research—a reader might even assume you had the AI write everything for you. So before turning in work, I recommend searching your documents for mentions of “chatgpt,” and deleting that sneaky bit of code from any URL where you find it. Snip out everything from the question mark onward and link will still work, but won’t make you look like you’re doing something untoward.

3 Knicks storylines to watch heading into 2025-26 NBA season

One of the most anticipated Knicks seasons in the last 30 years is almost here. New York will hold its first official practice on Tuesday to open training camp. The regular season starts in less than 30 days.

Mike Brown & Co. will use the next few weeks to determine lineups, rotations and strategies that work best for his group.

The coaches and front office will also decide which players stay on for the regular season.

There are several other important decisions/issues to sort out in the coming days.

With that in mind, here is a look at the biggest storylines to keep an eye on during training camp/preseason…

HOW DO ROLES GET DEFINED?

Something that held the 2024-25 Knicks back, in my opinion, was a lack of role definition. Will the Knicks and first-year coach Mike Brown clearly define each player’s role? I’m sure organizations/coaches have different approaches to this. Maybe some leaders like to let the players figure out their own role as the season progresses. Maybe they don’t want to be too rigid in defining roles. But last season, the lack of role definition led to some confusion in the locker room about shot attempts/usage. While this may seem like a small thing, it can definitely derail a talented team.

The Knicks obviously have a ton of talent. Defining roles for the talent on this team/holding players accountable to their roles is incredibly important, I think.

YOUTH VS. EXPERIENCE

The Knicks have a tough roster decision ahead of them: in a season where the expectation is NBA Finals or bust, is the club better off with younger players at the end of the roster or with proven vets?

If the Knicks want, they can keep veterans Landry Shamet and Malcolm Brogdon on the regular season roster. But they will probably have to sacrifice one of their young prospects in order to keep both veterans.

New York’s team salary cannot exceed $207.8 million, also known as the “second apron” in NBA team spending. The Knicks currently do not have enough room below the second apron to sign both Shamet and Brogdon.

So if they want to keep both veterans on the roster, they’ll need to shed some salary via trade. Trades involving Miles McBride, Pacome Dadiet or Tyler Kolek are the most direct paths to shedding that salary (though if the Knicks traded Kolek, kept both veterans and made no other trades, they would not be able to sign another veteran during the season).

As noted last week, I’d expect the Knicks to let things play out during camp/preseason before they made a move to keep both Brogdon and Shamet. But if I’m placing a bet at the start of training camp, I’m betting that both Brodgon and Shamet are on the regular season roster. This Knicks team is in win-now mode, and injuries to Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton give them a direct pathway to the NBA Finals. They know they have a great opportunity to be playing in late June. That’s why I think they’ll ultimately go with veteran depth in Brogdon and Shamet.  

STARTING LINEUP CHANGE?

Last season, the Knicks started Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns. The lineup showed early promise but struggled later in the regular season. That starting five had a -1.4 net rating in regular season games played on or after January 1, 2025. That starting five was also being outscored by a total of 50 points through the first 13 games of their 17-game playoff run. 

Former head coach Tom Thibodeau switched his starters after Game 2 of the Knicks-Pacers series, inserting Mitchell Robinson into the starting lineup. Hart came off the bench.

Will Brown stick with the lineup that was used most often in 2024-25? Will he make a change? Before Brown was hired, the Knicks’ talks with some free agents included the idea that Towns and Robinson would be starting together in 2025-26. Obviously, Brown will make the ultimate decision on the starting lineup. It’s arguably one of the most important decisions he’ll make in his first year in New York.

Why the Clippers should trade for Zion Williamson — now

Lawrence Frank has a decision to make. The LA Clippers president of basketball operations is undoubtedly monitoring the progress of the league’s salary cap circumvention investigation and evaluating the team’s exposure of possible wrongdoing in Kawhi Leonard’s alleged “no-show” job with a now-bankrupt bank Aspiration. 

The clock is ticking. Evidence continues to pile up. The shadow of NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s hammer looms overhead.

Frank can preempt all of that by pressing the nuclear option — trading all of the team’s available first-round draft picks. Because here’s the thing: In all likelihood, the Silver hammer won’t be dropping anytime soon, if it does at all. Considering the size and scope of the investigation with allegations dating back to 2021, it’s reasonable to assume it might take a year or more for the NBA’s commissioned firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rose & Katz to file its determinations.

Draft picks, suspensions and contract voidance are all on the line. But that all might not arrive until the 2026-27 season. Which means Frank has something of a free roll for the 2025-26 season.

Granted, the Clippers’ cupboard of draft picks is already bare. They’ve already sent out the 2026 and 2028 first-round picks. They’ve swapped the 2027 and 2029 firsts. They can trade two firsts — in 2030 and 2032 — and toss in a swap for 2031.

It’s a fascinating wrinkle to this entire saga. Would Frank dare? 

Any trade involving picks would be a strategic utilization of time-sensitive assets, not an admission of guilt. The Clippers’ title odds just got a shot in the arm, thanks to Houston Rockets star guard Fred VanVleet suffering a potential season-ending ACL injury. With Houston suddenly vulnerable, adding another weapon could vault the Clippers to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s tier. 

The Clippers could push all of their chips to the middle and float a draft-pick package — say, two unprotected firsts and a 2031 swap — and pursue another star to complement James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Bradley Beal and Ivica Zubac. Can you imagine if said star is the missing piece for the 2026 NBA Champion Clippers? That’d be quite the trophy ceremony.

But really, if the Clippers trade for a star using their picks, what could Silver do about it? As long as the investigation is ongoing, the answer is almost certainly nothing. Freezing a team’s assets for the duration of an investigation would cause an all-out revolt among the other owners — the opposite of Silver’s “innocent until proven guilty” decree last week. Ultimately, Silver’s hands would be tied until the verdict came in.

Yes, such a bold move might inject more venom in Silver’s punishment (if the NBA were to find wrongdoing). But if the Clippers could lose, say, five first-round picks, they might as well kick the can down the road and go all-in for the 2025-26 title.

So if I’m Frank, I go for it. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. This is the year. Heck, the Clippers are just about pot committed anyway. If Leonard’s contract is voided as part of the punishment as it was for Joe Smith in 2000, then the Clippers’ title chances in 2026-27 would go up in smoke (assuming, of course, they won’t be allowed to use the cap relief). Other teams would prioritize a future first-round pick from the Clippers knowing there’s at least a chance Silver goes scorched earth on ’em. The more Silver tightens the screws, the more valuable those picks will be. It takes two to tango, and both sides may want to hit the dance floor sooner than later.

Utah Jazz star Lauri Markkanen would be an ideal fit, but his contract ($46.4 million starting salary) will be tough to reach in salary matching, especially with newly acquired Clipper John Collins prohibited by league rules from rejoining the Jazz so soon. But there are other power forwards on the market who can slide right into the Clippers’ frontline. With that in mind, here are three stars they should pursue as they await Silver’s verdict:

If you’re able to stomach the injury-riddled Leonard, why not double down? From the Pelicans side, they sport a new front office led by Joe Dumars, and new regimes have been known to clean house so they can start with a blank canvas. It might be challenging to persuade a team to take on the three years remaining on Williamson’s contract, though he does have a unique contract structure that doesn’t fully guarantee his salary unless he hits benchmarks regarding games played and his weight.

For New Orleans, the unprotected first-round picks would be the crown jewel of a trade here, giving the franchise a fresh start to the Dumars era and mitigating the downside of trading an unprotected 2026 draft pick to move up to select Derik Queen at No. 13 this past June. Bogdan Bogdanovic (team option in 2026-27) and John Collins (expiring contract), unprotected first-round picks and three swaps would work cap-wise.

In this scenario, the Clippers would start Beal, Harden, Leonard, Williamson and Zubac with Chris Paul, Derrick Jones Jr., Kris Dunn, Nic Batum and Brook Lopez coming off the bench. Zion-Zu lineups could get cramped, but this is where the offseason signing of Lopez, an elite stretch 5, comes in handy. Teams trying to defend Williamson’s power drives will have to pick their poison as Lopez led all 7-footers last season in catch-and-shoot 3s.

I’m stretching the word “star” here, but Porter will likely be a rental for the going-nowhere Brooklyn Nets. It’s hard to imagine the Nets snagging a first-round pick for Porter, who is owed $38.3 million this season and $40.8 million next season, but the Clippers may be just the desperate suitor to get something done. Nets GM Sean Marks has been stockpiling first-rounders, as the team already received a 2032 first from Denver in the Cam Johnson swap this summer.

Adding to the intrigue from the Clippers side of things is Porter’s contract length. Unlike Williamson, Porter’s contract expires in 2027, which coincides with the end-date of just about everyone on the Clippers’ roster. Porter represents one of the top perimeter shooters in the game and an ideal fit next to elite rim-protector Zubac. I mentioned above that Lopez led all 7-footers in catch-and-shoot 3s last season. Well, Porter led all players 6-10 or taller in the same category.

The Raptors hit the Crtl-Z button on the one-time All-Star. After Masai Ujiri was abruptly let go following the draft, longtime GM Bobby Webster could look to unload Ingram’s three-year, $120 million contract extension that was agreed to in February. Ingram wasn’t allowed to be traded for six months, but that restriction was lifted in August — just in time for the Clippers to step in!

It’d be one for the history books if Ingram never suited up for the Raptors for a single game after being traded in early February. He dealt with a sore ankle for most of the 2024-25 season, but an injury-riddled star is nothing new for the Clippers. Ingram would have to slot over to the nominal 4 spot for the Clippers, but lineups with Batum, Leonard or Jones Jr. would ease much of that.

Why the Clippers should trade for Zion Williamson — now

Lawrence Frank has a decision to make. The LA Clippers president of basketball operations is undoubtedly monitoring the progress of the league’s salary cap circumvention investigation and evaluating the team’s exposure of possible wrongdoing in Kawhi Leonard’s alleged “no-show” job with a now-bankrupt bank Aspiration. 

The clock is ticking. Evidence continues to pile up. The shadow of NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s hammer looms overhead.

Frank can preempt all of that by pressing the nuclear option — trading all of the team’s available first-round draft picks. Because here’s the thing: In all likelihood, the Silver hammer won’t be dropping anytime soon, if it does at all. Considering the size and scope of the investigation with allegations dating back to 2021, it’s reasonable to assume it might take a year or more for the NBA’s commissioned firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rose & Katz to file its determinations.

Draft picks, suspensions and contract voidance are all on the line. But that all might not arrive until the 2026-27 season. Which means Frank has something of a free roll for the 2025-26 season.

Granted, the Clippers’ cupboard of draft picks is already bare. They’ve already sent out the 2026 and 2028 first-round picks. They’ve swapped the 2027 and 2029 firsts. They can trade two firsts — in 2030 and 2032 — and toss in a swap for 2031.

It’s a fascinating wrinkle to this entire saga. Would Frank dare? 

Any trade involving picks would be a strategic utilization of time-sensitive assets, not an admission of guilt. The Clippers’ title odds just got a shot in the arm, thanks to Houston Rockets star guard Fred VanVleet suffering a potential season-ending ACL injury. With Houston suddenly vulnerable, adding another weapon could vault the Clippers to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s tier. 

The Clippers could push all of their chips to the middle and float a draft-pick package — say, two unprotected firsts and a 2031 swap — and pursue another star to complement James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Bradley Beal and Ivica Zubac. Can you imagine if said star is the missing piece for the 2026 NBA Champion Clippers? That’d be quite the trophy ceremony.

But really, if the Clippers trade for a star using their picks, what could Silver do about it? As long as the investigation is ongoing, the answer is almost certainly nothing. Freezing a team’s assets for the duration of an investigation would cause an all-out revolt among the other owners — the opposite of Silver’s “innocent until proven guilty” decree last week. Ultimately, Silver’s hands would be tied until the verdict came in.

Yes, such a bold move might inject more venom in Silver’s punishment (if the NBA were to find wrongdoing). But if the Clippers could lose, say, five first-round picks, they might as well kick the can down the road and go all-in for the 2025-26 title.

So if I’m Frank, I go for it. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. This is the year. Heck, the Clippers are just about pot committed anyway. If Leonard’s contract is voided as part of the punishment as it was for Joe Smith in 2000, then the Clippers’ title chances in 2026-27 would go up in smoke (assuming, of course, they won’t be allowed to use the cap relief). Other teams would prioritize a future first-round pick from the Clippers knowing there’s at least a chance Silver goes scorched earth on ’em. The more Silver tightens the screws, the more valuable those picks will be. It takes two to tango, and both sides may want to hit the dance floor sooner than later.

Utah Jazz star Lauri Markkanen would be an ideal fit, but his contract ($46.4 million starting salary) will be tough to reach in salary matching, especially with newly acquired Clipper John Collins prohibited by league rules from rejoining the Jazz so soon. But there are other power forwards on the market who can slide right into the Clippers’ frontline. With that in mind, here are three stars they should pursue as they await Silver’s verdict:

If you’re able to stomach the injury-riddled Leonard, why not double down? From the Pelicans side, they sport a new front office led by Joe Dumars, and new regimes have been known to clean house so they can start with a blank canvas. It might be challenging to persuade a team to take on the three years remaining on Williamson’s contract, though he does have a unique contract structure that doesn’t fully guarantee his salary unless he hits benchmarks regarding games played and his weight.

For New Orleans, the unprotected first-round picks would be the crown jewel of a trade here, giving the franchise a fresh start to the Dumars era and mitigating the downside of trading an unprotected 2026 draft pick to move up to select Derik Queen at No. 13 this past June. Bogdan Bogdanovic (team option in 2026-27) and John Collins (expiring contract), unprotected first-round picks and three swaps would work cap-wise.

In this scenario, the Clippers would start Beal, Harden, Leonard, Williamson and Zubac with Chris Paul, Derrick Jones Jr., Kris Dunn, Nic Batum and Brook Lopez coming off the bench. Zion-Zu lineups could get cramped, but this is where the offseason signing of Lopez, an elite stretch 5, comes in handy. Teams trying to defend Williamson’s power drives will have to pick their poison as Lopez led all 7-footers last season in catch-and-shoot 3s.

I’m stretching the word “star” here, but Porter will likely be a rental for the going-nowhere Brooklyn Nets. It’s hard to imagine the Nets snagging a first-round pick for Porter, who is owed $38.3 million this season and $40.8 million next season, but the Clippers may be just the desperate suitor to get something done. Nets GM Sean Marks has been stockpiling first-rounders, as the team already received a 2032 first from Denver in the Cam Johnson swap this summer.

Adding to the intrigue from the Clippers side of things is Porter’s contract length. Unlike Williamson, Porter’s contract expires in 2027, which coincides with the end-date of just about everyone on the Clippers’ roster. Porter represents one of the top perimeter shooters in the game and an ideal fit next to elite rim-protector Zubac. I mentioned above that Lopez led all 7-footers in catch-and-shoot 3s last season. Well, Porter led all players 6-10 or taller in the same category.

The Raptors hit the Crtl-Z button on the one-time All-Star. After Masai Ujiri was abruptly let go following the draft, longtime GM Bobby Webster could look to unload Ingram’s three-year, $120 million contract extension that was agreed to in February. Ingram wasn’t allowed to be traded for six months, but that restriction was lifted in August — just in time for the Clippers to step in!

It’d be one for the history books if Ingram never suited up for the Raptors for a single game after being traded in early February. He dealt with a sore ankle for most of the 2024-25 season, but an injury-riddled star is nothing new for the Clippers. Ingram would have to slot over to the nominal 4 spot for the Clippers, but lineups with Batum, Leonard or Jones Jr. would ease much of that.

The ‘Leitner System’ Is a Better Way to Study With Flashcards

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Diversifying your studying techniques is a great way to stay more engaged as you learn new information, but know this: The classic methods are classic for a reason. Take flashcards, for instance. You’ve certainly used them in the past, but you may not have been using them in a way that maximized their benefits.

Behold the Leitner system, which provides more structure to the tried-and-true practice of studying with flashcards and might be the jumpstart your studying needs. This memory-enhancing method is best suited for when you have a substantial amount of time to learn your material, so avoid it for cramming. Instead, get going with it as soon as a semester or new chapter starts.

What is the Leitner system for studying?

This system was devised by science writer Sebastian Leitner in 1972, which is why he gets the honor of having it named for him. (It’s from his book How to Learn to Learn, but while old copies retail for about $4, they’re only available in German, so just trust me on this one.)

For the first few decades of its use, it relied solely on on physical tools: flashcards and boxes. (You’ll also need a pen or pencil to make the flashcards.) Writing out your flashcards by hand is generally a good idea, as handwriting something helps stick it into your memory, but these days, you have other, more modern options for your Leitner sessions. We’ll get to those, too.

At its core, this is a version of spaced repetition, an evidence-based technique that helps learners absorb numerous pieces of information and store them in their memory. The system is best used when you have ample time but have to learn a lot of concepts, phrases, or ideas—so use it for an entire course or a really hefty chapter instead of a section or topic that only includes a few new things to learn. Now let’s get into what it is and how to execute it.

How to use the Leitner system

Let’s assume for a moment you’re doing this the old-school way—relying on index cards and a pen. The first thing you’re going to do is make your flashcards. Don’t worry about the other steps involving the boxes just yet. Make the flashcards as you normally would by including vocabulary words, new concepts, phrases, important dates, and anything else you need to know. It helps to first use a reading comprehension technique to go through the chapter or subject at hand, so try the SQ3R method, which has you identify questions you have about the material before you start reading, then has you write down the answers to those questions as you find them, plus anything else you learn. You base those questions on subheadings, graphs, tables, summaries, and other key parts of the chapter, but you can later base your flashcards on those same pieces of information, plus the answers you find. Be thorough and include concepts and words you already feel confident you know, even if that seems silly. It’s all part of the Leitner method and will come in handy.

Once you have a comprehensive flashcard deck, it’s time to use the method. You’ll need five boxes (or envelopes or even labeled binder clips, as long as it’s something that can hold big stacks of cards). You should label them on a timeline, ideally by how long you have to grasp the information. If you have a big midterm in two months, for instance, label Box 1 “daily,” Box 2 “every other day,” Box 3 “weekly,” Box 4 “biweekly,” and Box 5 “monthly.”

Now, do a round of flashcards. Every card you get right, move to Box 2. Every card you get wrong, keep in Box 1. You see where this is going, but I’ll spell it out: Box 1 is a daily review, so you do those flashcards every day, but if you start this activity on a Monday and your Box 2 is designated for every-other-day study, you won’t return to that one until Wednesday. If you answer cards from Box 2 correctly, they’ll go to Box 3, which in this example is your “weekly” box. If you answer any cards in Box 2 incorrectly, you move those back to Box 1, where you’ll study them every day until you get them right.

In short, when you answer a card right, it moves forward into a box that will have you reviewing it less frequently. When you answer a card wrong, it moves backward into a box that will have you reviewing it more frequently. Eventually, you’ll have cards all the way down in Box 5. Those will be the cards containing information you have effectively stored in your memory and really grasp, so you don’t need to go over them as often. Cards in the lower-numbered boxes contain information you’re not retaining as well and should go over more.

Modifications and things to keep in mind about the Leitner system

How you use the system will depend on how much time you have to study, as well as how much you have to learn. For instance, if you have just a few concepts you want to drill or you have only two weeks until a big test, you might use three boxes to designated daily, every-other-day, and weekly study. You also have some wiggle room when it comes to incorrect answers. The most faithful adherence to the method would have you moving any incorrect cards all the way back to Box 1 no matter what box it had previously made its way to, for instance, but you can make a judgement call on whether getting it wrong one time means you need to study it every day or whether you think it should only be demoted one box. Personally, I don’t see the harm in demoting it all the way to Box 1; if you got it wrong due to a momentary brain fart, it’ll make its way back up to the higher numbers easily enough in time; if you got it wrong because the information truly slipped out of your memory, it deserves to get some daily attention until you know it well enough to advance it.

You also need to be strategic when you’re studying on a day that involves multiple boxes. If you start on a Monday and use a daily, every-other-day, and weekly setup for your first three boxes, for instance, Friday is going to be pretty big for you. Start with whatever the highest box of the day is, then move backward. By doing this, you’ll get to study any you got wrong and moved backward twice, but won’t have to study any you got right and moved forward twice. Plus, it’ll be a little confidence boost to start on the harder ones and get some right, moving them to a box you won’t have to look at for a while.

The goal here is to really hammer the cards that contain information that isn’t sticking for you without bogging yourself down studying things you already know. As more cards move into the higher-numbered boxes, add information from new chapters so your deck is a comprehensive overview of everything you’ll need to know for a cumulative test or, ideally, long-term in the real-world application of the information.

Apps can make this easier

Yes, the classic approach to this involves handwriting cards and physically moving them around in boxes or envelopes and while that can be beneficial in its own way, the process is also laborious, time-consuming, and a little hard to manage. Where will you store all those flashcards? Are you going to bring them around to study on the go? The answer is probably no, which means you may find yourself skipping some days if it’s not feasible to haul around a stack of cards—and that defeats the purpose of the system entirely.

That’s where apps come in. Always be wary when using your phone to study, since it only takes a few taps of your finger to get distracted by non-educational messages and apps, but honestly, flashcard apps make all of this a lot easier if you can exercise the self-restraint necessary to use them.

Flashcards in any form are useful, as they force you to engage in active recall and pull the answers from your memory, so any flashcard app you download is better than nothing. Be advised, though, that not all of them follow the Leitner method. For Leitner-specific flashcard drills, I recommend Brainscape (my personal favorite), Cram, and Flashcard Lab. You can read my full reviews of them through those links, but generally, Brainscape is a sleek and well-produced app that comes with a ton of pre-made decks and simple options for making your own, Cram is much more basic but easy to use, and Flashcard Lab creates flashcards out of your own spreadsheets so the production part is almost too easy. All of them let you indicate whether you got a flashcard answer right or wrong, then move it around in your schedule so you see it more or less frequently.

Outsourcing the creation and sorting of the cards to tech leaves more time for studying and streamlines the whole process, making you more likely to stick to your Leitner practice.

Prime Video hires Swin Cash for a unique position — NBA front office analyst

Swin Cash has had a unique basketball career as both a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player before working in the front office of the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans for six seasons, including as the team’s senior vice president of basketball operations.

That basketball resume was attractive to Amazon Prime Video. Starting this fall, Cash will appear on air in a front office insider role for Prime Video’s NBA studio show during the NBA season. She’ll then transition to a studio analyst for Prime Video’s WNBA coverage. Prime Video is expected to make a formal announcement on Tuesday.

“This role is still pretty new, and I’ve got a lot of respect for those who’ve paved the way, especially my girl, Amy Trask,” Cash said, referring to the CBS analyst and former CEO of the Oakland Raiders. “I’m excited to contribute to an already stacked broadcast team and bring a perspective shaped by my time as a player, analyst and executive. My goal is to give fans more than the box score, showing how teams think, why decisions get made, and what the process really looks like.”

The NBA will begin its new 11-year, $76 billion arrangements with incumbent ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Amazon Prime Video this fall. There has been a flurry of NBA on-air hires between Amazon Prime Video and NBC/Peacock. Among those added by Amazon Prime Video are play-by-play announcers Ian Eagle, Kevin Harlan and Michael Grady. The network’s analysts include Brent Barry, Blake Griffin, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Candace Parker, Stan Van Gundy and Dwyane Wade. Cassidy Hubbarth will be Amazon’s No. 1 sideline reporter when it begins NBA coverage next season. Taylor Rooks will host the studio show.

Cash, whose decorated career includes three titles over 15 WNBA seasons, two NCAA titles at the University of Connecticut, and two Olympic gold medals, said her role on Prime Video’s WNBA coverage remains a work in progress. She said what she hopes for Prime Video’s coverage, and WNBA coverage overall, is an increase in storytelling. She said she loved the attention “Stud Budz” — the popular Twitch show featuring Lynx players Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman — received during the WNBA All-Star Weekend.

“I’d love for us to go deeper with the coverage,” Cash said. “Storytelling is so important to bring fans on the journey. Not just with the superstars, but across the league.  Fans don’t just fall in love with a player’s game; they fall in love with the person, the personas. When we let people see who these women are, their stories, their grind, their humanity that’s how you build connection and grow the audience in a real way.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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Tatum leaves door open for potential return to action this season

Tatum leaves door open for potential return to action this season originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

For the past few months, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum has faced one of his toughest challenges yet as he works to recover from a torn right Achilles suffered in a playoff game against the New York Knicks back in May.

The six-time NBA All-Star and 2024 NBA champion was back in New York on Tuesday for his first interview on TODAY With Jenna & Friends, exactly 19 weeks from the day he was injured.

“I’m feeling better than I did yesterday,” he said when asked about his recovery. “It’s been a long, long journey. I tell people all the time, I’m getting there.”

Tatum was also asked about his mindset when the injury originally happened.

“I think just kind of going back to that day, so many things ran through my mind, especially on the ground, you just have this idea, right, I’m in New York, we’re trying to compete for our second championship, and just like that, it all changes.

“You know, for me, when I was a kid, I’ve had the same passion since I was 3. I always wanted to be kind of who I am, I could envision it, and it just kind of felt like it was taken away from me, and that was a hard pill to swallow. I was devastated, I was sad, I was emotional, and I did kind of feel betrayed by the game of basketball. Something I love so much that I gave my all to, that was just kind of like taken away. That was tough.”

Watch the full interview below:

Asked when he expects to be back on the court, Tatum was a little less open.

“That is the million dollar question,” he said. “I think for me and my team — the doctor, the organization — the most important thing is making a full recovery, being back 100 percent, not rushing it. But I haven’t said, like, ‘Yo, I’m not playing,’ or anything like that.”

“I have a goal in mind,” Tatum added. “What I will say is I’m not working out, rehabbing six days a week for no reason.”

He was also asked about his family, especially his oldest son Deuce and his mom Brandy Cole, and how much they’ve helped him during his long road to recovery.

“It’s been tremendous,” Tatum said. “Going through something none of us expected or thought would happen, having my mom, having Deuce and my youngest son Dylan, having my friends around when they didn’t know they were helping me just being around, being joyful, uplifting my spirits. Everyone knows my mom and Deuce are my best friends in the world.”

He said he actually lived with his mother for 10 weeks while rehabilitating, because he wasn’t able to go up stairs and his house doesn’t have a bedroom on the first floor.

“It was kind of like being in high school again,” Tatum said.

Tatum appeared on TODAY With Jenna & Friends to promote his partnership with Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He is a paid spokesperson for the company and used Journavx, a non-opioid pain medication they manufacture, during his recovery.