By Iden Bright, ’25
1. Either broaden your topic so much you could be talking about anything or narrow it down
to be crazy specific so it’s harder to fact check you. For example, only talk about brown
guinea pig babies.
2. Now you have to google furiously. Make sure you do this not on your school account and
open a private browser. Leave no evidence behind. Side note to this, don’t bother with
books. It will take too long.
3. Now you can either pick crazy facts that people have to google to find out if they are real
and are therefore impressed that you know such an abstract piece of information. Or you
could do normal things. Sticking with my example from before, guinea pigs are
mammals. This shows that you are not ignorant on the subject, but are not that great at
it.
4. Find credible sources to cite constantly. It doesn’t matter if you actually got your
information from there or not. As long as it sounds professional. For instance, I got my
information from ARPAS.
5. Keep it believable. No matter what, you can not go off onto a wild tangent on how brown
guinea pigs are born purple. No one will believe that and it will make you look like an
idiot.
6. Get people to back you up. You’ll sound less wrong if you have a legion of friends
backing you up that brown guinea pigs are indeed endangered.
7. Make sure there is not an actual expert in the room. This can threaten your chances of
believability.
8. Make a powerpoint presentation. No one who made a powerpoint presentation has ever
been wrong.
9. This one is optional, but helps with the illusion. Wear glasses and teacher clothes. It will
make you look smart.
10. If all else fails, actually learn about the topic. Remember, this is a last ditch effort and
should only be resorted to if you completely fail at the previous steps.