MALP Specialists Training Manual

Most MALP tips, or at least most of the MALP tips that I've seen, leave out the very basic concepts involved in doing MALPs. They give you a few hints on how to do the current MALPs, but if you don't already know how to do MALPs, they aren't usually very much help. These tips that I've created and posted here are designed to teach you how to do MALPs -- not necessarily a specific MALP, but *any* MALP. Maybe you wonder why you should bother learning to do any MALP, since it does take time to learn, and often involves quite a bit of frustration at first, when others are happy to tell you how to do a specific MALP. One reason is that if you learn to do any MALP, you don't have to wait for others to write new tips when new MALPs are put up at the SGC, you can just go do the MALPs yourself instead, and be getting points while others wait for new tips.

First of all, I would like to take a minute to explain a few words that I invented a while ago that I, as well as many others who know me, or know those who know me, use frequently.  MALPing.  Simply put, to MALP is to do MALPs, and MALPing is the art of doing MALPs. Those who are skilled at doing MALPs I generally referred as either  MALP Experts,  or  MALPimaticians.

Second, some people like to print MALP tips. This can save time because you can look at multiple pages at one time, and you don't have to keep coming back to a webpage to look at them (though if you don't come look once in a while, you might miss new tips). Others prefer to bookmark the site the tips are located at and scroll through page after page. Which you do is of course up to you, but be forewarned that when making these tips, I deleted my previous tips, and not for the first time, so if you want these tips to be available for future use, your best option is probably to print them, unless you have a printer that overheats easily, in which case follow this one simple rule:  PRINT AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!  I don't want to be held responsible for anyone having to get a new printer because their old printer broke because it overheat.

Third, patience is a virtue, and persistance usually pays off. If you can't do MALPs at all right now it's unlikely that you'll be able to do them perfectly a day from now. Anyone who says otherwise is either misleading you, or knows something I don't. Don't expect yourself to learn all there is to know about MALPing after one day. I've been MALPing for a little more than seven months now (As of early November, 1999), and I still don't know all there is to know about MALPing. While I was learning, I found that practicing a little, and then doing something else for a while worked well to keep from getting sick of attempting MALPs. Trying until you're too frustrated, or sick of MALPs only discourages you, and seldom leaves you with any extra skills. This doesn't mean you should give up at the first sign of problems though, because if you don't try what you see, and practice what you learn, you aren't very likely to get very far in learning to do MALPs.

Enough talk, on to the tips!