Marking up the Page
I use a simple system of marking up the clues and certain cells that
shows me what I want to pay attention to after I'm finished. I mark the clues in two
ways, and I mark the grid in two ways. If you don't have your own system, you should
consider this one and adapt it as you like.
If I find a clue whose answer makes no sense to me or provides a
relationship that is new to me, I mark it with a slash from just left of the clue number
down and to the left (which is why when I cut out the puzzle each day from the newspaper I
leave a little extra room on the left and bottom edges). Then I can look up those words right
then and there just to learn the relationship better, although some of them I can't look
up which means I want at least to verify in the next day's paper whether I got the answer
right and then to look up anything else I can.
If I suspect an outright error, as opposed
to a mere typo, I use the same slash mark but I write in a question mark through it and
keep the puzzle forever or until I'm satisfied it's not a mistake.
In the grid, I mark an oversized X in a cell whose
contents are a complete mystery to me -- where I just have no worthwhile guess at all. I hate these.
If I'm pretty sure (as opposed to positive) about a letter, I go
ahead and fill it in and then I put a big circle around it. If there's a whole
region I'm not sure about I just circle it without bothering to mark individual cells or
clues. I hate these more.
Then, of course, the next day when I can learn what the answers were
I can spot the questionable cells instantly because of the X's and O's.
Often enough the next day I'll find myself looking up some word or
other in those stated relationships, and it's this clean-up work that provides me with
opportunities to learn at my leisure yet more facts.
Three more tips:
- Write your letters in the lower right corner of numbered cells rather
than in the center, for a few reasons. One reason is that if you accidentally
obscure the number in the upper left corner, it will take you longer to figure out the
clue number for the answer in the perpendicular direction.
If you find it helpful to pencil in two letters in a cell to remind yourself of two
possible answers (I've never done this for some reason, but it seems like a good idea),
you'll have more room to squeeze in that second letter later on.
If you play the puzzles in pen and you need to scratch through a wrong letter, you'll have
some extra space in which to squeeze the right one.
I prefer to play crosswords using a black pen, only because it's easier to see. But
on the tougher puzzles, if I'm unsure of a long answer that I need to write in I switch to
a pencil, and from that point on I never seem to switch back.
- Do not bother to cross through clues that have been answered, for two
reasons. First, if you answered wrong then you can't re-read the clue as quickly,
because you voluntarily scratched through it for some reason. Second, it takes time
to scratch through the clues, time you could be using to write in another answer.
You'll find it is of scant assistance to be able to spot at a glance which clues you've
already answered and which you haven't.
- Take the time to print legibly enough so you can read every letter
you need to. I've wasted precious seconds trying to figure out a partially filled-in
answer only to discover that I'd confused a P for a D or an L for a C. Also, if you
use lower-case letters (which I find somewhat harder to scan, but that's just me), do not
take the time to dot your "i's" and "j's" with cute little heart
shapes.
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