Oracle Certification Study Materials Just Got Easier to Find
- Published October 11, 2012
- By Anne Martinez
If you're looking for concise Oracle exam prep infomation in a condensed format, look at this new series self-published by Oracle Expert Matthew Morris.
Becoming an expert on Oracle is no small thing. Designing, organizing, writing, and handling the myriad details of self-publishing and marketing is pretty major as well. Matthew Morris has put the two talents together and started self-publishing an impressive series of study guides for Oracle certification exams.
When I flipped open his Study Guide for 1Z0-047 Oracle Database SQL Expert, I was immediately struck by three things:
- Its length: at roughly 150 pages, size-wise it's a mere minnow in a sea of whales.
- Its price: $11.99
- It's the most straight-to-the-point certification study guide I've ever seen.
There's no fluff of any kind in this book. It's clearly written by someone who has taken a lot of Oracle certification exams and knows what's critically important and what's less so: Here's what you need to know about what's on this test, and then bang-bang-bang through the Oracle 1Z0-047 exam objectives. Each topic includes a condensed explanation complete with relevant syntax, vocabulary, and examples. Their slim size makes them easy to carry with you and realistic to read more than once.
This series is specifically designed for exam preparation and won't take you from newbie to Oracle Expert in 150 pages (they're not intended to teach Oracle to people who've never used it before) or eliminate the need for a comprehensive reference book. Nonetheless, the SQL Expert Study Guide I reviewed appears to be essentially the equivalent of Cliffs Notes for working with Oracle SQL and would be very useful to have on hand, exam or no exam.
Making His Own Exam Prep Do Double Duty
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Author Matthew Morris, an Oracle Certified Expert (several times over), was among the first to earn the Oracle Certified DBA credential, passing all four exams in one day in January 1998. Oracle Certified Forms Developercame next, and he continues to study for and take Oracle exams to this day. He holds every certification his guides pertain to, plus more. Not coincidentally, he also worked for Oracle support and deployment for more than a decade.
Over the years, Morris honed the art and science of preparing for certification exams. While working at Oracle, he also wrote and taught courses to other technicians. He describes his current study guide process like this:
"My goal is to have a guide that provides a reasonable level of coverage on each of the test topics, but which can be read multiple times. I'm a firm believer in repetition as a means of cementing knowledge. With 700-800 page certification guides, it is hard enough to stay awake and alert when reading them the first time. Despite the fact that I'm a speed reader, I can seldom make it through a second read and simultaneously pay enough attention for it to do any good. While my study guides are at least as dry as larger certification books, it is much easier to maintain concentration long enough to read through them a second, third or fourth time."
Starting in February 2012, he began publishing his distillations as formal study guides. You can get them at Amazon.com for less than $15 apiece.
Why Self-Publish?
Morris self-publishes his books through CreateSpace and Kindle instead of through a traditional publisher. By going this route, Morris gets complete control over the design and content of the series - and the price. At just 5%-6% of the exam cost, they're an attractive source of study material even for people who've already purchased another book. That means a better deal for readers and a bigger market for Morris.
Self-publishing also allows him to address his pet gripe about existing study guides: they get revised so rarely that technical and typographical errors can linger for years. "With Kindle and CreateSpace, I can fix errors immediately after I'm made aware of them," Morris says. Readers can report errata through his companion website, OracleCertificationPrep.com. "This plus a new versioning standard for my guides will allow me to resolve any typos or errors in the minimum possible time and end up with a zero-defect product," he explains.
So far in this venture, his biggest challenges have been visibility and credibility. Despite almost 17 years working with Oracle (almost two-thirds of that at Oracle), he's never been visible beyond his colleagues and coworkers. That can make it hard to sell books, even very good ones. "When I created the first two guides in February, it was an unknown series created by an unknown author," he says. That's something he's been working to rectify, and he's succeeding. Now it's up to current and future Oracle Certified Professionals to further vet his study guides and report how they measure up come exam day.
