Everything you get, in every plan.
A textbook, a 9-phase course, 18 playbooks and every template, plus senior mentors for the moments you're stuck. Foundations gets the same system as Mastery. The higher plans add people, not content.
The 100-Hour Meta
The why behind every step, with a diagram for every idea, written for students starting from zero.
The course shows you what to do. The textbook explains why it works, so you can defend every choice in your paper when a reviewer asks. Chapters open as you reach each phase, and the whole book opens when you finish.
- Read online
- Printed copy for Mastery
- Always the latest edition
- A diagram for every idea
9 phases, 110+ short visual lessons
About 16 hours of video that builds each idea on screen, step by step, from your research question to your submitted paper.
Every stage comes with real worked runs, failed attempts included, so you see what to do when a topic dies, not just when everything goes right.
It was built by a best-in-class specialist team: educational psychologists who know how people actually learn hard ideas, doctors and research mentors who do this work themselves, and motion graphics designers who turn every idea into visuals you can follow.
Phase 0 is free, so you can see the teaching first.
- 0Research From ZeroWhere the protocol beginsFree
- 1Gap IdentificationA defensible, unanswered question~8 h
- 2PICO & ProtocolYour question locked down and registered~6 h
- 3Search StrategyBoolean strings across PubMed, Embase and Cochrane~10 h
- 4Title/Abstract ScreeningFiltering the noise in Rayyan~12 h
- 5Data ExtractionPulling the data into the master sheet~15 h
- 6Risk of BiasRoB 2 and MINORS~10 h
- 7Computational EngineForest and funnel plots in RevMan and R~18 h
- 8Manuscript AssemblyYour data, written for peer review~14 h
- 9Submission & RebuttalSubmitting, and answering reviewers~7 h
Phases 1 to 9About 100 hours
18 playbooks, one for every stage
A playbook is a step-by-step working guide for one stage of your paper: the checklist, the templates and scripts, and what "done" looks like. Like a sports team's playbook, you open it, follow it and tick every box. Each one is built to kill one specific way beginners get stuck. Mastery students get them as printed books; on the other plans they're digital files you download and keep.
Finding your question
2 playbooks
Master mapThe Research Navigator™
Kills: getting lost between phases. One map shows where you are and what done means before you move on.
Topic selectionTrial by Fire™
Kills: months burned on a question that isn't new or doable. Eight gates test it in an afternoon.
Searching and screening
2 playbooks
Search strategyStand on the Giants™
Kills: guessing keywords. Your search is built from the landmark papers, then tested before you screen.
ScreeningScreening Accelerator™ v2.0
Kills: drowning in PDFs. Clear rules keep a two-week step from becoming a two-month one.
Getting the data right
4 playbooks
Data extractionDivergent Extraction Protocol™
Kills: the inconsistent numbers that lose papers. One master template for every included study.
Data extractionExpert Wrangler's Playbook™
Kills: messy, mismatched data. Every study ends up in the same clean, comparable shape.
Missing dataImputation Formulas Cheatcode
Kills: the missing-data problem that stalls students for weeks. The right formula fixes it in an afternoon.
Evidence qualityGIGO Protocol™
Kills: flawed evidence sneaking into your analysis. It is stopped at the door.
Running the analysis
3 playbooks
StatisticsKnow Your Numbers Primer™
Kills: fear of the statistics. Plain language, no background assumed.
AnalysisR-MetaScript™
Kills: black-box outputs. Forest and funnel plots in code you write and can rerun.
Analysis7-Step RevMan Protocol
Kills: fear of code. The same analysis, point and click, in seven steps.
Writing it up
6 playbooks
WritingSterile Results
Kills: spin in your results. What you found, in the order reviewers read it.
WritingCatalytic Introduction
Kills: the rambling introduction. Known, gap, your study, in a few tight paragraphs.
WritingGreat Discussion
Kills: the discussion that just repeats the results. Weigh them against the evidence instead.
WritingHigh-Impact Conclusion
Kills: the forgettable ending. One take-home message and what it changes.
WritingGolden Abstract
Kills: abstracts that get skimmed. Built to clear a conference committee's bar.
WritingAutomated Referencing
Kills: hours of reference formatting. Set up once, it updates with every redraft.
Getting through review
1 playbook
Peer reviewPeer Review Navigation Playbook™
Kills: panic at "major revisions". Rebuttals that are complete, diplomatic and bulletproof.
Every tool and template you'll fill in
The working files that go with the playbooks, so you never start from a blank page.
- The Topic Selection Map
- The Citation Benchmark Atlas
- Search and idea logs
- The Mentor Briefing Document
- PRISMA templates
- Data extraction templates
Doubt Tokens: a senior mentor, on your exact problem
The playbooks are the map. When you hit a wall the map didn't clear (your search string returns nothing, your R script won't run), you spend a Doubt Token.
Tokens in each plan
Need more? Buy extra tokens anytime.
- You describe itExactly where you're stuck, on your own project.
- A mentor looksA senior mentor looks at your actual problem, not a general one.
- You get the fixUsually within 24 to 48 hours.
Add-on · Only for students
Tau Square Studio
Not part of any plan: Studio is our meta-analysis software, sold separately and only to Tau Square students. Every step of the review in one workspace, with τ² AI reading alongside you and guardrails at every step.
The course teaches you the method in 100 hours. Studio is that same method built into software, so you can run review after review: same steps, same order, same rules as the playbooks.
- Import and remove duplicates
- Screen, blind, with a partner
- Full texts, fetched and matched
- The coding sheet, locked
- Extraction, with sources
- Risk of bias and certainty
- The analysis, in real R
- The write-up pack · ready to submit
See the teaching before you pay.
Phase 0 is free: 14 short lessons, about 2 hours, no card needed. When you're ready, the plans are one click away.