RUS = "Rise Up Singing" . It contains the lyrics to thousands of folk songs and is widely used at camp singarounds, etc. The problem is not really the book itself, but the way people use it. "Rise Up Singers" seem to have a tendency to feel that the RUS version is THE version, and no other will do. They often have made no attempt to actually learn the song, and they sing with their eyes glued to the book and with little or no personalization - i.e. they haven't made the song their own, but appear to be singing by rote. And there seems to be a compulsion to sing every single verse, no matter how long the song may be. So, instead of a singaround where you hear songs that people have actually put effort into learning, and perfecting their technique, meaning you might actually hear a new song or an interesting new version of a song, and pick up some pointers that will help your own singing, you just get a lot of people droning through selections from Rise Up Singing. Cheat sheets are okay, and as has been pointed out are widely used by professionals, but only as an aid that you can glance at to jog your memory. The best scenario is to have memorized the song and worked with it until you are comfortable with the lyrics, tempo, etc.