A college student in Lanzhou, capital of Northwest Gansu province, has written a manual on ways to avoid thieves after spending a year trying to observe criminal behavior, the Western Commercial Daily reported on Monday.

Song Qing, a student at Northwest Normal University, fell victim to thieves in both 2009 and 2010. Afterward, she found she had little notion of what she should be doing to prevent theft.

So she took to paying close attention to the people around her wherever she was to see if she could spot thieves. Drawing on her experiences and observations, she was able to help some of her classmates avoid being theft victims.

To help more people, Song wrote an anti-thief manual and posted it recently on her micro blog. The manual, which lists common characteristics and modus operandi of thieves, as well as lists precautions that can be taken to prevent thievery, received a warm welcome and was forwarded thousands of times.