How to Get the Most Out of Studying: Part 1

In the first of five short videos, Paul Chew, a cognitive psychologist at Samford University, points out the following beliefs that make you stupid. 

1. Learning is Fast
2. Knowledge is Composed of Isolated Facts
3. Being Good at a Subject is a Matter of Inborn Talent
4. I'm Really Good at Multi-Tasking

Dr. Chew points out that being under-prepared and over-confident is a sign of trouble to come in one's demonstration of content mastery (aka, performance on a test).  Check out the first video in this series; I'll post the other videos in the coming weeks.

Where is the Wisdom We Have Lost in Knowledge

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Consider how these words from T.S. Eliot's play "The Rock" might inform your view of information, knowledge, wisdom, and Life.  How is information different from knowledge?  What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?  Is there a difference between capital "L" Life and small "l" living?

I believe Eliot is reminding is that Life, the fullness and wholeness that Christ desires for us, rests not on information, or even knowledge, but relies on the wisdom cultivated by reflection, time, humility, and community.

The Best Sentence Ever

Ever feel incompetent or lost as a writer?  ARC Consultant Drew Miller gives a hopeful glimpse into a college writer's mind.

I like writing perfect sentences. I’ve never done it.

Think of something clever, Drew. No, I don’t like the way that sounds. No, that’s too obvious. No that’s too cliché. There we go—one hour, one perfect sentence.

Perfect second sentences make first sentences even better.

Maybe I can find a big word. Ecdysis. Jane Eyre is undergoing ecdysis. Beautiful. This will give my mom chills. Even better, this will deconstruct all the lies I learned in high school. Take that, Mr. Smith! I am the smartest.

Two Sentences down. Thesis now?

My thesis doesn’t make any sense. My first two sentences don’t make any sense. I’ll just take my thesis and keep thudding and tumbling down the page like a toddler bumping his butt down stairs.

I need a chair pillow.

Sometimes I write five pages, not knowing what I say.

I need someone to read this paper over—this is rough. I want her to say, this is amazing. I want her to say, get this published.

I can’t find my pen. Maybe I’ll listen to another song on Spotify.

Can you read my paper?

She ‘s reading silently. What is she thinking? Oh, no! She wrote on my paper. Oh no,  she wrote again! I am going to fail college. What is my mom going to do with me?

“Okay, Drew,” she says. “Good work. You have a few wordy sentences, and I am a bit foggy on this part of the paper, but overall, it’s a nice piece. Develop another draft with my comments in mind, and you’ll be fine.”

Well, maybe I can pass this class. Where’s my pen?

Felicity

Earlier this year, I was captivated by Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, a book by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre.  Let me share some excerpts from her chapter titled "Love Words."

"Felicity is a kind of happiness our culture does not, on the whole, promote: something like rational contentment, entailing acceptance, considered compromise, and self-knowledge."

"Happiness of this kind is, in fact, more a point of view than a state of affairs."

"But felicity includes something beyond simple contentment.  Felicity not only accepts what is, acknowledging and cheerfully submitting to the limitations of one's condition: it also unabashedly wills and seeks pleasure.  Its pleasures are more subtle than sensational.  Felicity comes in lively, sustained conversation; in long walks on which one notices small changes in the landscape; in the silent companionship of an old friend or partner; in serving a good inner to a family one loves."

"I think of felicity as a sign of wisdom."

"A felicitous word choice is one that so precisely names an idea or experience that it produces for the reader or hearer a shock of recognition, a surprised 'Yes! That's it!" and a gratifying sense of having put two interlocking pieces of a puzzling world perfectly in place."

"Precision of expression is neither taught nor appreciated in a culture that has prostituted language in the service of propaganda.  To the degree that we consent to cheap hyperbole, flip slogans, and comfortably unexamined claims, we deprive ourselves of the felicity of expression that brings things worth looking at into focus -- things like happiness, for instance, which comes so much clearer and seems so much richer when we see it displayed in an array of colors: merriment, blitheness, gaiety, delight, contentment, joy, bliss, felicity itself....We can fall prey to the flattening of words and experience, and so diminish the variety and quality of happiness, or we can retrieve the words that name the forms of happiness that are worth pursing and, by returning them to good and careful use, rediscover felicity."

McEntyre challenged me on many levels, including the value of using language with care, choosing interesting, specific, descriptive words rather than relying on easy hackneyed phrases, and recognizing that our language and life experience are inextricably interconnected.

I invite you to join me in pursuit of felicity, in words and in life.

APA Style: 10 Tips and Troubles

The American Psychological Association (APA) style for writing, formatting, citations, and references has many details that are easily overlooked or forgotten.  In this post, Jessica DePalatis highlights ten key elements of the APA writing style elements.  More details can be found on the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA pages.

APA: 10 Tips and Troubles

1.     Little details

o   Two spaces are needed after every sentence. One inch margins are required for each page.

2.     Headers

o   On the first page in the upper left hand corner you must put “Running head:” as well as a logical condensed version of your title in caps.  For all proceeding pages just the condensed version in caps is needed. Every page must have a page number in the upper right corner. Unlike MLA, your last name never makes an appearance in the headers.

3.     Titles

o   The goal is to summarize your paper in no more than twelve words. Do not beat around the bush. Blunt, boring honesty is the key.

4.     Abstract

o   The abstract gets its own page right after the cover page. It is not indented and contains between 150-250 words. It is NOT the first paragraph of your paper. It is a summary of the whole paper, so that a potential reader can know what they are getting into. It must be short, sweet, and to the point.

5.     Introduction

o   At the top of the page after the abstract, a title is needed. In a research paper the word "Introduction" is use. However, most college undergrads are compiling a literature review, not a research paper. In this case the title presented on the cover page should be used.

6.     In-text Citation

o   The author’s last name and the year of publication need to appear in the text whenever you mention someone else’s ideas. This can take the form of a direct quote, paraphrase, or summary. Page numbers are only needed when using a direct quote.

7.     Quotes

o   Quotes should be avoided at all cost. They tell your professor that you did not understand the material enough to paraphrase. A paraphrase must have different words, sentence structure and meter from the original source. Anything else is a direct quote and must be cited as such to avoid plagiarism.

8.     Secondary Citations

o   If you want to use an idea from someone cited in another paper you have two options. First, it is best to find the original article of the person you want to cite. Second, if you can’t find the original article then you can cite the source as such: (Jones, as cited in Smith, 2009). In this example the idea you want to use belonged to Jones but you read about it in Smith’s paper. The year goes with Smith’s article.

9.     References

o   If you use someone else’s idea in your paper you must cite it. If you cite it, the reference must show up in the references section of your paper. If you have a source in your references section your must have read it AND cited it in your paper. 

10.  DOIs

o   DOIs are Digital Object Identifiers. Yes, you need them. They can be a pain to track down if they do not appear on the actual article. One tip is to find the DOI as soon as you select an article. Journal database websites often list the DOI among the stats with the abstract. If worse comes to worst and no DOI is to be found, you can use the homepage website of the journal that published the article (Retrieved from www.homepage.come). DO NOT use the database website. 

Grammar Tips

Interested in tips about grammar?  Go to http://www.grammarbook.com/ and sign up for the free weekly newsletter.

Below is an excerpt from today's email:

That vs. Which

Last week’s grammar tip focused on the rules for using who vs. that. This week, we will learn the rules to guide us on when to use that vs. which.

Rule 1: That may refer to people, animals, groups, or things. (As mentioned last week, who is preferred when referring to people.)

Rule 2: Which refers to animals, groups, or things.

Since that and which may each refer to animals, groups, or things, how do we know when to use that and when to use which?

Rule 3: That introduces essential clauses while which introduces nonessential clauses.

Example: I do not trust editorials that claim racial differences in intelligence.

We would not know which editorials were being discussed without the that clause.

Example: The editorial claiming racial differences in intelligence, which appeared in the Sunday newspaper, upset me.

The editorial is already identified. Therefore, which begins a nonessential clause.

NOTE: Essential clauses do not have commas surrounding them while nonessential clauses are surrounded by commas.

Example: Chess is a game that requires intense concentration.

The second part of the sentence is essential for conveying the meaning of the sentence.

Rule 4: If this, that, these, or those has already introduced an essential clause, you may use which to introduce the next clause, whether it is essential or nonessential.

Example: Those responses to the questions, which were not well thought out, eliminated him from further job consideration.

What Type of Student are You?

Ken Bain, in the book What the Best College Students Do, identified five types of students.

1. Those who receive good grades but become no more productive than their friends who receive C's and D's;
2. Those who receive good grades and who become deep learners, adaptive experts, great problem solvers, and highly creative and compassionate individuals;
3. Those who receive mediocre grades but someday achieve phenomenal success because they did learn deeply, despite their transcripts;
4. Those who receive poor marks, give up, and live a life that is largely dependent on others;
5. Those who receive poor grades but tell themselves (without much evidence) that someday they will shine. (p. 10)

Bain believes everyone can fall into the 2nd or 3rd category - the deep learners - regardless of grades, ability, or background.  Consider these questions today:

• Do you agree that Bain's categories describe the range of college students? 
• Which type do you think describes you?
• If you're not a type 2 or type 3 student, what might be one step to move toward becoming a deep learner?

If you're interested in talking further about these ideas, comment below, get the book, or contact Rick Muthiah at rmuthiah@georgefox.edu to converse via email or call 503-554-2314 and we can schedule a time to talk over coffee.

Minding the Gaps

By Shawna Buck

Too often students become bogged down by papers, tests, and reading they have to do and feel like they have no time to themselves. As college students, sometimes our go-to response for “Hey, how are you?” is simply “Busy.” But what would happen if in that small twenty-minute break between classes you read ten pages out of a history book, or you wrote a page of an essay while sitting at breakfast in the Bon?

All of us experience these gaps in the midst of our busy schedules; we simply need to learn to use them to their full advantage. Even I sometimes blow off a half-hour break between classes to grab a cup of coffee instead of doing something productive, which seems harmless at first, but those gaps add up and pretty soon I could have accomplished an entire assignment instead of consuming five cups of caffeine.

Using these gaps more productively results in better time management overall and makes for less homework in the evening so you can spend more time socializing or Facebooking. To achieve better productivity during these gaps, make a checklist of everything you want to accomplish throughout the day or write down one assignment to work on during each gap in your planner. Writing these goals down makes you more accountable, and who doesn’t like to cross things off lists? We all like having breaks during the day, but making these breaks more productive will yield more time off in the evenings, resulting in a longer break rather than just thirty minutes here or there. You’re already up and running, so you might as well put that time to good use. Plus, if you have more time at the end of the day, chances are that will be a better time to hang out with friends or go to an event without feeling overwhelmed by homework.

Don’t get me wrong, it is still important to use those gaps for some “you time." Just be intentional about which breaks you want to be productive and which ones you want to grab coffee. Sometimes it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, but being intentional about what you want to accomplish—and when—makes the small amount of time you do have count for more.   

 

The Cornell Note Taking Method

Students take notes in almost every class, but too often those notes are underutilized as a learning tool.  The Cornell Note Taking Method is one of the most common approaches to making notes more effective for gaining mastery of content.  The process involves interacting with the material in several ways, including reducing and summarizing information and making connections to other knowledge.  Watch this video or follow the instructions below to get an idea of how the method works.

Note Taking Area: Record lecture as fully and as meaningfully as possible.
 
Cue Column: As you're taking notes, keep cue column empty. Soon after the lecture, reduce your notes to concise jottings as clues for Reciting, Reviewing, and Reflecting.
 
Summaries: Sum up each page of your notes in a sentence or two.
This format provides the perfect opportunity for following through with the 5 R's of note-taking:

• Record
  During the lecture, record in the main column as many meaningful facts and ideas as you can. Write legibly. 

• Reduce
  As soon after as possible, summarize these facts and ideas concisely in the Cue Column. Summarizing clarifies meanings and relationships, reinforces continuity, and strengthens memory.

• Recite
  Cover the Note Taking Area, using only your jottings in the Cue Column, say over the facts and ideas of the lecture as fully as you can, not mechanically, but in your own words. Then, verify what you have said.

• Reflect
  Draw out opinions from your notes and use them as a starting point for your own reflections on the course and how it relates to your other courses. Reflection will help prevent ideas from being inert and soon forgotten.

• Review
  Spend 10 minutes every week in quick review of your notes, and you will retain most of what you have learned.

Adapted from How to Study in College 7/e by Walter Pauk, 2001 Houghton Mifflin Company, as listed at http://www.umfk.edu/trio/study/notes/.

Bill Jolliff leads ARC’s editing workshop this Friday

Most of us don’t worry too much about a writing mistake or two. It’s what we have to say that really matters, right?

Well, yes – and no.

The bad news is that too many editing errors can keep our readers from taking us – and our ideas – seriously. The good news is that most of our errors are relatively easy to fix, once we figure out which ones we’re prone to make.

In this workshop, Bill Jolliff (Professor of English) will identify the 10 errors that professors are most likely to mark on student work, and he’ll demonstrate how to fix them.

The Academic Resource Center is hosting a workshop, “The Most Common Editing Errors – And What To Do About Them,” this Friday, Oct. 5, from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m. in Hoover 105.  

Questions? Contact Rick Muthiah (rmuthiah@georgefox.edu or ext. 2314)