Be Your Best

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Benjamin Franklin

College is one of the best investments a person can make. Many college students make the mistake, however, of thinking that they are merely paying for a diploma. While a college diploma can be a source of great pride and can help you land a good job, the real reward of college is an education: a wealth of new knowledge and skills, for example, and endless opportunities to enrich your life. Of course, what you get out of an investment depends on what you put into it. This site can help you to be your best--to get the most out of your college career by using your tools, your time, and your mind in the most productive ways possible.

While the site is designed as a set of lesson plans for a freshman seminar, I invite students in all my courses--and anyone else--to read and use the tips, exercises, and terms here. The students in my freshman seminar will want to move through the lessons sequentially, but others may want to use the index at the right to go directly to the topics that interest them.

© Mark Canada, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 1998

Mindset

Supplies

Computers

Research

Notes

Reading

Writing

Careers

Mindset

Objectives

The College Zone

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things in life.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

You may have heard someone say that an athlete who is knocking down three-pointers or mowing down batters is "in a zone." When athletes are in a zone, they block out all distractions and immerse themselves in the game. To get the most out of your college education, you will want to enter a zone, too: the college zone. That is, like the focused shooter or pitcher, you want to find your target, fix your attention on it, and make use of every means to hit that target. Here are some things to keep in mind as you strive to enter the college zone:

P's and Q's

Back in the early days of printing between the 15th and 19th centuries, typesetters had to be careful not to mix up the various blocks they used to print individual letters, particularly the blocks for p's and q's, which look a lot alike. We still say "Mind your p's and q's" when we want people to take care or to mind their manners. College has its own p's and q's, which you will want to mind so that you can be your best:

Suggestions for Practice

Supplies

Objective

Tips for Obtaining Supplies

The most important item you can bring to your college courses is an active, open mind, but the following supplies will help you fill that mind effectively:

Computers

Objectives

Terms

Tips for Using Computers

Success in school and in a career depends on more than the knowledge you will acquire in classes. You also need the skills to apply your knowledge and to share it with others. Today, one of the most important tools for applying and sharing knowledge is the computer. If you can use a computer to find and exchange information, you dramatically increase your chances of success.

General

A computer is a piece of electronic equipment that helps us calculate, write, edit, design, and do dozens of other things. The term for computers themselves, along with accessories such as modems, is "hardware." By itself, hardware is not very useful. To do things such as write papers and analyze data, we need "software." Sometimes called "programs" or "applications," software needs to be loaded on a computer. Most computers come with some software already loaded on them, but many people also buy software separately and load it on their computers. A computer has both a hard drive, where software and documents are stored, and a disk drive, which you can use to store documents on diskettes. Here is how to turn on and begin using a computer in one of the campus computer labs:

  1. Push the rectangular button on the front of the computer hard drive and press the round button on the front of the monitor.
  2. Press the "Enter" key until a blue sky appears on the screen. Using the mouse, a palm-sized device to the right of the keyboard, move the arrow on the screen over the word "Start" in the bottom-left corner of the screen and, using the left button on the mouse, click on "Start." Still holding down the left mouse button, move the mouse forward so that the arrow moves over the word "Programs." When the pop-up menu appears to the right, slide up to the name of the software program that you want to launch, such as Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Word.

Word-Processing

When it comes to planning, organizing, writing, typing, and proofreading papers, a computer and a word-processing program are tremendous assets. Here are some tips for making the most of one word-processing program, WordPerfect.

Many different companies manufacture software. For example, in the area of word-processing, three of the most popular pieces of software are WordPerfect, Microsoft Works, and Microsoft Word. Often these different types of software are not compatible. You might think of them as speaking different languages. The WordPerfect software in the campus computer labs can't work with a document created in Microsoft Works, just as you probably cannot work with a document written in Japanese, unless that document is first translated, or converted. If you have created a document on Word, Works, or some other word-processing software at home and need to work on this document in a campus computer lab, follow these instructions to convert the document into WordPerfect format:

  1. While you still using your home computer, place a diskette in the disk drive and click on "Save As."
  2. In the dialog box that appears, look for a phrase such as "Save File As Type" near the bottom of the box. Click on the arrow to show the various options. Find and click on "WordPerfect for Windows 5.x."
  3. Now save the document as you normally would. When you bring this diskette to a campus computer lab, you should be able to open it in WordPerfect.

The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web and e-mail are both parts of the Internet, an international network of computers connected by wires such as telephone lines. If you have a computer at home, you can obtain access to the Internet by buying a modem, installing software such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer on your computer, and subscribing to an Internet provider such as America Online or Carolina Online. Universities, high schools, businesses, and many homes have access to the Internet, which they use to communicate with each other through e-mail, the World Wide Web, and other means. For example, many companies advertise their products by posting pictures and descriptions on World Wide Web sites. In other words, they store this information on a computer called a server, where people all over the world can obtain access to it simply by typing in the Web address, also called a URL. The standard format for a URL looks like this: www.uncp.edu, in which the first component (www) stands for World Wide Web, the second item (uncp) is the institution that controls the server, and the third (edu) indicates the type of institution. The most common abbreviations at the end of URLs are "edu" for education, "com" for commercial, "org" for organization, and "gov" for government.

The following instructions will help you obtain access to the Web and locate a specific Web site:

  1. Using the instructions under "General" above, click on Netscape Communicator. When another pop-up menu appears, slide down and click on Netscape Navigator. Netscape Navigator is a software program called a browser, which allows you to view information on the Web.
  2. The computers in the labs are set up so that they automatically take you to the Web site of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. To go to another Web site, click on the URL in the white box near the top of the screen; it should turn blue. Now type the URL of the site you want to visit. Example: www.uncp.edu/home/canada
  3. Once you have reached a site, you can visit other sites or parts of the same site by clicking on links, which often are underlined and appear in a color different from the rest of the text. You usually when know when you are pointing your cursor at a link because the arrow on the screen will turn into a pointing hand. Example: Click on Mark's Portfolio and then on the name of this course.
  4. You can scroll down the information on the site by clicking on the down arrow in the bottom-right part of the screen. Example: Scroll down to the bottom of the syllabus.
  5. To return to the previous site, click on the word "Back" in the upper-left corner of the screen. No matter how far you get from the original site, you always can return to it by clicking on the "Back" button as many times as necessary. Example: Click on "Back" and return to the syllabus.
  6. To print the information on this site, click on the word "Print" near the top of the screen. If you want to print the entire site, click "OK." Example: Print the syllabus.
  7. If you want to print only a limited number of pages, fill in the boxes labeled "To" and "From" and then click "OK." If you don't know which pages to print, click on "File" in the upper-left corner and click on "Print Preview." Move through the pages, make a note of the pages you want to print, and follow the previous directions to print them.

The following instructions will help you search for information on the Web:

  1. Click on the word "Search" near the top of the screen. You will arrive at a search engine, a computer program that looks through the information on the Web and gives you a list of sites relevant to your interests. Some examples of search engines are Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, and Lycos. Click in the white box, type a word or phrase, and click on "Seek" or "Go Get It." Example: Search for "Twain."
  2. The next screen will tell you how many sites contain information on your topic and list several of them. To visit one, click on one of the links. On a sheet of paper, write down the URL, which appears in the white box near the top of the screen. Make sure that you have written down the URL letter for letter, with no mistakes or extra spaces. To return to the list, click on "Back." Whenever you return to the computer lab, you can use this list to find these Web sites. Use the instructions above for locating a specific Web site.

The following instructions will help you build your own Web site:

  1. While you are still in Netscape Navigator, click on "Communicator" and then on "Composer."
  2. You now are using Netscape Navigator's text editor, a program that allows you to design your own Web site. Text editors are very similar to word-processing programs, such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word, in that they allow you to type information and then adjust the appearance of this information by pointing, dragging, and clicking. Example: Type the following information, pressing return after each entry: "Mark Twain," "Life," "Family," "Work," and "Bibliography."
  3. Now highlight "Twain" by clicking the mouse and dragging your cursor, the blinking vertical line, over them. Find the word "Normal" just above the highlighted words, click on the down arrow next to it, and click on "Heading 1." The words "Mark Twain" should become larger. Experiment with the other buttons on the ruler bar at the top of the screen. Example: Make "Life," "Work" and "Bibliography" a heading 2. Place small round circles, or bullets, next to "Family." Insert a horizontal line after "Bibliography." Center "Mark Twain."
  4. To create a link to another site, click on the word "Link" near the top of the screen. When the dialog box appears, click in the top white box and type "Canada's America." Press "Tab" and type http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/canam/canam.htm; click "OK." When people visit your site, they will be able to click on this link and go to the "Canada's America" site.
  5. To save this site, insert a diskette into the narrow slot on the computer, click on "File," and click on "Save As." When the dialog box appears, make sure that the computer is set for the "a" drive and then click "OK." Name the site. Example: Mark Canada's Web site

E-mail

Through e-mail, short for electronic mail, people all over the world can send messages to one another. Each of these people has an e-mail address, which usually looks something like this: canada@nconline.com. The first part of the address (canada) specifies the individual user, and the rest of the address refers to the server (nconline.com), which is a computer that can store a lot of information. Many universities, such as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, have servers, as do large corporations and Internet providers such as Carolina Online. When you send a message to someone on e-mail, your message goes through that person's server and then to the person. To use e-mail on campus, follow these steps:

  1. Bring the yellow sheet you received from Computer Services, along with an IBM-formatted diskette, to a computer lab. Insert the diskette in the narrow slot on the computer.
  2. Click on the word "Start" in the bottom-left corner of the screen and, holding down the left mouse button, slide up to "Programs." When the pop-up menu appears to the right, slide up to "Eudora" and click on it. Eudora is an e-mail program you can use to send and read e-mail messages.
  3. A dialog box will appear on the screen. Click inside the white box under "POP Account" and type in your user name, which appears on the yellow sheet--followed by @papa.uncp.edu--and press the "Tab" key. Example: shakespeare@papa.uncp.edu
  4. In the next box, type your full name. Example: William Shakespeare
  5. Click on "OK." The computer will store this information on your diskette. In the future, bring this same diskette with you to the lab and insert it in the computer whenever you want to use e-mail.
  6. To address a message, look in the upper-left part of the screen and find the icon that looks like a pencil and paper. Click on it. In the box that appears, type the e-mail address of your intended recipient next to the word "To." Example: canada@sassette.uncp.edu
  7. Press the "Tab" key until the blinking line, or cursor, appears in the large white space below. Type a message. Example: I love this class, Dr. Canada. Let's meet every day!
  8. When you have finished typing your message, click on the word "Send" near the top of the screen.
  9. To read messages sent to you, click on the word "Mailbox" at the top of the screen, slide down, and click on "In." A dialog box will appear, showing a list of messages sent to you. To read the entire message, click on it.
  10. In the next day or two, set aside about 30 minutes to explore the rest of Eudora. Try to create a signature, save a message, and print a message. Make sure that you can send and read messages by the time our next class meets.

To help us share our ideas outside the classroom, I have created a listserv for this course. When you send a message to a list serve address, your message goes to everyone on the list serve--in this case everyone in the class. To use the list serve for this class, follow these steps:

  1. While you are in Eudora, address a message to listserv@papa.uncp.edu; tab down to the body of the message and type SUBSCRIBE eng221 (or whatever the name of this class is); click on "Send." You now will receive every message sent to the list serve.
  2. To address a message to the list serve, type frs100@papa.uncp.edu next to the word "To" and tab down to the body of the message. Type your message and click on "Send." Everyone in the class, including me, will receive your message. If you plan to send a long message, such as a journal assignment, type the message in WordPerfect and save it to a diskette. Before exiting WordPerfect, select all of the text and copy it. Then launch Eudora and paste it into the message field. Now follow the directions above for sending the message the the listserv.

Online Forum

An online forum is a Web site where visitors can post messages and thus carry on conversations. To organize the messages, participants post them on separate threads according to topic. Because you cannot save a message you write on an online forum, it is best to write the message in a word-processing program such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect and then paste it in the message box in the online forum. Here is how to do it:

  1. Launch a word-processing program and type the message that you want to post on the forum.
  2. Save this document on a diskette.
  3. Cut the message.
  4. Launch Netscape Navigator, go to the online forum where you want to post your message, and click on the appropriate thread.
  5. Type your name and e-mail address in the appropriate boxes.
  6. Paste your message in the message box.
  7. Click on "Submit."

The advantage of this process is that you will have a copy of your message on a diskette. If something goes wrong and your message does not appear on the online forum, you do not have to type it again; instead, you can open it on your diskette, cut and paste it, and try submitting it again.

Suggestions for Practice

Research

Objectives

Terms

Tips for Finding Sources

College professors share a lot of information with their students through lectures and assignments, but they also expect students to find information on their own. In fact, learning to gather information effectively should be one of your major goals while in college. Here are several useful sources where you can find information. I suggest that you examine them in the order I have listed them below.

Primary Sources

What they are: Think of primary sources as raw data. Unlike secondary sources, which generally contain analysis by experts, primary sources require interpretation from you. In the field of English, for example, primary sources include novels, short stories, poems, and plays. It is a good idea to start your research by looking at primary sources so that you can develop your own ideas. Later, after you have begun to interpret these primary sources, you can use the material in some secondary sources, such as scholarly books and journal articles, to qualify, support, and refine your interpretation.
How to find them: You can find primary sources by running searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or specialized databases such as News Bank. In some fields, such as psychology and linguistics, you can create your own primary sources by conducting surveys, interviews, or observations.
Advantage: Studying primary sources gives you valuable practice in examining information carefully, reasoning inductively, and developing a claim.
Disadvantage: Some primary sources, such as stories and poems, are easy to find and may even appear in your text book. Others, however, may require some digging. Consider all of the primary sources listed below and don't hesistate to ask a librarian or use interlibrary loan to get the ones you need.
Some primary sources:

Subject Encyclopedias

What they are: Like general encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, subject encyclopedias contain basic information--including names, dates, and definitions--about individual topics, such as the novel and the Civil Rights Movement. In some cases, however, they contain more details than general encyclopedias.
How to find them: Ask a reference librarian where you can find the subject encyclopedias for a particular field, such as literature or history. After you have visited the library's reference section a few times, you will become familiar with the call letters for the different fields and will be able to find subject encyclopedias on your own. For example, you may notice that the subject encyclopedias related to American literature all appear in the section labeled "PS."
Advantage: It is a good idea to look at subject encyclopedias early in your research because they are general in focus, provide useful background information, are highly credible, and often contain brief bibliographies.
Disadvantage: Because the entries in subject encyclopedias are general and relatively brief, you still will need to look at scholarly books or articles to find more detailed information, especially elaborate interpretive information.
Some subject encyclopedias:

Scholarly Books

What they are: Scholars are men and women who have achieved a high level of expertise in a particular field, such as biology, geography, physics, sociology, or English. These scholars usually have earned advanced degrees in their fields, teach at colleges or universities, and conduct their own research. When they complete their research, some scholars publish their findings in books, which college libraries then purchase and make available to students.
How to find them: You can find scholarly books by running searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or research databases such as the MLA Bibliography. These databases list thousands of books and articles in particular fields, such as English, history, and education. You can search for information by typing in the name of a topic, title, author, or a key word. Several databases are available on the Sampson-Livermore Library Web site. If you wish to search a database when you are off campus, you may need a password. Call the library's reference desk (521-6265) for information about getting a password. You also can find scholarly books, as well as other useful sources, by checking bibliographies. Sometimes called lists of works cited, bibliographies are lists of useful sources on a particular topic. Whenever you come across a book or article on your topic, check the end for a bibliography and copy down the citations for other books and articles on your topic. Use these citations to find the materials.
Advantage: Because they come from experts, scholarly books generally have a great deal of credibility. That is, we have good reason to believe the material because the authors have extensive education and experience in the field. Furthermore, they often offer useful background information, are general in scope, and have extensive bibliographies.
Disadvantage: Because they take a long time to complete, scholarly books do not appear as frequently as other sources of information, such as journal articles. As a result, it sometimes may be difficult to find many up-to-date scholarly books about exactly the topic you want to study.
Some scholarly books:

Scholarly Journal Articles

What they are: Scholars also often publish their work in the form of articles, usually about 10-30 pages long. These articles appear in scholarly journals, which appear several times each year and look similar to magazines but contain information designed for experts, rather than the general public.
How to find them: You can find scholarly articles by running searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or research databases such as the MLA Bibliography. You also will come across them when you check bibliographies. In many cases, you will have to use interlibrary loan, a service through which you can order books and photocopies of articles from other libraries, often at no cost to you. If an item you need is not available at our library, ask a librarian about interlibrary loan. Once you understand the process, you can order materials by visiting the library's Web site and typing in the appropriate information. Because it usually takes about a week or two to receive an item through interlibrary loan, you should order these materials as soon as possible.
Advantage: Like scholarly books, scholarly articles generally are highly credible. They cover a wider variety of topics than books, however, and are excellent sources of information for that reason.
Disadvantage: Because experts write these articles, they sometimes contain very challenging language. Keep a dictionary and a subject encyclopedia close at hand when you read scholarly articles.
Some scholarly journals:

Internet

What it is: A network of computers all over the world, the internet gives you access to both information and experts. By browsing the World Wide Web, you can find thousands of Web sites on authors, history, music, politics, and many other topics. Through e-mail, you can request information from scholars and conduct surveys.
How to use it: Follow the directions above for browsing the World Wide Web and using e-mail.
Advantage: Through the Internet, you can reach vast amounts of information without leaving a computer terminal, and you can print or cut and paste relevant material.
Disadvantage: Because anyone can publish material on the Internet, much of it is not credible. When doing research on the World Wide Web, always try to identify the authors and determine their credibility. Are they scholars? Where did they get their information? For help determining the credibility of material you find on the Internet, visit Evaluating Internet Research Sources.
Some Web sites:
General Reference
    • Look Smart: This subject directory is a great place to start doing research on the Internet. It features an enormous number of links organized by category. You start with broad categories and then gradually choose narrower subjects until you find what you want. (www.looksmart.com)
    • Miningco: Like Look Smart, Miningco is a subject directory with a large number of links. Experts, many of whom are clearly identified on the site, choose the links, giving this site added credibility. (www.miningco.com)
    • Galaxy: This subject directory, like Look Smart and Miningco, features links organized by category. (www.einet.net)
    • Who Where?: Use this site to find e-mail addresses of people you know, examples of individuals' Web sites and Internet resumes, and an enormous amount of other information. Note that you will find e-mail addresses for only people who have registered with Who Where?.
Humanities: Literature, Language, History, Culture
    • Academy of American Poets: Among other things, this site features recordings of Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and many other poets reading their work.
    • All American: This site, which I have built with the help of my students, contains biographical information about authors, study questions, a list of recommended reading, and more.
    • All English: This site, created primarily by the students in my undergraduate grammar course, features definitions and exercises to help readers study and understand English grammar.
    • American Studies Web: This site provides links to many sites relevant to the study of American literature, history, and culture.
    • Literature and Technology Institute: This site, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, is an excellent place to start if you are doing research on literature or history. Using the links here, you can find texts, pictures, and graphics in a matter of minutes.
    • Merriam-Webster Web site: Learn about new word every day and explore interesting trivia about words at this site.
    • University of Virginia Library electronic text center: This enormous collection gives you access to letters written by Civil War soldiers, books by American women, an extensive collection of materials related to Thomas Jefferson, and much more. (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/)
Computers
    • Techweb: In addition to current news on technology, this site contains an online encyclopedia of computer terms and more.
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
    • UNCP Bookstore: Find out which text books you need for a class, their prices, the bookstore's hours, and much more.
    • UNCP Catalog: Available in book form as well as on the World Wide Web, this catalog contains course descriptions, lists of faculty members, information about majors, and much more information.
    • UNCP Faculty Directory: You can find office locations and telephone numbers, as well as e-mail addresses, for your professors here.
    • UNCP's Sampson-Livermore Library: In addition to information about the library itself, the library's World Wide Web site gives you access to several useful databases, including Brave Cat, the MLA Bibliography, and NC Live. You also can order items through interlibrary loan from this site.
    • UNCP Student Activities Office: Visit this office or its Web site to find information about student government, campus events, and more.

Tips for Using Sources

Once you have found some sources, such as scholarly books and articles, you need to incorporate the information you find in them into your own paper. At this crucial stage in your research, you must distinguish between facts and interpretation, as well as know how to use full and partial quotations, paraphrases, attribution, documentation, and a list of works cited.

Notes

Objectives

Tips for Taking Notes

Learning about other cultures, great works of art and music, and the chemistry that makes us tick can be exciting--and dizzying. The best way to manage this deluge of information is to take clear, detailed, concise, and organized notes. Here is a strategy that I have developed for studying works of literature, such as poems and novels; you can adapt this strategy to study many other subjects, as well:

  1. While reading, place a star in the margin of the book next to passages that reveal important information about the plot, setting, characters, themes, or literary devices. Write a brief comment next to the passage. Examples: *Nebraska, *card game, *fight, *atavism, *community, *symbol
  2. Bring your book and notebook to class. During lectures and group exercises, write in your notebook any names, dates, terms, and ideas that your professor and classmates mention. Pay especially close attention to anything that the professor repeats, writes on the board, or mentions in handouts or study questions. Try to organize this information in a rough outline. For example, if the professor defines the term "sonnet," write this term along the left margin; below the term, move over a half-inch or so and make a list of the characteristics of a sonnet, placing a dash before each characteristic. Also, place a star next to passages that your professor and classmates note as important. Finally, include an example you can use to illustrate the term. Example:
  3. Optional: Bring your notes to a home computer or campus computer lab. Make sure you have a dictionary and, if possible, a subject encyclopedia nearby. Using the outline function in a word-processing program such as Microsoft Word or Corell WordPerfect, type the notes from your notebook, as well as key passages you noted in your text book, followed by the numbers of the pages on which they appear. As you input this information, make any necessary changes in organization, add some of your own ideas, and use the dictionary and subject encyclopedia to define important words and terms. If your professor has given you study questions on the material, practice answering--either in your head or in writing--some of these questions by referring to the material in your notes. If you don't have any study questions, simply think about questions someone might ask you about the material and consider ways you might use the information in your outline to answer such questions. Save this outline on a diskette, back it up on a separate diskette, and print a copy that you can place in your notebook. This extra step, while time-consuming, has three benefits. The most important benefit is that it gives you the opportunity to review and synthesize the material you have covered, especially when you take time to reorganize the information and add your own ideas. Typing your notes in an outline also makes them neater and thus easier to read. Finally, storing this information in the form of a computer file allows you to find information very easily. For example, you can use the "find" function in the word-processing software to find a term or a character's name in seconds.
  4. Review your notes, both new ones and old ones, at least twice a week. If possible, do this reviewing immediately before class.

Of course, this process requires a lot of time, but it dramatically improves your ability to absorb the material covered in reading assignments, lectures, class discussions, and group activities. Remember that your long-range success depends not on the amount you learn, but the amount you understand and retain.

Some Sample Notes

Below are some notes I took on Stephen Crane's short story "The Blue Hotel" while I was in graduate school. Note that I have included factual information, such as the date it was published and details of the plot, as well as ideas about themes and literary techniques.

"The Blue Hotel"

Publication

Summary

Issues and themes

Community

Journalism

Naturalism

Control by chemicals and our own bodies

Control by inner nature

Control by nature: The swirling snow and cold air create a menacing presence.

Control by circumstances: Characters lack individual power; nonetheless, their actions have collective effects; the Easterner tells the cowboy that the Swede's death was the apex of all five card players' actions: "Every sin is the result of a collaboration" (193).

Limits on control: the Easterner's guilt over allowing events to proceed suggests that one is not purely a victim of forces. If all truly were predetermined, why then would the Easterner feel responsible for the Swede's death?

Technique

Suggestions for Practice

Reading

Objectives

Terms

Tips for Using a Dictionary

A good dictionary and a knowledge of how to use it are essential if you want to get the most out of what you read. After all, with the exception of graphic items such as charts and diagrams, everything that you have to learn from a text book comes in the form of words. If you don't know what those words mean, you won't learn much from the text book. Here are some suggestions for making use of a dictionary:

Tips for Reading

In high school you may have spent most of your "school time" in class; however, college requires you to learn primarily through "homework," and most of this work involves reading. If you don't understand and remember what you read, you probably will not succeed in your college courses. Here are a few strategies to help you remember and understand what you read:

Tips for Understanding and Explicating Poetry

Perhaps the most challenging material you will have to read in college is poetry. While the message of some poems may be fairly simple--"Enjoy your youth while it lasts," for instance--the way poets put words together often makes this message elusive. Writers don't write this way just to annoy you; rather, their sophisticated vocabulary and complex syntax help them to write with precision, to tease out the subtleties of nature and the human mind, and to create certain effects. When you read a poem, you should begin by trying to figure what the poet is saying on the surface: the content of the poem. When you can summarize this content in a few sentences, examine the way the poet conveys this content; in other words, analyze the poem's form. Finally, determine how the content and form work together to create the poem's meaning. Think of a poem as an equation: form + content = meaning. The term for analyzing a poem in this way is "explication." Here is a step-by-step method you might find useful when you explicate, or interpret, a poem:

  1. Find a quiet place, such as a study room at the library, where you will not be distracted or interrupted. Put the following items on the table in front of you: your text book, your class notebook opened to a blank page, a pencil or pen, a hardback college dictionary, and a subject encyclopedia such as Benet's Readers' Encyclopedia. Anything else on the table might distract you. Remove it.
  2. Take a deep breath and relax. Read the poem once slowly aloud without writing or marking anything. Don't stop until you finish the poem, even if you don't know the meaning or pronunciation of a word. When you have finished, reflect for a moment on any words, images, and characters that caught your attention. Jot down these items in your notebook, along with one sentence in which you try to summarize the poem.
  3. Now read the poem again silently. When you come to a word you don't know, look it up in the dictionary. In your notes, write the word, its pronunciation, the meaning or meanings of it in this poem, and a clue to help you remember it. Often information in the word's etymology, or history, will give you a clue to remembering it. Write a synonym for the word right above it in your text book. When you come to a proper noun, such as the name of a person or event, look it up in the literary reference work and record key details in your notebook, just as you did when you looked up unfamiliar words. Concentrate on learning these words and allusions because many of them will appear again and again in literature, and you want to be ready for them next time.
  4. Rephrase sentences you don't understand. Almost every poem you will find in your text books is made up of complete sentences with subjects and verbs and, in many cases, objects, prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and other syntactical elements. Even if you don't know what a prepositional phrase or appositive is, you know how to read and understand them. In fact, you do it all the time when you read ordinary sentences in newspapers, magazines, and text books. The problem is that most poets don't write the way reporters and text book authors do. Even though they write complete sentences, they change the order of words--placing, for example, the object, the thing receiving the action, before the verb instead after it, where we ordinarily put it in speech and prose. This change in word order is called an "inversion," and it is common in poetry, especially poetry written before 1900. In the following passage, which comes from John Donne's poem "The Sun Rising," the word "season" is an object of the verb, even though it comes before the verb: "Love, all alike, no season knows." We would say: "Love, all alike, knows no season." Rephrasing sentences so that they sound more like speech or at least prose will help you figure what the poet is saying.
  5. Identify the literal meaning of figurative language. The other practice that distinguishes poets from writers of nonliterary prose is their heavy use of metaphors, personification, symbols, hyperboles, apostrophes, and many other forms of figurative language. Figurative language does not mean exactly what it says; rather, it suggests meanings. In the phrase quoted above, Donne does not literally mean that love is unfamiliar with spring, summer, fall, and winter. As a thing, love cannot know anything at all; only people can know something--that is, be conscious of it. Thus, Donne is personifying love, giving it human qualities. The figurative language in poetry helps us to understand new or complex concepts. Thinking of love as a person who treats all seasons in the same way helps us to appreciate the universality of love. Once you have completed the steps above, you may not understand every word or even every sentence, but you should have a fairly good idea of the poet's overall message, or the content of the poem. Now you are ready to begin interpreting and analyzing it.
  6. Analyze the poet's use of language. You already have looked closely at the poet's use of language as you were trying to understand the poem's content. Now you want to ask yourself what this use of language--the inversions, symbols, and so on--contribute to the poem's meaning. Why, for example, did the poet choose to compare his love to a "red, red rose" instead of tree or a bird? One trick that will help you in this step is thinking about associations:we tend to associate roses with beauty, tenderness, passion, and love, but we also know that a rose bush has thorns that can be painful. Not all of these associations may be appropriate for a particular poem, but many of them probably will. Make a note of these associations in your notebook and jot down some ideas about what they contribute to the poem's meaning.
  7. Scan the poem. Scanning poetry is different from skimming it. To scan a poem means to identify the rhythm, which in English poetry comes from the alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables.
    1. Begin by looking at the polysyllabic words--the words of more than one syllable. Say each word aloud and try to determine which syllable you stress. If you are unsure, look up the word in the dictionary, where you will see an accent mark either before or after the stressed syllable. In The American Heritage College Dictioanry, for example, the accent appears before the stressed syllable. If you are using another dictionary, look up "pronunciation" in the dictionary's guide to reading entries. In your text book, place an accent mark (/) over each stressed syllable and a horizontal line over the unstressed syllables (-).
    2. Now look for all the one-syllable structure words--words that have little or no meaning, but rather serve to connect other words and show their relationships. Structure words include articles (a, an, the), conjunctions (and, or, but), prepositions (of, in, on, to, etc.), and auxiliaries (have, may, do, will, etc.). Mark these words as unstressed.
    3. Mark one-syllable nouns and verbs as stressed.
    4. Read the poem aloud, using your marks as a guide to which syllables to stress. Look for one of the following patterns: iambic (- /), trochaic (/ -), anapestic (- - /), and dactyllic (/ - -). Most English poetry that has a regular rhythm is iambic. If you don't see one of these patterns, try to change a few of the marks on the one-syllable words. If you see a pattern now, write the name of the rhythm in your notebook. You probably still will notice a few anomalies, places where the rhythm changes from the regular pattern, but ignore these anomalies for now. If you still don't see a pattern, count the number of stressed syllables in three consecutive lines. If these lines do not have the same number of stressed syllables, the poem probably does not have a regular rhythm; in other words, it probably is written in free verse.
    5. Draw vertical lines around each instance of a pattern. Each one of these units is called a "metrical foot" or simply a "foot." For example, if the line you scanned has the markings - / - / - / - / - /, you would recognize the iambic pattern and mark the line this way: - / | - / | - / | - / | - /. Count the number of units in each line. In most cases, this number will be the same for every line of the poem. In the previous example, you would count five units, or five feet. Use the following terms to identify the number of feet in the lines: dimeter (2 feet), trimeter (3 feet), tetrameter (4 feet), pentameter (5 feet), and hexameter (6 feet). You now have identified the overall pattern of rhythm in the poem. In our example, the rhythm is iambic pentameter.
    6. Now look back at the anomalies, the places where the rhythm changes. A unit with two stresses is called a spondee, and a unit with two unstressed syllables is called a pyrrhic foot. Try to determine what role these anomalies play. For example, many times spondees call attention to important words, images, or ideas. Jot down your ideas in your notebook.
  8. Look for rhyme. Look at the final words in the first and second lines. Do they rhyme with each other or any other final words? If so, the poem probably has a rhyme scheme, a pattern of rhyme. To label the rhyme scheme, place the letter "a" at the end of the first line. If the final word in the next line rhymes with this word, label it "a" also; otherwise, label it "b." Continue this process, identifying rhyming words with the same letter. Now look at the words that rhyme. Are they similar in meaning, or are they contrasting words? In your notebook, note any places where the rhyme is significant and suggest a way this rhyme contributes to the poem's meaning.
  9. Finally, read the poem one more time aloud. Practice using pauses and stress to make the poem's meaning come alive in your recitation. In your notebook, make any final comments on the way the poem's content and form work together to create meaning.

For more tips on reading poetry, see "How to Read a Poem" on the Academy of American Poets Web site. This site also features recordings of famous poets reading their work.

Suggestions for Practice

Writing

Objectives

Terms

Prewriting Strategies

The prospect of turning in a clear, accurate, well-supported, well-organized, and properly documented paper is daunting. It's no wonder people procrastinate. Instead of thinking of a paper as long and difficult task, think of it as a series of short, relatively easy steps. The first of these steps is prewriting, following by writing and revision. A stage devoted to preparation, prewriting consists of making a plan, finding a topic, and doing research. Here are some suggestions for managing each of these tasks effectively:

  1. Make a plan. On the day you receive the assignment, take a few minutes to decide how much time you have to devote to prewriting, writing, and revision. In your calendar, write down an objective, such as "Do research" or "Build an outline," for each day. On longer projects, you may want to break down the process even further, scheduling one day for reading two articles, one day for skimming a book, one day for creating an outline, one day for writing the first point in your draft, and so on. For these longer projects, you also should set a deadline for completion at least a week before the actual due date. By doing so, you leave yourself time to deal with unexpected emergencies, such as lost sources or printer problems. At this point, you also should decide on a method for doing your work. For example, figure out when and where you are most productive and commit yourself to working at this time and in this place each day. Also, decide whether you will write out some things by hand or type everything. I strongly recommend typing everything, even outlines and drafts, from the start. If you do, you will not have to waste time later converting your handwritten draft to a typed draft. Making a plan for your writing process does not guarantee a great paper, but making a plan and sticking to it does help you to make the most of your time and talent. Without a plan, you probably will wind up spending too little time on your paper and trying to throw together the pieces when you are tired, unmotivated, and distracted. In short, you will not write the paper that you are capable of writing.
  2. Choose a topic. Unless your professor has provided the topic, you have to come up with an idea and some material. This step can be fun. Because it doesn't require intense concentration, you can do it while sitting in the sun, eating lunch, listening to music, or even just waiting for class to start. Many students make the mistake of choosing a topic that does not interest them; instead of writing about
  3. Next, you probably have to do some research. Spend some time in the library, probably only an hour or two at a time because you are starting early, and look up some articles or books with information on your topic. Record the information with good note-taking techniques, which will save you time and heartache in the future.

 

Writing Strategies

 

Being in college means writing. Research papers, essays, lab reports, journals, and other writing assignments are popular among professors because they give students opportunities to study data or works closely, synthesize information, and articulate their conclusions--all vital skills. Among many students, however, writing assignments are somewhat less popular. To them, writing is tedious, difficult, and stressful. Although writing well is rarely easy, it can be more manageable. Here are some tips to help you write more efficiency and less stress:

General

Break up the writing process

  • The most difficult step is writing. But even this step is easier when you break up the process. For one thing, you already have a lot of material and a good idea of how you will organize it. Also, because you have started well in advance, you have plenty of time to write. You can stop if you get tired or stuck and come back to it later.
  • Don't give in to writer's block. The previous steps should have given you a lot of material so that you are not staring at a blank computer screen with no material. If you still have trouble, however, you may be worrying too much about minor things such as style and grammar. To free your mind of these distractions and focus on getting a draft done, try doing a "speed draft." Give yourself two uninterrupted hours to write the entire paper. Set an alarm to go off when your time is up. Even better, use a watch that beeps every fifteen minutes or half-hour. Force yourself to produce a complete draft in this time. The finished product will be very rough, of course, but you will have a chunk of material to revise, which is easier to do than to write.
  • Once you have something on paper, the rest is downhill. Work on improving this draft. Use what you learn in your reading and in class activities to add details, insert transitions, organize and reorganize, and clarify sentences.
  • Finally, after you have made your paper as thorough, organized, clear, and engaging as possible, print out your "proof draft." It is important to stop reading for content at this point; as you read your proof draft, you need to concentrate on misspellings, fragments and run-on sentences, missing commas, missing words, problems in subject-verb agreement, and so on.

    1. If you have time, leave the paper for a while. Go to lunch or take a walk. Try to separate yourself from it as much as possible.
    2. When you are ready to proofread, remove everything from your desk except your proof draft, a red pen, a hardback dictionary, and a grammar manual. Turn off the television and the stereo. You might even find it helpful to turn out all the lights except a desk lamp. Now you can focus on your draft.
    3. Read the paper slowly. Mark any mistakes with a red pen. During this first proofing, you should be able to detect errors such as missing words, comma problems, and grammatical mistakes, such as errors in subject-verb agreement. You should spend at least an hour on this step.
    4. Now read the paper again. This time, look at it in an artificial way. For example, you might try reading it backwards word by word or sentence by sentence. Or read it forwards again, but this time mark each word with a pencil as you read it. You also might try reading it aloud. All of these methods of artificially reading your words force you to see or hear things you might miss if you were reading normally and were distracted by the flow of sentences and paragraphs.
    5. After you have proofread the paper at least twice, go to the computer and make the changes you have noted in red ink. As you make them, check them off the hard copy. After you have finished correcting the mistakes, glance over the paper to make sure all of your changes have been checked.

     

     

    Now What?

    Objectives

    Assignments

    Careers

    Employers take hiring very seriously. Before they start giving a stranger responsibility and a paycheck, they want to see evidence that he or she will contribute substantially to their organizations. The three main forms of this evidence are references, the candidate's resume--accompanied by a cover letter--and the interview. Below are some tips for building the kind of evidence that will net you a good job. For more information, see Dr. Lisa Schaeffer, director of the Career Services Center at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, from whom I have borrowed some of these suggestions.

    References

    References are people who can describe your personal and professional qualities. Long before you begin looking for a job, you should work at developing several good relationships with college professors, administrators, employers, coaches, ministers, and other professionals. For example, dress well when you come to class, participate in class discussions, and talk to professors in their offices about the class and about your long-range goals. Show up to class, work, and practice on time and volunteer to stay late. Take on special responsibilities. Never make excuses.

    Resume and Cover Letter

    Before you begin writing your resume and cover letter, brainstorm an extensive list of your skills, achievements, jobs, and educational experiences. To arrange this information in an attractive resume, consider the following suggestions:

    • Limit the resume to one page.
    • Include your address, telephone number, and e-mail address at the top of the resume.
    • Include a job objective that closely resembles the position you are seeking.
    • Include your grade-point average only if it is above 3.0.
    • In your descriptions of your work experience, use strong, precise verbs and specific numbers. Example: Supervised 15 employees. Raised $50,000 in a fund drive for the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
    • Prepare your resume on a computer. The average time an employer examines a resume is 30 seconds. To impress that employer during that short time, you will want to prepare an attractive, clean, and well-organized resume. Experiment with margins, fonts, headings, lines, and bullets until you have a professional resume that will attract attention.
    • Keep this resume stored in your computer or on a diskette and update it whenever you have changed jobs, earned an award, or otherwise boosted your potential as an employee.
    • Maintain a file in which you store any materials you might use later in applying for jobs: awards, college transcripts, performance evaluations, letters of appreciation from customers and co-workers, items you have published, and anything else that demonstrates your skills and work ethic.
    • Print your resume and cover letter on white paper of at least 20-lb. weight.
    • Write a one-page cover letter to a specific person at the organization where you are applying. Use this letter to indicate your interest in the job, refer to and expand on specific highlights on your resume, and request an interview.
    • Proofread both the cover letter and resume at least 10 times and ask three other persons, including an English teacher, to proofread them, as well. According to the February 1997