FIRST YEAR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

FIRST YEAR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

March 7, 2006

Study Skills Tip of the Week: Reading Critically

Faculty expect you to be critical readers. Critical reading means to read to understand and to evaluate the argument. Hence, you need to read to find the argument. Start by identifying the author's question. What is she or he explaining or claiming to argue in the assigned passage? Why do they say the issue is important? What evidence does the author use to answer the question? How persuasive is the evidence? What question do you think the author answered in the passage?

To help you be a critical reader, look for breaks in the reading such as paragraph, section, or chapter breaks. Read until you come to a break and pause. At each break, ask yourself what was the main idea of the section you just read. In a sentence, write down the main idea of each section. After finishing the reading, look at all your sentences. What did the author really address? Which pieces of evidence do you find convincing? Which parts of the argument aren't fully developed?

If you have difficulty identifying the author's question or seeing the main point of a section, ask one or two of your classmates. Do they see the question or main idea? If all of you are confused, go visit your instructor. Ask them to help you identify the main ideas and questions. Ask them to show you clues in the text that helped them identify the main questions and themes.

The Healthy Lives Tip of the Week: Sunscreen 101

Planning on spending some time in the sun over break? Health professionals warn that UV radiation from the sun, tanning beds, and sun lamps may cause skin cancer. In addition to wearing sunscreen, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) recommends that everyone follow these tips to avoid sun damage:

Plan your outdoor activities to avoid the sun's strongest rays.
As a general rule, avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Wear protective covering such as broad-brimmed hats, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts to reduce sun exposure.
Wear sunglasses that provide 100% UV ray protection.
When outdoors, always wear a broad-spectrum sunscreen with Sun Protection Factor (SPF) 15 or greater, which will block both UVA and UVB, and apply it thirty minutes before sun exposure.

Make sure you use enough sunscreen. One ounce, enough to fill a shot glass, is considered the amount needed to cover the exposed areas of the body properly. Remember to use sunscreen on cloudy days as well since 80 percent of the sun's UV rays pass through the clouds. Your lips can get sunburned too, so apply a lip balm that contains sunscreen with SPF 15 or higher.

The sunscreen SPF rating is calculated by comparing the amount of time needed to produce a sunburn on sunscreen-protected skin to the amount of time needed to cause a sunburn on unprotected skin. For example, a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 would allow that person to multiply that initial burning time by 15, which means it would take 15 times longer to burn, or 150 minutes. Many people fail to realize that because some UV light gets through sunscreens, they should not be used as a way of prolonging sun exposure--only to avoid sunburn. SPF protection, moreover, does not increase proportionately with a designated SPF number. For example, while an SPF 15 indicates 93 percent absorption, an SPF 30 absorbs 97 percent of the sun's burning rays.

To learn more about the "darker side of tanning," consult the AAD's website at http://www.aad.org/public/DermatologyA-Z/atoz_t.htm.

Resource of the Week: Reading for Pleasure

While many college students don't have time for pleasure reading during the semester, breaks provide a wonderful opportunity to read a book you choose yourself as opposed to a book assigned for class. The Browsing Collection on the first floor of Pickler Memorial Library contains general interest, popular titles, and bestselling books that you can borrow. If you prefer to listen to a book, Pickler also has a large collection of audio books that you can borrow. To browse through the audio titles, go to http://lance.missouri.edu/search~S6/daudiobooks. You might listen to a book on the way to your midterm break destination or bring along a book to read.

All students, moreover, can find time to read during their busy lives no matter how much they have to read for class! Everyone can find five minutes a day for pleasure reading. Try carrying a book with you so that you can read for a few minutes before a class or a meeting starts. Reading for yourself, moreover, is a great stress reliever.

Quote of the Week

"Education is not about content. It is not even about skills. It is a habit or stance of mind. It is not something you have. It is something you are. ... To be educated is to have the habit of finding many and diverse new meanings to attach to whatever events or phenomena we examine. We have standard routines for doing this--interpretive paradigms, heuristic methods, theoretical schemes, investigative disciplines, and so on. But education is not these paradigms and methods and disciplines. Rather it is the instinctive habit of looking for new meanings, of questioning old ones, of perpetually playing with and fighting about the meanings we assign to events and texts and phenomena. We can teach you the paradigms and the methods, but we can't teach you the habit of playing with them. That's something you must find within yourself.

--From The Zen of Education by Andrew Abbott

You can find the entire address at http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml

The First Year Weekly Newsletter is sent to all new students every Tuesday. It provides information, tips, and strategies to help you be successful at Truman. If you do not want to receive the newsletter, see the directions below on how to remove your name from the mailing list.