StudySkills Unit2

Learning
Support Materials
Module SS101
Study Skills
Study Skills
UNIT 2
Gathering Information
Unit 2
STUDY SKILLS
GATHERING INFORMATION
AIMS:
to encourage you to read and make notes with a purpose in mind; to
help you to apply a questioning approach to new sources of information that you may encounter.
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Objectives
When you have completed this unit, you should be able to:
distinguish between note-taking and note-making,
demonstrate a purposeful approach to note-making,
try out different formats of notes to see which suits your learning style,
identify key features of notes that lead to learning,
explain the different purposes a lecture might have,
explain the importance of preparing for a lecture and of reviewing your notes
afterwards,
identify potential barriers to listening,
explain how objective setting can help your time management when reading,
develop questions that would be suitable for your next piece of reading,
suggest when it is appropriate to read quickly or slowly,
apply the broad information-gathering approach already used in this unit to electronic
media,
expand the processes of listening and reading to incorporate the additional features
offered by electronic media.
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Overview
The ability to gather and use information will be the key to your
university
studies.
For
most
students,
previous
educational
experiences will have consisted of information being handed out in

appropriate-sized chunks or sections. When you come to write an
essay or study for an exam in higher education, however, you
frequently have to develop your own chunks of material. This means
that you have to determine what is appropriate.
There are several ways of making notes and you will need to find out
what suits you best. You might use different approaches for different
purposes. Two of your broad purposes will be (a) to remember
something you have listened to (b) to remember something you have
read. The use of notes in both these activities is considered. The main
point is that you should listen and read effectively.
Sources of information go beyond lectures and books, however, and

many students struggle over taking appropriate notes from electronic
media. Here it is suggested that you consider whether you are treating
information from the computer as a book (that you can flick through)
or as a lecture (that you hear only once). You might also be able to
gain considerable information from other students and on-line
lecturers and the unit looks at how you can do this.
The emphasis in this unit is on your purposes for information

gathering: if you know the type of information you want and why you
want it, you will be half way there!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. APPROACHES TO INFORMATION GATHERING
11
1.1
Introduction
11
1.2
Objectives
12
1.3
Purposes of Notes
12
1.4
Forms of Notes
13
1.5
1.4.1
Non-linear Notes
15
1.4.2
Pictorial Notes
16
Making Best Use of Your Notes
17
1.5.1
Using Notes for Assignments and Revision
17
1.5.2
Organising Your Notes
18
1.6
Self Assessment Questions
19
1.7
Learning Outcomes
20
1.8
Answers to Self Assessment Questions
21
2. LISTENING
24
2.1
Introduction
24
2.2
Objectives
24
2.3
Getting the Most from a Lecture
24
2.3.1
Before the Lecture
25
2.3.2
During the Lecture
26
2.3.3
After the Lecture
28
2.4
Listening in Group Discussions
28
2.5
30
2.6
Learning Outcomes
31
2.7
32
3. READING
35
3.1
Introduction
35
3.2
Objectives
35
3.3
Reading for a Purpose
35
3.4
Getting Information Quickly
36
3.5
Critical Reading
36
3.5.1
Avoiding Plagiarism
37
3.5.2
The Role of your Critical Thinking
39
3.6
Language Issues in Reading
39
3.7
Reading a Case Study
42
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3.8
44
3.9
Learning Outcomes
45
3.10
46
4. GETTING INFORMATION FROM ELECTRONIC MEDIA
49
4.1
Introduction
49
4.2
Objectives
49
4.3
Defining Your Research Question
50
4.4
Refining Your Research Topic
51
4.5
Reading from a Screen
53
4.6
Listening through your Screen
53
4.6.1
Lectures
53
4.6.2
Tutorials and Seminars
54
4.7
57
4.8
Learning Outcomes
58
4.9
59
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Point to Ponder
Before you start.
In unit 1, we identified a range of sources of information at your

disposal. To make the most of this information, you will probably want
to make notes or some other record of research. This unit is
concerned with your information-gathering skills. Before you start, can
you assess your own skills at present? For example, can you say
what you are good at doing and what you feel you need some help
with?
My skills in information gathering:
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1. Approaches to Information Gathering

Examples of the sorts of issues that people bring up in answer to the
question on the previous page are:
Im happy with what I get down, but sometimes lecturers say we

shouldnt write so much.
I dont think Im very good at taking notes.
Im alright with the traditional methods, but I find it very hard to take
notes from a computer screen.
As in unit 1, the advice is to find out what works for you. It is true that
some students seem to write too much or too little, but the real
problem is not what they write but how they use the information. If
students are unable to find the information they need, then it may be
true to say that they have written down too much (or too little). However, if they can use the notes well and achieve their purposes, then it
does not make sense to say they have too much or too little.
After working through this unit, you may decide to change the way you
make notes, but you will have good reason to make that decision.
This reason will relate what you want to get from your source of information and how you want to use it.
Different media may require different approaches, which is why there

are also sections on the skills of listening, reading and working with
electronic media. Some will be more relevant to you than others; but
you never know when your circumstances will change so it is worth
being aware of all the possibilities.
1.1 Introduction
You are usually the only person who sees or hears your own notes.
This means it is very important that they are suitable for you.
If someone asks to borrow your notes or asks you to take notes of a

meeting then the situation has changed and the appearance of your
notes may change accordingly. Here it is assumed that you are the
main user and what matters most is how you use your notes.
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1.2 Objectives
After completing this section, you should be able to:
distinguish between note-taking and note-making,
demonstrate a purposeful approach to note-making,
try out different formats of notes to see which suits your learning style,
identify key features of notes that lead to learning.
1.3 Purposes of Notes

Some of the great thinkers and speakers of ancient times thought
notes were cheating and resulted in lazy minds. However, nowadays
with so much information around we need some method of controlling
it and except in very unusual cases our memories are no longer
adequate to this task.
Some of the broad purposes for having notes are:
they remind us of important points,
they summarise large amounts of material,
they assist learning by forcing us to process information.
When you are writing an essay, preparing a presentation or revising

for an exam you will be very grateful that you have a set of notes to
work from and there will be no question in your mind that notes serve
a useful purpose. However, when students take notes, they often forget about these purposes. Having your purpose in mind as far as
possible at the start will help you to make more useful notes.
Even the words take notes and make notes indicate different approaches.
when you take notes, you are taking someone elses words
and writing them down, for a purpose which may not be very
clear,
when you make notes, you are making the ideas your own for
your own purpose.
Just to show how important the purposes of notes might be, consider
a group of students listening to a scientific radio programme about the
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potential effects of global warming on the environment. They each
have a different purpose.
1.
One student has a test the next day on the issues raised in
the programme.
2.
Another is writing a dissertation on weather patterns and

thinks there may be some relevant information on the programme.
3.
One is a member of an environmental pressure group that is

trying to change peoples patterns of behaviour to reduce the
risks of global warming.
4.
One is trying to get ideas for a special physics project and

wonders whether there will be sufficient scope in the topic of
global warming.
They all have different purposes for listening to the radio programme.
These could be phrased as questions:
1.
What facts are likely to be useful to help me answer questions

in the test?
2.
What does this programme have to say about weather patterns?
3.
What evidence is there that things that people do contribute to

global warming?
4.
How does this programme relate to the physics we have covered in my course?
You possibly have never thought about why you make notes before,
especially when youre making them. Its just something that students
do. But you can see from the example above that trying to answer
specific questions would affect the types of notes you make and make
them far more relevant to your purpose than just simply taking what
has been said.
Remember what we said in Unit 1 about the value of asking questions.

(Check back if you have forgotten.)
1.4 Forms of Notes

Notes dont have to consist of a set of phrases or sentences on lined
paper. They can appear in many guises. If someone is partially
sighted, for example, their notes might be in Braille or on tape. Students with dyslexia also often prefer to have their notes on tape,
though there are disadvantages (for example, it can be more difficult
to find a specific part of a tape).
Before reading on, can you think of as many different formats for
notes as possible? Bear in mind the sorts of learning preferences
people have, that were identified in Unit 1.
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Here are just some suggestions.
Notes in diagram form (see Figure 1.1) sometimes called spider diagrams, mind-maps, etc,
Drawings or a story board, (see Figure 1.2)
The book itself (if it is your own!) as a source of notes margin

comments, underlined words, key points highlighted in appropriate colours, pieces of paper with headings inserted at
appropriate pages,
Notes on index cards, put in alphabetical order,
Notes on audio tape perhaps using a Dictaphone,
Notes kept on a computer, eg, using the Notepad feature; key

points cut and pasted into a word-processed document.
Most notes, however, are linear notes that is, they go across and
down the page starting at the top left hand corner. Features from the
other approaches may help you to augment your linear notes; for example, can you add colour or shape to them?
It is worth exploring a couple of other methods in a little more detail.

Use these ideas to prompt ideas of your own.
Consider the following piece of text:
Saunders argues that differences in consumption and the access that

people have to the provision of certain goods constitute an independent dimension of social stratification rather than being merely a
reflection of class.
Moreover Saunders sees this as implying a division between the privatised middle mass and the marginalised and stigmatised minority
who are largely dependent on the stage, thereby resulting in growing
social polarisation. Hence, Saunders argues that it is this polarisation
that is the major social division ion modern Britain and not class. He
sees these new divisions forming the basis of contemporary political
patterns and representing a process of restratification.
Saunders regards consumption cleavages as new and powerful determinants of social divisions in their own right. Moreover, he suggests
that employment, home ownership and privatised consumption are a
consequence of each other and give each other momentum, as are
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unemployment, non-home ownership and a reliance upon socialised
consumption.
The above piece of text could be written on, underlined, annotated,

etc, to personalise it and help you remember it, for example:
1.4.1 Non-linear Notes

The main distinct approach is the non-linear approach to note-making
which has several different names.
Figure 1.1 shows how this is done. Starting with the main topic in the
middle of the page, several branches are drawn from this with the
most important subtopics written on them. Each branch can be further
subdivided, until you are getting down to a very detailed level. Each
branch could be a different colour. Pictures and links are encouraged
in this approach.
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info
help
start
follow up
read
file
discuss
read
file
use
compare
tapes
cutline
discussion
research
map
review
audience
afterwards
edit
style
cheap
Lectures
concentration
notes
valuable
understanding
purpose
personality
find
absorb
habit?
frame
reading
notes
tape?
Figure 1.1 Non-linear Note-making
The benefit of this approach is that it forces you to identify key words
and to group and link ideas together. It can be quite hard to do this in
some circumstances (eg, a lecture) and non-linear lecture notes might
be very rough but made to look more artistic later. Some people find it
easier to see the application of non-linear notes to mapping the
chapter of a book or planning an essay.
1.4.2 Pictorial Notes

When people make films or TV programmes, they use an approach
called story boarding. For students who remember events in sequence, story boarding could be a useful way of capturing the main
points to help remember the stages for an exam or for writing a lab report. Many students would find such pictures more memorable than
the equivalent words. Figure 1.2 shows how the technique might be
used in recording a scientific experiment.
Figure 1.2 Example of Story Boarding
Labelled pictures can also be very useful. For example, if you are
trying to remember different parts of the heart or the internal combustion engine, it is much easier if you have a picture rather than a set of
terms.
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1.5 Making Best Use of Your Notes

If you have written notes for a specific purpose, then it will not be too
hard to see what use they will have. They may have more than one
use, of course, and some of these uses may be unexpected. This
means that you have to know what notes you have and where to find
them.
1.5.1 Using Notes for Assignments and Revision

When you have a useful set of notes, it will be important to see how
they relate to your assignment topic (See Unit 3). Some of your notes
may not be relevant for this assignment. There is a danger that students try to cover every piece of information just because they have
notes on it. Use your notes intelligently in conjunction with the question asked in the assignment.
For exams, you are not quite sure what is going to be relevant and
what is not (but see Unit 6). Your notes will be an important guide as
to what the coverage might be.
As exams are based more on memory than many learning tasks, you
might be helped by establishing a system of frequent review. For example:
Re-read your notes:
24 hours after you have written them,
then a week later,
then a month later,
then six months later.
This is quite a difficult routine to establish, but students who use it say
that it helps. This means that every day you would need to set aside
say half an hour to go over:
yesterdays notes,
notes from a week ago,
notes from a month ago,
notes from six months ago.
If you start this process at the beginning of a course, then you will
build up slowly into the appropriate routine. In week 1, for instance,
you would only be reading the previous days notes.
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Even if you dont use such a strict revision process, it is worth thinking
about the principles involved. Put simply, these are:
review soon after you have taken the notes,
review frequently.
To do this, you need to be very organised.
1.5.2 Organising Your Notes

Re-reading your notes will also give you the opportunity to edit them.
Cross-reference the main ideas, compare and contrast different theories, and add further comments. In other words, read with a purpose
as well.
Organising your notes would also include:
filing them you need to establish some kind of system for

storing your notes where you can find them. It is very easy to
end up with a huge pile of notes which are so disorganised that
you cant find anything. A lot of the time you have invested in
making your notes will be wasted if you dont take the time to
work out a simple and effective filing system
classifying them notes could be classified under author, but

you may find it more useful to classify them under subject.
This way you can build up your own small library of materials
for each subject that you are studying.
keeping them there will come a time when you will need to
discard some of your notes. However, dont be too hasty.
Being over-anxious to have a clearout can often lead to articles
being thrown out that could come in useful at a later date.
Dont assume that because you are moving into another year
of study, eg, from 1st to 2nd year, that you wont need the
notes you made in first year. You will probably find yourself
looking back to these notes in order to build on previous
knowledge. Its probably safer and wiser to keep your notes
for the whole length of the course.
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1.6 Self Assessment Questions
1) What is the difference between note-taking and note-making?
2) Have another look at Section 1.4 in Unit 1 of this module. Make notes on it:
a) in a linear way,
b) in a non-linear way.
3) What are the key features of good notes for learning?
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1.7 Learning Outcomes
Having completed this section, you should be able to:
make notes in a way that will suit your purposes,
use your notes purposefully and in an organised way.
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1.8 Answers to Self Assessment Questions
1) What is the difference between note-taking and note-making?
Answer
When you take notes, you are lifting someone elses ideas. For
example, you might try to take every word of a lecture.
When you make notes, the notes are your own even though they
have originated from someone elses ideas. This means you have
processed the information in some way and that processing will help
you to learn better.
2) Have another look at Section 1.4 in Unit 1 of this module. Make notes on it:
a) in a linear way,
b) in a non-linear way.
Answer
Compare your answers to the following. These examples show how a
student might annotate the notes to make them personal. They will
not be exactly the same as yours, of course.
Linear Notes
What is effective learning?

4 Meaningful
Keep asking questions
Question bank = 80% exam

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Feedback keeps you right
Meaning helps memory
4 Relevant
Vision add pictures eg, B A E
Sound eg, tape record,
Doing ideas on bits of paper?
NB: How about trying to make a model?
4 Skilful
Routines
- eg, in the evening at my kitchen table.
Techniques - eg, find out how to plan my essays diagrammatically.

Strategies - eg, my strategy for my next assignment
= start three weeks before deadline
finish a draft one week before deadline to discuss
with tutor.
Non-linear notes
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3) What are the key features of good notes for learning?
Answer
Good notes are:
organised,
usable,
recognisable,
based on key words/ideas,
well linked,
memorable,
in a format that suits the student.
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2. Listening
2.1 Introduction
You can remember about 10 per cent of what you hear.
There is, of course, a big difference between hearing and listening.

Attentive listening is likely to result in notes of some kind, either during
or before the event. While a book can be consulted again, once a
lecture or discussion is over then you cant go back to it unless you
have taken notes.
Some students like to tape record lectures. This does mean they can
hear the original more than once. If you want to do this, you should
always get permission from the lecturer. Some will not allow students
to tape lectures and you will have to accept this.
Do not confuse recording what someone else says with taking notes.
You have to be directly involved with the material yourself before you
can be said to have a set of notes. In this section, we look at some of
the ways you can involve yourself.
2.2 Objectives
explain the different purposes a lecture might have,
explain the importance of preparing for a lecture and of reviewing your notes afterwards,
identify potential barriers to listening.
2.3 Getting the Most from a Lecture

Lectures used to be the main medium of learning and for some students this is still the case. The effectiveness of lectures is being
questioned in current thinking as it can be a very passive process for
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students. The efficiency of lectures, on the other hand, means that
information can be passed to a large number of people at once.
Distance learning students may have an opportunity to attend lectures

or listen to a lecture on the radio or a tape. Even if lectures have
been taped, it is worth going through the following steps to avoid constantly having to replay the tape though it is an advantage to be able
to return to the original source.
If there is a danger of the lecture being too passive for students, then
you will need to find ways of minimising that danger. The main point
of this section is to encourage you to think of a lecture as something
that happens in the middle of a process; in other words, you should
also take into account what happens before and after the lecture.
2.3.1 Before the Lecture

Because it is such a passive process, the main function of a lecture is
to get information across to the students. Many students feel comfortable with this; they like to think Ill get the information and then Ill
give it back to the lecturer at an appropriate time. This will show that
Ive learned something. Though this may happen sometimes, students who take this simple approach often fail to achieve real
understanding.
It is important for you to think about the purpose of the lecture. Is it

trying to give you a detailed picture or a framework to assist your
reading? If you have been given a framework, then the lecturer will
not be happy just to get this back. You will be expected to have filled
in some details for yourself.
In fact, lecturers have many purposes for their lectures. This is demonstrated in the following statements from two lecturers from the same
department:
If you think that these lecture notes will help you pass the
exam, then youd better think again. We expect you to do
some reading too.
I give quite detailed lecture notes. If you use these along with
the handouts Ive given you, you should have enough to pass
the exam.
Some students ask whether it is right to have these differences its

confusing and they would like all lecturers to be the same. But the
topics are different and will require different approaches. The same
lecturer may even give an outline one day and a detailed background
to an experiment on another occasion. It is important that you are
aware of this.
Another feature that leads to different purposes and approaches is the

lecturers own learning style. If a lecturer likes to get the big picture of
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a subject, then the lecture will be an overview possibly given very
enthusiastically as the lecturer wants to motivate you to further study.
On the other hand, a lecturer who likes to build up a subject logically,
step by step, may show all these steps very clearly.
Some lecturers will use the lecture in novel ways to pose questions,
raise issues and even to disturb students. Having your ideas challenged can lead to an opening of your mind which is essential for
learning something new.
So, before the lecture, it is worth thinking about what the purpose
might be. What do you already know about:
the title of the lecture,
the lecturers personality and preferences,
where the lecture fits into the course?
You might not know the answers to some of these questions. However, there are other questions you can ask:
what do I already know about this topic?
is there anything about this in the textbook (or other sources,

eg, the Internet)?
what was the last lecture about?
is this lecture likely to be useful for my essay?
will this lecture tell me about x?
Your own purpose might not be quite the same as the lecturers. For
instance, the lecturer might want to enthuse you with a passion for the
subject, while all you want is a set of decent notes that will help you
write your essay!
By asking yourself questions before the lecture, you are preparing

your mind for the lecture itself. If the lecture is part of a connected series, this is particularly helpful; but even if it is not, the more thinking
you can do beforehand, the more likely you are to provide some fertile
ground for the lecture.
2.3.2 During the Lecture

You have to do several things at once in a lecture, eg:
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listen,
think,
write,
sketch,
ask questions,
possibly translate if the language is not your first one, or if

the technical terms are unfamiliar.
It is no wonder people find it hard to concentrate. If you have prepared

a little beforehand, it may be easier to work out what is going on; in
any case, you should establish the general structure as soon as you
can. Listen for signposts the lecturer might give, eg:
the objectives of this lecture are...
I shall start with an overview and then describe a particular

problem,
this lecture is in three sections...
If a lecturer has a highly structured approach to lecturing, then patterned notes might be possible. For example, the response to this
lecture is in three sections for some people is to draw three large
branches extending from the topic in the centre of the page as shown
in figure 2.1.
HEALTH
Health Promotion
Health Education
Health Protection
Governments White Paper: Designed To Care 1997
Figure 2.1 Example of Patterned Notes
For people who prefer linear notes, there may still be a decision about
what the page should look like. If there are likely to be a lot of technical words, would it be a good idea to draw a margin and write any
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unfamiliar words in it in order to look them up later? Or perhaps you
could put any questions that occur to you in a margin.
While the lecturer is talking, you will want to get down key points.
Sometimes it can be hard to see what these are. For example, some
lecturers get annoyed if students copy down every detail of anecdotes
and examples; other lecturers say that the examples are what help
the students remember the underlying principle. For example, in Marketing, a story about IBM might demonstrate the importance of the
changing environment for decision-making.
The balance between listening and writing is up to you, even if lecturers complain about it. However, their advice might be useful as (for
example, in the Marketing case) it might not have occurred to you how
important the examples could be.
Learn from your approaches at lectures. You can experiment a little to

find out what works best for you. If a particular approach has not been
successful, find out what the main points were after the lecture by
talking to the lecturer or other students or going to the library to look
the topic up.
2.3.3 After the Lecture

Your work is not finished when the lecture is. Because of the passive
nature of lectures, you need to do something so that you make notes
instead of taking them. The very first useful thing you can do is number your pages (some people do this during the lecture). Unnumbered
notes soon get into a muddle. It may also be useful to date the lecture
pages chronology is often a reliable way to organise notes.
It is a good idea to look at your notes again within 24 hours (think of

the review cycle identified in 1.5.1). This is before you have forgotten
what your own short-hand might mean. If you think there is a danger
that your notes will not be easy to understand later, then rewrite them
so that they are.
Many students find it useful to compare lecture notes with other students. This can be very reassuring. If it also promotes discussion on
the topic, that will help your learning as well.
2.4 Listening in Group Discussions

A more interactive approach to listening is when you have the opportunity to contribute to what is being said. Group discussions are very
useful because it is here that you can try out your ideas and then refine them in the light of other peoples comments. Some students are
afraid to do this for fear of appearing stupid; but once you have realised that you have the right to put forward your ideas and
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defend them, but change your mind about them later if appropriate, then you will realise how useful discussions can be for learning.
Listening skills will help this refinement. By listening to counter examples to your ideas, you will be able to refine your defence of them or
accept that there are alternative explanations.
In a lively discussion, there are many things that can get in the way of
this process. Even where you sit in the discussion can make a difference. Students with poor hearing may find they are sitting in the
wrong place to hear the speakers properly; and, if you are sitting in
between two very loud speakers who speak at the same time, it can
be overpowering. Noise in the communication can come from less
obvious sources. For example, people who have strong opinions or
prejudices might not be prepared to listen to counter arguments.
Some people may have an underlying motive for the discussion taking
a particular direction (for example, to promote a political view). Sometimes people think others have a hidden motive, when they dont.
To help listening when a speaker is not clear, good feedback is necessary. Listeners may respond by trying to repeat back to the speaker
in their own words what they think the speaker has said; this can highlight any misunderstandings.
It can be useful to make notes of a group discussion especially if

some action is expected as an outcome of the discussion. The advice for lecture notes would be useful for group work but there is far
less likely to be a structure in a group discussion. A good facilitator
might try to introduce a structure for ease of understanding, by summing up the main points every so often and indicating how they relate
to each other.
Exercise
To practise your own listening skills, try listening to a news broadcast

on the radio. Then write down what you think were the main points
and compare your answers with the next broadcast from the same
station.
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1) What purposes might a lecturer have for giving a lecture?
2) Suggest things you should do before, during and after a lecture, giving reasons for your answers.
3) What can interfere with peoples ability to listen effectively?
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make effective notes from lectures and seminars.
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1) What purposes might a lecturer have for giving a lecture?
Answer
A lecturer might have one of the following purposes:
to provide an outline of a subject,
to give a detailed account of one issue,
to give a background to a set of problems,
to provide part of a gradual build up to a set of knowledge,
to demonstrate the lecturers enthusiasm for a subject (to motivate the student),
to demonstrate how to do something,
to disturb students (to encourage critical thinking).
You may have been able to think of other purposes. Any of these
purposes could relate to some assignment; eg, to give a detailed account of an issue that will come up in the exam; to motivate the
student to find out information for an essay.
2) Suggest things you should do before, during and after a lecture, giving reasons for your answers.
Answer
Compare your answers with the following:
Before:
Write down everything I know about the topic already; re-read the
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tions that I hope will be answered in the lecture; consider the lecturers
purpose; read any relevant material in the associated textbook; try
any associated problems.
Reason: preparing in this way means the lecture is coming

into fertile ground and will therefore be understood better.
During:
Try to work out the overall structure of the lecture; listen for key
words; use a note-making method that suits me; get down what I feel
I need.
Reason: in a lecture there are so many things going on (listening, thinking, writing, drawing, answering questions) that it
is important that students feel comfortable with the methods
they use.
After:
Number the pages; review the notes within 24 hours (ideally); rewrite
if necessary for future understanding; add anything else that seems
relevant; discuss notes with other students; check whether questions
have been answered; file the notes where I can find them.
Reason: because there are so many things going on in a

lecture, it may not be possible to get the big picture until later
on, when the notes can be made (instead of just taken). Reviewing notes encourages learning.
3) What can interfere with peoples ability to listen effectively?
Answer
Effective listening is not easy. Noise in communication can come
from:
poor hearing,
poorly constructed ideas that are hard to grasp,
too many people talking at once,
pre-conceived ideas about the subject,
wrong assumptions made about the speakers motives,
poor reasoning in the speaker or the listener,
problems with short-term memory,

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hearing what you want to hear,
inadequate feedback to check understanding.
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3. Reading
3.1 Introduction
You can remember about 20 per cent of what you read.
Perhaps you have had the experience of turning over page after page
of a book, only to say at the end what was all that about? There is a
danger that reading, like listening, is such a passive process that you
do not get as much out of it as you should. In this section, we look at
ways of making your reading as effective as possible.
3.2 Objectives
explain how objective setting can help your time management

when reading,
develop questions that would be suitable for your next piece of

reading,
suggest when it is appropriate to read quickly or slowly.
3.3 Reading for a Purpose

Youll have realised by now how useful questions can be when you
are information-gathering. If you establish a purpose for your reading,
then you can plan out what you have to do. For example, a student
has been asked to write an essay on the following topic:
Do management theories adequately reflect complex human

relationships and interactions?
Students thoughts:
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This evening, I want to find out as much as I can about Maslows hierarchy of needs so that I can write about it in my essay.
Some questions relating to this purpose:
What is a hierarchy of needs? What do I think it is before I start reading?
Why did Maslow think it was important?
How does the topic relate to my essay topic?
Will I agree that needs can be put in a hierarchy?
3.4 Getting Information Quickly

When you have an essay to write, you may be given a booklist with
several books on it. You will not have time to read every page of
every book; you need to look for the information you need. So if you
are looking for something on Maslows hierarchy of needs, you could:
check the contents page to see whether any chapter seems to

be relevant,
look up Maslow in the index,
flick through the areas where Maslow is mentioned to see

whether references seem relevant,
look for summaries at the end of sections to see whether the

section is worth reading.
Having a question in mind makes it much easier to do this.
All this might seem to be just common sense, but it is amazing how
many students (and sometimes lecturers too) will forget to look to see
whether there is a summary. You want to make sure that when you
are reading a section in great depth, it is the right section.
3.5 Critical Reading

When you have found a passage or chapter you think is important,
then you will want to set aside an appropriate time to read in depth
and to read critically to try to answer your question. Being critical
does not mean that you have to reject everything the writer has said;
it does mean that you should retain your questioning approach.
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There are many more questions that might be going through your
mind now:
How does this chapter fit into the book as a whole? (Have another
look at the contents page.)
How is the chapter structured?
What is the authors main point?
Do I agree with this main point?
Does it contradict anything I have read before?
What would be the most useful format for my notes?
3.5.1 Avoiding Plagiarism

The dangers of plagiarism can start with notes from textbooks. Here is
what often happens.
This is excellent its just what I need for my essay. The writer says
it so well, so Ill just copy it out.
Two weeks later
I need some notes on Maslow. Here they are. Oh, that sounds good.
Ill just put it in my essay like that.
Students who reason like this often do not know they have plagiarised. If you copy something from a book straight into your essay,
your tutors will usually be able to tell. You might receive no marks for
your essay because of this. It is OK to quote directly as long as you
acknowledge your source. (See Unit 3.)
How can you avoid this problem? The best way is to try to write your
notes in your own words. Take each paragraph or short section and
try to summarise it. If you find it difficult to say it any other way, then
close the book and try to imagine you are telling someone what you
have just read. Write it down and only then open the book again and
see whether you have remembered the main points.
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Many people think of marketing only as selling and advertising. And

no wonder: every day we are bombarded with television commercials,
newspaper ads, direct mail campaigns and sales calls. However,
selling and advertising are only the tip of the marketing iceberg.
Although they are important, they are only two of many marketing
functions, and are often not the most important ones.
Today, marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making

a sale telling and selling but in the new sense of satisfying
customer needs. If the marketer does a good job of understanding
customer needs, develops products that provide superior value, and
prices, distributes and promotes them effectively, these products will
sell very easily. Thus, selling and advertising are only part of a larger
marketing mix a set of marketing tools that work together to affect
the marketplace.
Kotler, P and Armstrong G. Marketing: An Introduction. Prentice Hall

International, Inc. New Jersey, 1997.
Your notes might summarise these two paragraphs as follows:
Marketing = satisfying customer needs. Ads and selling are just part of
this.
Marketing mix = set of tools, inc. also product, price, distribution.
Then when you come to write an essay, drawing on notes from

several sources, you might find the information in the following form:
It would be wrong to think that marketing is simply about

advertising and selling. As Kotler and Armstrong (1997) point out,
these are only aspects of the marketing mix of tools. There is no
point in having an excellent advert if the product does not actually
meet the customers needs.
If the essay is asking you to explain the marketing mix, then it will
continue with an analysis of the additional features of the mix. If, on
the other hand, it is asking you to consider the role of advertising, then
you might have a paragraph placing advertising in its appropriate
context.
If you are using non-linear notes, you will already be forced to reduce
what you are reading to key words. At the end of this process, some
students find it useful to add a sentence or two summarising the whole
chapter, perhaps adding some observations of their own.
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3.5.2 The Role of your Critical Thinking

An academic text almost always represents a new way of looking at
the world. It may even challenge your existing way of thinking. Unless you are open to change and receptive to new information, you will
not be successful in extending your existing knowledge. You should
not accept this new way of looking at the world uncritically, however.
Critical reading encourages you to:
question any assumptions made by the author,
examine the evidence provided by the author,
consider whether there may be any counter examples to the

main arguments,
explore any alternative ways of looking at the evidence,
decide whether the author has provided information that will be

appropriate evidence for or against something you wish to argue for yourself.
3.6 Language Issues in Reading

If there are many technical terms, or if you are not reading in your native language, your critical reading will be even slower to allow for the
language issues. Depending on circumstances and your own preferences, you might:
interrupt your reading to find out what the words mean,
ignore the words because you think you understand enough of

the sentence for it not to matter,
guess the meaning of the words.
The following exercise may help you to think about whether the approach you take at the moment is the right one.
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Exercise
Here are some words that have been used in this unit already. Do
you know what they all mean? Try looking them up in a dictionary if
you do not. If you are still struggling, find a sentence that contains the
word and see whether that helps you to identify the sense. How
important do you think it is that you should have understood these
words?
(a)
dyslexia
(b)
non-linear
(c)
motive
(d)
passive
(e)
critical
(f)
plagiarism
Here are some of the sentences containing these words. Does the
context help your understanding?
(a)
Students with dyslexia also often prefer to have their notes

on tape.
(b)
Some people find it easier to see the application of non-linear

notes to mapping the chapter of a book or planning an essay.
(c)
Some people may have an underlying motive for the

discussion taking a particular direction (for example, to
promote a political view).
(d)
Because it is such a passive process, the main function of a

lecture is to get information across to the students.
(e)
Being critical does not mean that you have to reject

everything the writer has said.
(f)
The dangers of plagiarism can start with notes from

textbooks.
Dictionary definitions (Chambers )

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In each case, this is the first definition of the word, which is not always
the most appropriate one.
(a)
word blindness
(b)
not linear (linear = of, or belonging to a line)
(c)
causing motion
(d)
suffering (obs)
(e)
at or relating to a turning point
(f)
the act or practice of plagiarising (plagiarise = to steal from

the writings or ideas of another)
Dictionaries are very useful, but have to be used with care. The
context of the word can change its meaning considerably. Here are
comments on each of these cases.
(a)
Dyslexia describes a range of conditions, particularly (though

not always) related to reading and writing. In the context of
this unit it was simply used as an example. Unless you are
dyslexic yourself, or are studying dyslexia, it is not particularly
important for your understanding of this module or your
course.
(b)
You are more likely to remember the meaning of non-linear

from the example of non-linear notes shown in 1.4.1. You
would have had to understand this expression to complete the
SAQs in Section 1, so it is an important word in this unit.
(c)
The first dictionary definition would not help you here. You
would probably be most helped by the definition of motivation
which is incentive if you understood what incentive meant.
A motive is what makes you act in a particular way.
Understanding this word would have helped you with the
SAQs in Section 2.
(d)
Here the first definition was an obsolete one (one that is no

longer used) so it would be not be very helpful. The next
definition acted upon, not acting provides exactly the
meaning in the context used here.
(e)
Critical is a word with several meanings, some of which

seem rather negative. A critic is a person who has skills in
assessing the quality of a piece of work, such as art or
literature. This is the sense from which critical is used in this
unit. Unfortunately, critical also means fault-finding so
students think if they are critical they have to be negative,
which is not necessarily the case. As you can see, the first
definition in Chambers dictionary also gives another meaning,
relating to a turning point. This is not relevant to our purposes
here.
Critical is an important word for you to understand as you will
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be expected to read and think critically. It is also a word that
frequently comes up in essay writing.
f)
As in example (b), here you have to look up another word to

clarify the meaning of the one you want. The definition of
plagiarise is exactly right for our purposes and it is an
important word that you will come across several times in this
module.
This exercise shows that you have to be careful with your use of dictionaries and that you need to be able to put new words in their
context.
In your first language, you probably know and understand many more
words than you use. Words you understand but dont use easily or
frequently are in your passive vocabulary. Words that you do use
freely come from your active language. What you have to do is shift
passive vocabulary to active vocabulary. There are several useful
activities that you can perform to help you achieve this, namely:
writing down words or phrases, rather than just saying them to

yourself repeatedly, will make them stick better in your memory,
try writing down different examples of meaning and use for the
word,
when writing down words and phrases put them into sentences
in order to learn the way in which the words can be used,
include vocabulary learning in your study plan. Reinforce your

learning by frequently updating your vocabulary examples, eg,
continue to write new sentences for phrases and words that
you have learned,
create an efficient system for recording new vocabulary,
ensure that you have understood fully the words and phrases
that you read and their context. If, after using a dictionary, you
are still unsure about them, ask your tutor.
Learning vocabulary requires effort and frequent attention. Little and

often is a good rule to follow.
3.7 Reading a Case Study

Case studies bring ideas and concepts to life in a relevant and interesting way. They are often used in assignment or examination
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questions to give the student the opportunity to demonstrate a broad
knowledge of the subject matter. An example of a case study is shown
in section 4 of this unit.
A case study is a precise description of an event or a series of events

which have taken place in an organisation. The events may be from
real life or fictional. When asked for your opinion on any particular
case study, you are not expected to show any in-depth knowledge.
Your task will be to identify a number of things that have gone wrong
or things that should have been done but were not, and to make your
recommendations for addressing these.
Case studies need to be approached systematically. For example:
read the case study through fairly quickly just to get a general
feeling for the story line. Certain points may grab your attention; if so, highlight them,
read the case study again, more carefully this time bearing in
mind that each paragraph will contain a piece of information
that is relevant to your outcome. Make brief notes about any
problems that you may be able to identify,
read the questions that accompany the case study to ensure

that you are clear about what you are being asked to provide in
your answer,
if several problems can be identified then you should try to find

links and common causes. For example, a scenario about a
fast-food restaurants problems might include absenteeism,
slow performance, lateness, lack of serving space, etc. From
your reading of the case, you may come to the conclusion that
staff motivation is low but what is the underlying cause?
Perhaps the jobs are boring and repetitive or maybe the management style is inappropriate,
based on your analysis, you should now be able to develop a

set of realistic recommendations for tackling the problems or
issues that you have been asked to address,
having ensured that you have covered all the questions you
have been asked to answer about the case study, you should
now write your final analysis in an appropriate format, eg a
management report.
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1) Why should you set yourself objectives when you read?
2) Your next module is on Writing at University. What questions would be useful to help you make the
module more meaningful?
3) Sometimes you will just scan the headings in a book, and sometimes you will want more information from
your reading. What would be appropriate ways to read for the following purposes?
(a) to find out whether a book is likely to contain useful infor

mation for an assignment,
(b) to find out what the writers argument for a specific point is,
(c) to check for items of new vocabulary,
(d) to answer questions in a case study.
4) How can you improve your active vocabulary for academic work?
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read purposefully to answer specific questions.
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1) Why should you set yourself objectives when you read?
Answer
Setting yourself objectives specific tasks to achieve helps you to
read more efficiently because:
reading for your own purpose makes the reading more meaningful and motivating,
having a specific purpose puts a time limit on the reading; you

know when you have achieved your purpose,
you are more likely to remember a section that has answered

one of your own questions,
having objectives enables you to read more critically.
2) Your next module is on Writing at University. What questions would be useful to help you make the
module more meaningful?
Answer
Your questions might include some of the following:
Is there more than one kind of writing at university?
How is writing at university different from writing at work?
How will the module help me with my distance learning assignments?
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Will I have to make changes to the way I write?
Will the module say anything about writing in English when it is

not my first language?
Dont worry if you had different questions: remember how important it

is for them to be your own questions anyway.
3) Sometimes you will just scan the headings in a book, and sometimes you will want more information from
your reading. What would be appropriate ways to read for the following purposes?
a) to find out whether a book is likely to contain useful information for an assignment,
(b) to find out what the writers argument for a specific point is,
(c) to check for items of new vocabulary,
(d) to answer questions in a case study.
Answer
These are suggestions; consider your own answers in the light of
them.
(a)
scan the contents page for appropriate headings; look up key

words in the index; flick through any relevant sections to get
an overview,
(b)
read or scan once for the overview of the writers main ideas,
then read critically in more depth as often as is necessary,
making notes as appropriate,
(c)
scan the chapter to see whether there are any important

words that keep recurring; look the word up in a dictionary;
take one of the examples and read it in depth to see whether
the meaning can be worked out from the context; apply your
understanding to the other contexts; make a note of the
meaning and the main points of the text,
or
try reading without looking up unknown words to see whether

they are obvious from the context; then look them up,
(d)
read the questions first,

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then either scan the case study quickly looking for likely
answers and then read it in depth,
or read the case study in depth, looking out for likely answers
to the questions all the time.
4) How can you improve your active vocabulary for academic work?
Answer
Whether you are reading in your native language or not, academic
reading will develop your active vocabulary. You may have come up
with some of the following points:
use dictionaries sensibly, recognising that the first definition will

not always be correct,
think about words in their context what does the rest of the
sentence tell you?
decide how important it is for you to understand the word,
try to work it out for yourself, but dont be afraid to ask other
people,
build language learning into your study plan.
The key to all this is to keep reading.
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4. Getting Information from Electronic Media
4.1 Introduction
Look at the introductions to the previous two sections. If you only read
or only listen, then you will not retain a great deal of information. In
this module, we are also stressing the importance of active rather than
passive learning. Electronic media offer a great potential through:
a greater mix of visual and auditory material, which can be

more stimulating,
active participation in selection of material, rather than passive

receipt of other peoples ideas,
more control over the pace of delivery of the material,
opportunities for discussions about your learning at a time that

suits you.
It is important to remember these potential advantages and not to treat

the electronic media as simply a fancy version of a book. If its a book
that you want, perhaps thats what you should be reading!
In this section, we look at how to exploit the potential of electronic media. Once you have mastered the objectives below, you will probably
want to add many more of your own.
4.2 Objectives
apply the broad information-gathering approach already used

in this unit to use of electronic media,
expand the processes of listening and reading to incorporate

the additional features offered by electronic media.
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4.3 Defining Your Research Question

As in listening and reading, the most important point to make is that
you are researching for a purpose. Your initial purpose may be fairly
vague:
I wonder what there is about logic and electronics on the

World Wide Web,
but it is still useful to have a purpose. Surfing the net can easily result in finding yourself totally confused and wasting time. Make sure
you can distinguish between:
having a creative wander through the pages of the Internet (a

leisure pursuit),
using the Internet to get information about a specific topic (a

study pursuit).
The processes may sometimes seem fairly similar and the danger is
that you can convince yourself that you are studying when, in fact,
you are not. That is not to say that you should never have that creative wander you might even find something that is useful while you
are doing so but you should be aware of the dangers.
Heres how one student described this dilemma:
I used to spend hours searching the Internet I think I was in

danger of being addicted to it. Id start by doing a search say
on one of my Biology topics. Then Id find that there were
over 300,000 sites that mentioned my topic. Id look at some
of them and then Id accidentally get on to some American
kids homepage and Id discover he liked the same basketball
team as I did. Then Id stop to send him an e-mail and before I knew where I was, half the night had gone by.
Now Im much stricter with myself, but I allow myself an

Internet break for twenty minutes every evening about half
way through my study period. Knowing Ive got this time
stops my attention wandering when Im trying to find specific
answers to my research questions.
So make sure that your initial question is soon sharpened up into

something more specific than I wonder what there is about
Its not just for surfing the World Wide Web that you need a clearly defined purpose. You might also be looking at an electronic library
recommended to you as part of your course or you might be participating in a discussion on a bulletin board. If you do not know why you
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are using this particular medium, there is a strong chance that your
search will degenerate into a trivial pursuit.
If you have been directed to a particular site, then ask yourself what
your tutor/writer of the material expects you to get out of this. Is it any
of the following, for instance:
an overview of a topic,
a detail that is not in your course notes,
background reading to a particular case study,
a set of arguments that you are expected to critically analyse,
additional material that will be relevant for a report,
a specific example of a use of technical language,
an answer to a question that you or the tutor has raised.
Exercise
If you have access to the World Wide Web, try using it to answer the
following question:
What are lecturers looking for in essay writing?
(If you are using the electronic version of this module, you might also
find this a useful exercise to ask of the module.)
4.4 Refining Your Research Topic

Even when you are clear about the question you want to ask, you can
have some problems in making your interrogation sufficiently specific.
Databases, CD-ROMS and the World Wide Web all hold a considerable amount of information. Your own judgement will be called on
considerably to help you refine your research. Below is a brief example of the refining process in operation; you may hit lucky like this
student, but you might have a try a variety of words before you get
something of value to your original search question.
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Initial question: What are lecturers looking for in essay writing?
Find search engine: Tried Excite and typed in essay writing
Assess search results: Over a million! First ones seem to be offering some kind of essay writing service.
Refine search: Add requirements and lecturers to search words.
Assess search results. Second research result answers the question, but on investigation seems to be written for lecturers. Just
flicking through summaries shows argument and purpose to be what
lecturers are most concerned about.
Some of the search engines on the WWW (such as Yahoo, Lycos,

Alta Vista) will help you by providing a more advanced search facility.
CASE STUDY
Jim was preparing a project on educational software on a particular
topic in engineering (vibrations) and wanted to know what was around
in general as part of his literature review. He found some books in the
library, but thought he should look around for more.
CD-ROMS
Jim looked at the CD-ROMS in the library and discovered the BIDS
system. Compendex Plus provides access to a major engineering literature database covering about 2,600 international journals. He
spoke to the librarian at the enquiries desk about using this and was
given a leaflet to help him with his search.
Asking People
As well as librarians, there are other staff for Jim to turn to. Jim asked
his supervisors advice and after recommending a couple of books, his
supervisor said: Have you tried Educational and Staff Development?
They are interested in this area. There he learned about the Teaching
and Learning in Technology Project being run in various universities.
The library has a catalogue of their software.
World Wide Web

Jim had tried surfing the net before, but had not realised how useful it
could be for getting references to academic material and people. He
first looked for a search engine under Net Search. He tried a couple:
Infonet and Yahoo and, on this occasion, found the most useful leads
under Webcrawler. He looked up engineering AND software AND
education and came up with some useful sites, one of which led him
to
the
Edinburgh
Engineering
Virtual
Library
at
www.eevl.ac.uk/welcome.html. This proved to be a very useful starting point for future searches.
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4.5 Reading from a Screen

When you have finally found the information you want, there may be
quite a lot of it. Having information on a screen is not quite the same
as having a physical book in your hands that you can flick through,
check the index, mark and so on. However, some of these facilities
may actually be available to you, in a slightly different form:
flicking through scroll through the document to get an overall

feel for what it is about,
checking the index using your research question, perform a

search on the document with a key word. Note the context
where it appears and ask yourself whether this might be relevant to your purposes,
marking relevant paragraphs cut out relevant paragraphs and

put them in a separate file, using the notepad facility or a word
processing package. Remember that this is still original material and you need to say where it comes from if you ever use it
in your essay.
Many people would still find this more tricky than reading a physical
document. It may be a question of getting used to it; however, if you
cant print out the document, it might make more sense to regard it as
a lecture rather than a book and listen to it instead, as described below.
4.6 Listening through your Screen

4.6.1 Lectures
In a typical lecture, you only hear the material once and your notes
have to be your record of the event. You could say the same of the
book that is much in demand and is due back in the library in an hour.
It really does concentrate the mind, thinking that this is the only opportunity to get the information I need.
If you have a document to read on a computer, it may be helpful to

concentrate your mind in the same way.
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Exercise
Have a look back at the notes in this unit on the lecture, and try to
apply them to listening through your screen.
What will you do

before,
during,
after
your session listening to a lecture on the computer?
Combining the answers to the exercise above with the special flicking
through facilities of a computer gives you some suggestions about
how you might make notes from your screen lecture. Cutting and
pasting relevant bits may save you making notes at present it is like
tape recording part of a lecture and the search facility will help you
fast-forward or back-track the lecturer, which is certainly a bonus!
However, the main ideas of having a purpose, summarising using key
words and organising your notes afterwards should help you to maximise your use of information from a database, CD-ROM or Website.
4.6.2 Tutorials and Seminars

Listening to lectures and reading from screens can be a very passive process. Working through a computer becomes much more
active when you communicate with others who are working in the
same area. There are a variety of ways to have a discussion with
other people using electronic media:
Using E-mail
If you want to know what someone thinks about something, ask him or
her for information or simply arrange a meeting, e-mail is very useful.
You can attach documents to your message, which means that you
can send information much more quickly than using the postal system.
Of course, it only works if you know peoples numbers and know that
they look at their mail.
A communication such as the following seems a lot simpler than putting a large document in an envelope and posting it or looking for the
person:
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SS101(rev 1.0)
Pat,
Ive done a draft for my bit of the group project (attached). Can you check it over and let me know if it
fits in with your section. Perhaps we can get together
on Tuesday.
Regards,
Lee
The response is easy too. Simply by hitting a reply button, Pat can
get back to Lee at a convenient time:
Hello Lee,
What youve written is great though I dont understand your last paragraph. Ive attached an
alternative, showing what I think you mean. If Im
wrong, you can let me know. Tuesday at 3pm would
suit me. Ill come to you.
One of the advantages of e-mail is that you do not have to be there at

the time the communication comes in. If you are working with people
on the other side of the world, this is very convenient. You can send
them a message in what would be the middle of the night for them
without disturbing them.
E-mail does not have to be one-to-one. E-mails can be sent to a group

of people at once. Some people have grouped themselves into mailbases; if you join one of these, you choose to receive e-mails on a
particular topic from anyone in the group. When you hit the reply button, your response goes to everyone in the group. This is a useful
way of keeping up to date with new developments in a subject. For
example, a typical question on a mailbase about student learning
might be:
Does anyone know any books I can recommend to students

that will help them improve their problem-solving techniques?
The sender of this message then awaits answers from all over the
world. The other people on the mailbase can also share these answers.
To find out more about mailbases, check http://www.mailbase.ac.uk.
When you dont have to reply immediately, you have some time to
think about what you are going to say. This is encouraging people
who are rather shy or like to consider their words carefully to participate more in academic exchanges. Another advantage is that you can
keep the e-mails as a record of the exchanges but be warned, they
do mount up!
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This type of communication is asynchronous at different times.
However, with electronic media, you have a choice. You can speak to
people at a distance at the same time.
Synchronous Communication (at the same time)
Face-to-face discussions, telephone conferencing or video
conferencing are all examples of synchronous communication where
you get instant feedback on your ideas. You can also achieve this on
the computer, using teleconferencing systems.
In this case, you have to pre-arrange a time to have a tutorial or a discussion and you would probably be limited in this time, as you would
in a face-to-face tutorial. Everyone logs in so you can see who is in
the group. If there is a tutor/facilitator, that person may decide to ask
a question to start the discussion and let people know when the session has ended. If you need a record of the discussion, this will have
to be decided at the start, because otherwise, the information will disappear when everyone logs off. This means that you might want to
make notes, as you would at a face-to-face tutorial.
But remember that you are participating in a discussion and the advantage of immediacy should be exploited. For example, if you dont
understand someone and let them know, they can immediately clarify
their ideas. This can be harder to do with asynchronous communication when the ideas are not so immediate.
The best way to find out the advantages and disadvantages of the
different forms of electronic media is to try them out for yourself.
Technology is moving on all the time and new combinations of media
will keep emerging. All of these can help you to learn. Dont be afraid
to try them out.
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1) How might the information gathering approach identified in this unit influence your use of electronic
media?
2) You need information about XYZ plc and you have access to a computer and a modem but not a printer.
How would you go about ensuring you have the information you need?
3) What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication, and what are the
advantages of each?
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SS101(rev 1.0)
apply the principles of purposeful information gathering to

electronic media.
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SS101(rev 1.0)
1) How might the information gathering approach identified in this unit influence your use of electronic
media?
Answer
The main feature of information gathering that is stressed in this unit is
its purposeful nature. Whenever you are looking for information, you
are doing so for a specific purpose and the more closely you can define this purpose the better.
When using electronic media, it is easy to get side-tracked, and it is

the questions that define your purpose that will help keep you on
track.
Because of the wealth of information available and the fact that the
selection is more clearly under your control than it might be in a lecture or a book, you may have to refine your topics for research in
order to get the answer to your question. Students who cope with this
successfully are already processing their learning and electronic media could well help them learn very effectively. Students who do not
may end up with a lot of trivial information.
2) You need information about XYZ plc and you have access to a computer and a modem but not a printer.
How would you go about ensuring you have the information you need?
Answer
The starting point is a clearly defined question or set of questions.
What information is it that you need?
One way of regarding this type of writing is to treat it as a lecture

imagine you only hear it once and have to concentrate on the key
messages. Alternatively, you could treat it like a book however, if
you cant print it out it may lose some of the flexibility of a book such
as the ability to get an overview by flicking through it.
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Possible ways of taking notes:
use the notepad facility or a word-processing package on the

computer itself to copy key phrases (remembering the problems of plagiarism),
read a paragraph and write down your summary of it,
use the search facility to find specific words, eg, summary.
3) What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication, and what are the
advantages of each?
Answer
synchronous = at the same time
asynchronous = at different times
When you are communicating with other students and your tutor, you
may want to use either method.
synchronous advantages:
has directness of conversation,
instant feedback on ideas,
instant resolution of misunderstandings.
asynchronous advantages:
time to think about what you are going to say,
flexibility of working times,
no problems of time zones, so can communicate all over the

world.
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StudySkills Unit2

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Learning

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experiences will have consisted of information being handed out in

Sources of information go beyond lectures and books, however, and

The emphasis in this unit is on your purposes for information

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Making Best Use of Your Notes

Using Notes for Assignments and Revision

Organising Your Notes

Self Assessment Questions

Answers to Self Assessment Questions

Getting the Most from a Lecture

Before the Lecture

During the Lecture

After the Lecture

Listening in Group Discussions

Self Assessment Questions

Answers to Self Assessment Questions

Reading for a Purpose

Getting Information Quickly

The Role of your Critical Thinking

Language Issues in Reading

Reading a Case Study

Self Assessment Questions

Answers to Self Assessment Questions

4. GETTING INFORMATION FROM ELECTRONIC MEDIA

Defining Your Research Question

Refining Your Research Topic

Reading from a Screen

Listening through your Screen

Tutorials and Seminars

Self Assessment Questions

Answers to Self Assessment Questions

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Before you start.

In unit 1, we identified a range of sources of information at your

My skills in information gathering:

1. Approaches to Information Gathering

Im happy with what I get down, but sometimes lecturers say we

I dont think Im very good at taking notes.

Different media may require different approaches, which is why there

If someone asks to borrow your notes or asks you to take notes of a

distinguish between note-taking and note-making,

demonstrate a purposeful approach to note-making,

identify key features of notes that lead to learning.

1.3 Purposes of Notes

Some of the broad purposes for having notes are:

they remind us of important points,

they summarise large amounts of material,

they assist learning by forcing us to process information.

When you are writing an essay, preparing a presentation or revising

Another is writing a dissertation on weather patterns and

One is a member of an environmental pressure group that is

One is trying to get ideas for a special physics project and

What facts are likely to be useful to help me answer questions

What does this programme have to say about weather patterns?

What evidence is there that things that people do contribute to

Remember what we said in Unit 1 about the value of asking questions.

1.4 Forms of Notes

Here are just some suggestions.

Drawings or a story board, (see Figure 1.2)

The book itself (if it is your own!) as a source of notes margin