4.1 Underlining and highlighting To be able to make sense of what you are reading, you need to read actively. One method that can help is to use a pen. Did you underline or highlight any words as you read the Layard article? If not 3.3 Choosing a reading speed As a student you cannot afford to read at just whatever speed comes naturally. If you are trying to keep abreast of a course, you have to push yourself. However, reading speeds range from a lightning skim through a whole book to intense concentration on a difficult paragraph. You need to become skilled at working at speeds right across the range. How quickly you need to read will depend on: what you already know about the subject, how 2.2 The ‘academic’ style You might also be put off by the ‘academic’ style of writing. In everyday life, what you read is usually written to grab your attention and get a message across quickly before you ‘switch channels’. By contrast, academic texts often raise broad, abstract questions and are unconcerned about arriving at quick answers. For example, where a newspaper headline might say: Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to thinking skills. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner. 10 Reflecting on tutor feedback When you have taken the assignment as far as you can, you will benefit more from the feedback from your tutor than you will from further polishing. If you have worked hard to become involved with your subject you will really appreciate having a captive audience. Someone with as much interest in the subject (and presumably greater knowledge) as you, will take time to read what you have written and to understand what you are trying to say. 7.4.2 The introduction of an essay What is the introduction of an essay and what is its purpose? Write down your own understanding of the term ‘introduction’ in relation to essays. 6.3.1 Stage 1 Brainstorm To begin your planning, you need to generate ideas or brainstorm. At this stage, you are including everything that you think may be relevant. Nothing should be dismissed yet; this part is about gathering your resources and your thoughts. For instance, using the essay title ‘There are advantages to studying as a mature student. Do you agree?’, we tried to brainstorm for ideas and produced this list (but, of course, it wasn't this tidy): 6.3 Planning stages Having discussed the reasons to plan writing and the impact planning may have, now we need to look at planning itself and its two stages. 4.3 Analysis and interpretation We have got to the point of recognising that this is a lyric poem, and of thinking that it is probably about a lovers’ meeting. But you cannot reach firmer conclusions about a text's meanings until you have looked at as many aspects of it as you can. I think we need to go back again to the detail of the poem, because the analysis is not full enough yet. For one thing, there is something odd about the poem's syntax. If you look at the verbs in the first verse you'll see that they are a 1.3.1 Cultural traditions Just now I said quite confidently that you already know a lot about the subjects that make up the arts and humanities even if you have not studied them before. But how can I be so sure? What makes me certain is that, like everyone else, you were born into a human culture. As you were growing up within that culture you were hearing and seeing all the things the people around you were busy saying, doing and making. And you were learning to think and understand, do, say and make similar kinds of Acknowledgements Course image: Simon Law in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence. All materials included in this course are derived from content originated at the Open University. Don't miss out: If reading Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying Mathematics and Statistics. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner. 5.1.4 How do I draw a bar chart? First, you need to decide what it is you want your chart to illustrate. This may be governed by the data you have access to or you might need to collect the data yourself. Then the process is as below. Decide on a clear title. The title should be a brief description of the data that you want to show. Identify how many bars are needed. The bars correspond to the number of categories you have. For instance, if you are look Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: reflect on the reasons for needing to improve skills in using charts, graphs and tables understand the following mathematical concepts and how to use them, through instruction, worked examples and practice activities: reflecting on mathematics; tables; line graphs; bar charts and histograms; pie charts; analysis draw on a technical glossary, plus a a list of references to further reading and sources 7 Further reading and sources of help Where to get more help with using and interpreting tables, graphs, percentages, and with other aspects of numerical work. Conclusion We have now looked at a number of different graphs and charts, all of which were potentially misleading. We hope that from now on if you have to work with a graph or a chart, you will always consider the following points: look carefully at any horizontal or vertical scale that is given; consider each graph or chart separately, don't compare them unless you are sure that they have the same scales; if it is not easy to 4.7 Proportion We can use a number of different ways to indicate change – fractions, decimals, and percentages tend to be the ones with which many of us are familiar. Which of these represents the greater proporti 2 Reflection on mathematics Mathematics is a subject about which people have strong views, and these can be negative, positive, or a combination of the two. Our own experience, as tutors and students of mathematics, is that mathematics is often seen by others as something that ‘isn't for me’, and one where beliefs and feelings, especially worry and even fear, can be strong, as a result of previous unhappy experiences. We have written this section to help you to look at your mathematical background, so that you can u 1 Your worries and concerns with charts, graphs and tables Do you sometimes feel that you do not fully understand the way that numbers are presented in course materials, newspaper articles and other published material? What do you consider are your main worries and concerns about your ability to understand and interpret graphs, charts and tables? Spend a few minutes writing these down before you read on. One student has said: I am never quite sure that I Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: reflect on existing skills and mathematical history, set up strategies to cope with mathematics and assess which areas need improving understand the following mathematical concepts, through instruction, worked examples and practice activities: reflecting on mathematics; reading articles for mathematical information; making sense of data; interpreting graphs and charts draw on a technical glossary, p
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