2.5 Find out how computers work The BBC offers an Absolute Beginners' Guide to Using Your Computer (accessed 8 November 2006). This guide is ideal for anyone really new to computers. If you're interested in the more technical aspects of how computers work and how they've developed over time, have a look at the BBC/Open University Information Communication Technology portal (accessed 8 November 2006).
3.2 Using diagrams of your own choice and design This option is the most challenging and most rewarding, as it clearly shows that you have explored and analysed the source material and reworked it for yourself. In many cases, the source material may not contain any diagrams, simply text or numbers, perhaps expressed as a table. Alternatively, you may have had to make some specific observations or undertake an experiment to produce your own data. In this case, you may be expected to produce a diagram to enhance or improve your assignment. If
3.1.2 Option 2: Copying out diagrams I am trying to encourage you to use diagrams, but there is a pitfall associated with this option. This option is one that many students do use, so it's worth exploring why it is not a particularly good idea. The following is a slight parody of the sort of written assignment I have in mind. The text reads something like this: ‘There are many ways in which diseases can be spread, see Figure 1.’ There then follows ‘Figure 1’ which is a direct copy of the diagram from the sour
3.1.1 Option 1: Don't use the diagram at all It is quite possible to write a good answer to the question without using the diagram. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of not using the diagram? 3.1 Using diagrams from course materials or other sources So far in this course we have been looking at how you can improve your understanding of other people's texts and diagrams. I have shown you some study techniques that you can use to ‘translate’ text into diagrams and diagrams into meaningful text. However, this discussion has been focused on what you can do for yourself. At some point, you'll have to produce assignments that require, or will be enhanced by, the use of diagrams. One of the first decisions you'll face is whether to use an e 2.2.4 Reading graphs and charts: extracting information When you are sure that you know what a chart or graph is all about, start to look for any main trends. Jot down for yourself a few conclusions that you think can be drawn. It often takes a little time before you can interpret the chart or graph properly. It is worth the effort, however, because information held in the form of a graph is highly patterned; and as our memories work by finding patterns in information and storing them, the information in graphs is easier to remember than informati 2.2 Reading diagrams When you're studying, following the sense of a piece of text may not be straightforward. Often, you'll need to rewrite the text as notes or a diagram. Equally, some diagrams will need careful reading, and you'll have to make notes or draw other diagrams. So, how can we read different types of diagrams? 2.1.1 Rewriting text as relationship diagrams A spray diagram can help with note-making. In this section, I want to go a little further and show how you can use diagrams to help you understand what someone else has written. Here, it doesn't matter how well you can draw, as long as the finished diagram makes sense to you. As you become more confident at drawing diagrams for yourself, you will be able to move on to drawing diagrams for others. At this stage, you may still have doubts about the value of diagrams for understandi 1.2 Types of diagrams As there is this variety in the types of diagrams we use, we need to think more broadly about what pictures and diagrams are trying to represent. You will encounter three main types of diagrams when studying MST subjects.
Pictures or pictorial diagrams that attempt to represent the essential features of a part of reality – for example, diagrams of equipment, molecules or parts of a plant. Diagrams that try to describe Acknowledgements The material below is part of an extract (chapter 4 pages pp. 101–142 and pp. 265–268) adapted for OpenLearn and contained in The Arts Good Study Guide, by Ellie Chambers and Andrew Northedge from The Open University. Copyright © The Open University, 2005. The Arts Study Guide forms part of the study material for The Open University course A103 An Introduction to the Humanities and has been designed to be used with other Open University courses. Except for third party materi 5.1.3 Film Studies Bawden, L.-A. (ed.) (1976) The Oxford Companion to Film, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 3.7.1 Technical considerations Handwriting Nowadays most people use a word processing package to write essays while some people may use a typewriter. However, if you don't have access to either of these you will need to hand-write your essay. Should this be the case, the ease of reading depends on the quality of your handwriting . It is only fair to your tutor to try to make your writing as legible as possible. This will take time and care. But when you have spent a long time putting an essay together, 3.6 Taking an objective, analytical stance One of the things I said an essay should be is ‘objective’. What does that mean? Being objective about something means standing back from it and looking at it coolly. It means focusing your attention on the ‘object’, on what you are discussing, and not on yourself and your own (subjective) feelings about it. Your ideas should be able to survive detailed inspection by other people who are not emotionally committed to them. An essay should argue by force of reason, not emot 3.1 A sharper focus So far, we have been analysing essays in a practical way, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of some actual examples, rather than at formal rules or abstract ideas about essay-writing. Now, though, we need to summarise. I suggest this because I think you already have a fairly good idea of what effective writing is. I don't think the point of a course like this is to tell you much that is devastatingly new. It is to bring into sharper focus what you ‘know’ already, and to help y 2.5.1 Sentences We can see that Philip knows what a sentence is because he writes some perfectly good ones. For example: In many ways going into urban life from the countryside was beneficial to woman of the upperclass. This sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop. It has a subject (urban life) and a main verb (was). As any sentence is, it is a self-contained ‘unit of meaning’. It m 2.2 Looking at other people's essays One of the best ways of developing your essay-writing ability is to see how other students respond to the same essay title as you. It is not that you want to copy someone else's style. It's just that you need to broaden your understanding of what is possible when you are answering an essay question. 2.1 A lack of insight? One of the curious things about learning to write essays is that you are seldom offered much insight into what you might be setting out to produce. You know only too well what your essays look like and what your tutor says about them, but you don't know what else you might have done. For instance, you have very little idea what other people's essays are like and what comments they get back. Perhaps you are told your essay ought to be ‘more structured’ or ‘less subjective†1.3.1 Reading guide There is a lot to think about in this course, particularly if you work carefully through all the examples and activities, which are mainly in section 2. I suggest you take the course in five stages: Up to the end of section 2.1 Section 2.2 Section 2.3 Sections 2.4 and 2.5 Section 2.6 Sections 3 and 4. Alternatively, simply stop reading closely when you feel you h 1.1 Why write? Of all aspects of studying, writing is probably the most challenging. That is because when you write down an account of your ideas for other people to read you have to explain yourself particularly carefully. You can't make the mental leaps you do when you are in conversation with others or thinking about something for yourself. To make your meaning clear, using only words on a page, you have to work out exactly what you think about the subject. You come to understand it for yourself i 4.1 Understanding the relationship between data and space A map on its own is meaningless. Try showing one to a person from a culture which does not include mapmaking as we know it. A map is neither a picture nor a story – unless we know how to ‘read’ it. You have already developed ‘reading skills’ which will help in reading maps. For example, noting the title and the sources are common to all the uses of evidence in the social sciences. Critical awareness is vital in recognising how mapmaking involves selection, distortion and generalisat
Activity 9
Author(s):
'Self-help’
