Reading Across the Disciplines: College Reading and Beyond, 7th edition

For courses in Developmental English, or for students in need of additional practice with intermediate-level reading.

Improve reading and thinking abilities through targeted skill instruction and extensive guided practice across many academic disciplines.

Reading Across the Disciplines teaches essential college reading skills and guides their application in each of 10 academic disciplines and career fields. Kathleen McWhorter helps students expand their vocabulary and comprehension, practice methods for reading and thinking critically, and enhance their ability to make inferences. The 7th Edition also introduces discipline-specific reading strategies and features more than 20 new readings — selected from college textbooks as well as from books, periodicals, popular magazines, newspapers, and Internet sources — to motivate students and demonstrate the relevance of their coursework to their daily lives.                       

Available to package with Reading Across the Disciplines, 7th Edition (Books a la Carte loose-leaf edition), MyLab™ Reading is an online homework, tutorial, and assessment program designed to work in tandem with the text to engage students and improve results. MyLab Reading is ideal for courses requiring additional reading skills practice and assessment. Learn more.

Reading Across the Disciplines, 7th Edition is also available via Revel™, an interactive digital learning environment that replaces the print textbook, enabling students to read, practice, and study in one continuous experience. Revel is ideal for courses where student engagement and mobile access are important. Learn more.

New content keeps the text current and strengthens its focus on reading in the academic disciplines.

• REVISED! Success Strategies: Adapting Your Studying and Learning for Academic Disciplines. The revised Success Strategies emphasize ways to adapt learning and study techniques to suit differing academic disciplines. Students learn how to customize their study skills, learn specialized terminology, adapt to unique learning environments, tailor their note-taking and test-taking skills, and expand their critical-thinking skills.

• NEW! Handbook reorganization. Several chapters in the handbook have been reorganized, emphasizing the stages of the reading process and moving essential skills for interacting with the text to earlier in Part One.

• NEW! Handbook chapter on reading arguments. This chapter helps students understand the structure of an argument and offers strategies for reading and evaluating arguments. Errors in logic are also presented.

• NEW! Part Two: Specialized Reading Skills for Academic Disciplines. Because reading mathematics and literature can be particularly challenging for students, a new section of the book has been created to devote special attention to – and more complete coverage of – the skills required for reading in these disciplines.

• NEW! Reading selections. Twenty-one new readings have been added to this edition of the text. These readings – from textbooks and many other interesting sources – were carefully chosen to complement the academic discipline under discussion.

• REVISED! Chapter on technology-related fields. This chapter has been revised to focus on technology-based disciplines. Topics of interest include cybersecurity, uses of drones, and biometrics.

• NEW! Modules available as ancillaries. Instructors may supplement or vary their instruction by using the additional McWhorter modules, available through the Pearson Custom Library.

The 7th Edition continues to offer the essential reading and thinking skills necessary for college success.

• Reading as “thinking.” Reading is a thinking process – a process of interacting with textual material and sorting, evaluating, and reacting to its organization and content. Exercises focus, guide, and shape students’ thought processes so they can become more effective readers.

• Active reading skills. Through active involvement and response – prompted by carefully crafted exercises and activities – students are able to master the skills that are essential to college reading.

• Essential reading skills. Vocabulary, comprehension, and critical-reading skills are presented concisely in the Part One handbook so students can bolster their foundation, right from the start.

• Discipline-specific reading skills. Readings in Part Two and Three are grouped according to academic discipline and career field. Part Two chapters provide a more detailed approach to reading literature and mathematical content. Each chapter in Part Three begins with a brief list of tips for reading and learning within a particular discipline. These suggestions help students read with greater focus and purpose.

• The importance of academic disciplines. Through the high-interest topics selected, students come to understand the relevance of various academic disciplines to their daily lives, careers, and workplaces.

• Visual learning. Instruction is included on how to read, use, and interpret photographs, graphics, graph

Reading Across the Disciplines, 7th Edition is also available via Revel™, an interactive digital learning environment that replaces the print textbook, enabling students to read, practice, and study in one continuous experience. Revel is ideal for courses where student engagement and mobile access are important. Learn more.

Available to package with Reading Across the Disciplines, 7th Edition (Books a la Carte loose-leaf edition), MyLab™ Reading is an online homework, tutorial, and assessment program designed to work in tandem with the text to engage students and improve results. MyLab Reading is ideal for courses requiring additional reading skills practice and assessment. Learn more.

New content keeps the text current and strengthens its focus on reading in the academic disciplines.

• Success Strategies: Adapting Your Studying and Learning for Academic Disciplines. The revised Success Strategies emphasize ways to adapt learning and study techniques to suit differing academic disciplines. Students learn how to customize their study skills, learn specialized terminology, adapt to unique learning environments, tailor their note-taking and test-taking skills, and expand their critical-thinking skills.

• Handbook reorganization. Several chapters in the handbook have been reorganized, emphasizing the stages of the reading process and moving essential skills for interacting with the text to earlier in Part One.
• Chapter 1: Reading Actively introduces before- and while-reading skills; it focuses on previewing, activating background knowledge, comprehension, the SQ3R system, highlighting, and annotation.
• Chapter 2: Learning During and After Reading emphasizes skills that strengthen comprehension and recall – outlining, mapping, paraphrasing, summarizing, and recall strategies.

• Handbook chapter on reading arguments. This new chapter helps students understand the structure of an argument and offers strategies for reading and evaluating arguments. Errors in logic are also presented.

• Part Two: Specialized Reading Skills for Academic Disciplines. Because reading mathematics and literature can be particularly challenging for students, a new section of the book has been created to devote special attention to – and more complete coverage of – the skills required for reading in these disciplines.
• Chapter 10: Mathematics teaches general methods for reading in mathematics, as well as specific strategies for reading example problems and for reading and solving word problems. Three readings, two of which are taken from mathematics textbooks, offer opportunities for skill application and practice.
• Chapter 11: Literature helps students learn to read and interpret poetry, short stories, and novels. For instruction and practice, the chapter includes two poems, two short stories, and two excerpts from novels.

• Reading selections. Twenty-one new readings have been added to this edition of the text. These readings – from textbooks and many other interesting sources – were carefully chosen to complement the academic discipline under discussion.
• Part Two includes two new excerpts from mathematics textbooks, a new poem, two new short stories, and two new excerpts from novels.
• Part Three discusses new topics such as memorial tattoos; forms of Internet communication using emojis, memes, and selfies; breaking up and ending a relationship; Tesla automobiles; the expanded mission of Facebook; robots in healthcare; increasing diversity in our teaching staff; and computer game development.

• Chapter on technology-related fields. This chapter has been revised to focus on technology-based disciplines. Topics of interest include cybersecurity, uses of drones, and biometrics.

• Modules available as ancillaries. Instructors may supplement or vary their instruction by using the additional McWhorter modules, available through the Pearson Custom Library.