Study and Critical Thinking Skills in College, 8th edition

For Study Skills and Critical Thinking courses.

A unique integration of study and critical-thinking skills to help students succeed

Study and Critical Thinking Skills in College, Eighth Edition is ideal for instructors who want to teach study and learning techniques. McWhorter discusses the active strategies that develop students' proficiency with text and lecture material—emphasizing the cognitive approach to learning, the basis for how to apply study skills to academic disciplines, and how to identify early warning signs of academic difficulty. At the same time, she stresses that students must adapt how they read and how they study to suit the characteristics of each unique academic discipline.

This text aligns closely with the ways students read, study, learn, think, and network in the twenty-first century. While printed textbooks and other reading materials remain core learning resources, students increasingly read, study, collaborate, and take tests online. Study and Critical Thinking Skills in College encourages students to study and think in ways that match their learning styles and to use technologies (such as online databases and social media) that maximize their productivity.

• NEW! Four essential critical-thinking skills are now identified in Chapter 1, which then form the basis for the remainder of the book. These skills involve:
  • Developing inference skills
  • Examining existing opinions and beliefs
  • Recognizing emotional appeals
  • Looking for what is not said (omissions)
• NEW! Marginal discipline-specific study tips in each chapter provide suggestions for how to maximize study efficiency in common freshman courses, such as English.
• NEW! Each chapter now begins with a set of Learning Goals that are revisited periodically and then summarized at the end of the chapter, to match the learning-based outcomes structure of many college courses.
• NEW! Each chapter begins with a brief “Did You Know?” feature that summarizes recent research on thinking and learning. These questions activate students’ schemas by asking them to examine their assumptions and their current thinking and study habits. A photograph or visual now provokes interest and suggests connections to chapter content.
• NEW! Chapter 7 includes a new section, “Textbooks Across the Disciplines,” to help students understand how to best work with different types of textbooks, because textbooks are quite different across the disciplines. Each discipline uses a different set of pedagogical features to help students learn. All of the textbook readings reprinted in this chapter are new to this edition.
• NEW! New study tips for students who encounter new and evolving teaching methods, including online and hybrid courses, flipped classrooms, online course management and homework systems, and personal response systems (clickers). Recognizing that students now take tests online, Part 5 provides tips for maximizing success with online quizzes and exams. 
• NEW!Each chapter includes numerous Critical Thinking in Action boxed activities to help students develop their critical thinking skills. The format of these activities differs from chapter to chapter, but all ask students to closely examine and think critically about a situation, controversy, practice, piece of text, or image.
• NEW! A completely new Chapter 9, Multimedia Literacy, introduces the role of visual aids in college learning and provides suggestions for thinking critically about each type, from static illustrations like diagrams and bar graphs through dynamic, video-based learning aids such as videos, documentaries, animations, and computer simulations.
• NEW! A new section, “Evaluating Source Materials,” found in Chapter 12, helps students actively evaluate the many sources of printed and online information by asking them to focus on and think critically about content, accuracy, reliability, authority, timeliness, and objectivity.
• NEW! A new Chapter 13, Adapting Skills for Academic Disciplines, emphasizes the different types of thinking necessary in courses across the curriculum and helps students expand their critical-thinking skills into decision making, problem solving, creative thinking, and scientific thinking. The chapter then provides suggestions for adapting these skills to courses in the social sciences and history, the life and physical sciences, mathematics, and literature and the liberal arts.
• NEW! A Textbook Reading and Writing Course Simulation in Part 6. Based on a psychology textbook excerpt, this features simulates the reading, note-taking, studying, and test-taking that is expected of students.
• Inclusion of Bloom’s taxonomy in Chapter 1 and in the Interactive Chapter Reviews throughout the text reflects the updated Bloom’s taxonomy prepared.
• An emphasis on metacognition, critical thinking, and learning styles runs throughout the instruction, exercises, and readings.
• Students learn to approach studying as an active thinking process and are encouraged to take an active role in learning by thinking critically about and interacting with text and lecture material.
• Discipline-specific study skills show students how to apply skills to various academic disciplines and stress the importance of learning specialized and technical vocabulary.
• Multiple-chapter coverage of reading strategies and techniques prepares students for the intake and synthesis of information from textbooks and other academic sources.
• End-of-chapter “Thinking Ahead” sections motivate students to excel in college by demonstrating how academic success affects workplace success.
• The exercises and examples represent a wide range of cultures and ages to help students to relate to material presented.
• The "Real Students Speak" student profiles offer advice (from actual students) for applying skills taught in the chapter.
• The "Work Connection" feature encourages students to explore workplace applications of chapter content–helping students realize the long-term benefit of the topic at hand.

• Four essential critical-thinking skills are now identified in Chapter 1, which then form the basis for the remainder of the book. These skills involve:
  • Developing inference skills
  • Examining existing opinions and beliefs
  • Recognizing emotional appeals
  • Looking for what is not said (omissions)

• Marginal discipline-specific study tips in each chapter provide suggestions for how to maximize study efficiency in common freshman courses, such as English.
• Each chapter now begins with a set of Learning Goals that are revisited periodically and then summarized at the end of the chapter, to match the learning-based outcomes structure of many college courses.
• Each chapter begins with a brief “Did You Know?” feature that summarizes recent research on thinking and learning. These questions activate students’ schemas by asking them to examine their assumptions and their current thinking and study habits. A photograph or visual now provokes interest and suggests connections to chapter content.
• Chapter 7 includes a new section, “Textbooks Across the Disciplines,” to help students understand how to best work with different types of textbooks, because textbooks are quite different across the disciplines. Each discipline uses a different set of pedagogical features to help students learn. All of the textbook readings reprinted in this chapter are new to this edition.
• New study tips for students who encounter new and evolving teaching methods, including online and hybrid courses, flipped classrooms, online course management and homework systems, and personal response systems (clickers). Recognizing that students now take tests online, Part 5 provides tips for maximizing success with online quizzes and exams.
• Each chapter includes numerous Critical Thinking in Action boxed activities to help students develop their critical thinking skills. The format of these activities differs from chapter to chapter, but all ask students to closely examine and think critically about a situation, controversy, practice, piece of text, or image.
• A completely new Chapter 9, Multimedia Literacy, introduces the role of visual aids in college learning and provides suggestions for thinking critically about each type, from static illustrations like diagrams and bar graphs through dynamic, video-based learning aids such as videos, documentaries, animations, and computer simulations.
• A new section, “Evaluating Source Materials,” found in Chapter 12, helps students actively evaluate the many sources of printed and online information by asking them to focus on and think critically about content, accuracy, reliability, authority, timeliness, and objectivity.
• A new Chapter 13, Adapting Skills for Academic Disciplines, emphasizes the different types of thinking necessary in courses across the curriculum and helps students expand their critical-thinking skills into decision making, problem solving, creative thinking, and scientific thinking. The chapter then provides suggestions for adapting these skills to courses in the social sciences and history, the life and physical sciences, mathematics, and literature and the liberal arts.
• A Textbook Reading and Writing Course Simulation in Part 6. Based on a psychology textbook excerpt, this features simulates the reading, note-taking, studying, and test-taking that is expected of students.