International Students Guide: Academic Support/Skills

It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. 
Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental principles as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

This book can easily double your proficiency in English composition. There are exhaustive books and multi-volume sets that will delve into the peculiarities and nuances of the English language, whereas this one will give you the essentials.

The author leaves no stone unturned as she cites study after study to explain why we lack willpower and how we can get more of it. An important theme throughout the book is awareness-- once we understand the circumstances under which we fail to exercise willpower, then we can begin to make changes. And as the author points out at the close of the book, the mere act of becoming more self-aware is sufficient enough to create change in some people's lives. However, do not mistake this to mean that this is simply a book full of academic theory about willpower; rather, each chapter is replete with "experiments" that provide clear-cut guidance as to how you can put the theory into practice in your own life.

The renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.

Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of anywhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to "the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people." He teaches these skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated.You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment. Carnegie illustrates his points with anecdotes of historical figures, leaders of the business world, and everyday folks.

In this guide, Kylene and Bob examine the emphasis on text-dependent questions, rigor, text complexity, and what it means to be literate in the 21st century. They also provide six text-dependent anchor questions that help readers take note and read more closely. In addition, they identify six signposts that help readers notice significant moments in a work of literature. Finally, they offer six Notice and Note model lessons that help the readers introduce each signpost to other people.

Nonfiction5 intrudes into our world and purports, to tell the truth. To evaluate that truth, one must be sophisticated, skillful and savvy readers. And that's what Kylene and Bob intend to do. This book presents 3 BIG QUESTIONS that develop the stance needed for attentive reading, 5 SIGNPOSTS that help readers analyze and evaluate the author's craft, and 7 STRATEGIES that develop relevance and fix up confusions.