Lexophiles -- Follow Up

http://www.teachit.co.uk/pdf/4212.pdf

FOR YOU LEXOPHILES: (LOVERS OF WORDS)

1. A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired.
2. What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway)
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward poet writes inverse.
5. In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.
6. She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
7. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
8. If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.
9. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
10. Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat minor.
11. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
12. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
13. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blown apart.
14. You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
15. Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN downunder.
16. He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
17. Every calendar's days are numbered.
18. A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine.
19. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
20. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
21. A plateau is a high form of flattery.
22. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
23. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
24. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
25. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
26. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye.
27. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
28. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
29. Acupuncture is a jab well done.
30. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat

Learning Styles Link

http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/default.asp?ref=ga&data=learning+styles+free+test

Critical Thinking and Principles of General Semantics

From the Institute of General Semantics

....By using general semantics, we can learn to understand ourselves and others better. We can also learn to react-evaluate differently, if we so desire. In developing a general semantic orientation we thus can improve our functioning.

In the material on the following pages, I summarize some of my formulating on how to approach these goals. The format of presentation is:

1. A GENERAL SEMANTICS FORMULATION

• Some reactions that relate to using this formulation:
  • Some questions to ask yourself, and answer, that will help you to use this formulation in your day-to-day life.

etc.

The 15 formulations which follow are:

1. Semantic reactions
2. Time-binding (Personal)
3. Organism-as-a-whole-in-environments
4. Map-territory relations
5. Non-identity
6. Non-absolutism
7. Self-reflexiveness
8. Consciousness of abstracting
9. Multiordinality
10. Question formulating
11. Dating
12. Indexing
13. Quotes
14. Hyphen
15. Etc.

1. SEMANTIC REACTIONS
   • note total organismic reacting; my and your sensing-thinking-feeling-acting-etc.:
     • What was going on in and around me as I reacted?
     • What was I sensing?
     • What was I ‘thinking’?
     • What was I ‘feeling’?
     • What was I doing?
     • How was I moving?
       
   • Develop an orientation of delaying reactions:
     • How can I delay my reaction?
     • When I wait to react, what happens?
   • Increase response options:
     • How did I choose to react that way?
     • Can I make other choices?
     • What?
     • How?
       
2. TIME-BINDING (Personal)
   • Note developmental life processes; changes over time:
     • How did I get this way?
     • What led to my reacting in the ways that I do?
     • What kinds of response habits have I learned and developed?
     • How can I learn to “date” myself? (See “Dating” below)
     • What habits do I like?
     • What habits might I like to change?
     • How will I do this?
     • What are the first steps to changing?
     • When will I take them?
   • Accept present, including myself.
     • How can I best build on my personal experiences?
     • How do I help and hurt myself and others by demanding that events, including myself,
     • should happen differently right at this moment?
     • When I don’t accept events as they happen at the moment, does that cause them to change?
     • How does this hinder my growth?
     • What problems are created?
     • Should a flower not happen as it does?
     • Then how come I shouldn’t happen as I do?
     • How will accepting myself help me to move on?
       
3. ORGANISM-AS-A-WHOLE-IN-ENVIRONMENTS
   • Broaden awareness of what is going on, ‘inside’ and ‘out’:
     • What do I sense ‘inside’ and ‘out’?
     • What do I smell, hear, see, touch, taste, etc.?
     • What else can I become aware of?
   • Cope with uncertainty:
     • How will having greater awareness help me to deal with whatever happens?
     • How can this help me to experience more security, even when I can’t feel ‘certain’ about anything?
     • How can I learn to “index” better? (See “Indexing” below)
       
4. MAP-TERRITORY RELATIONS
   • Assume non-identity of orders of abstraction:
     • Is the way I evaluate something the way it ‘really is’?
     • Are my words the same as my non-verbal experience?
     • Am I referring to a ‘fact’ or an inference?
     • How can I tell the difference?
     • What happens when I avoid the word ‘same’?
     • Can I ever know the way something ‘really is’?
     • If not, how might I better evaluate?
   • Assume non-allness of abstracting:
     • What might I have left out?
     • What else?
     • What effect does this have? (See “Etc.” below)
   • Recognize that semantic reactions refer to the particular person reacting:
     • What about me contributes to my reacting in a certain way?
     • What about ‘I’ gets in my ‘eyes’ as I develop my view of events?
     • What effects does this have?
       
5. NON-IDENTITY
   • Remember that my conclusions are not the same as my inferences are not the same as ‘facts’ are not the same as non-verbal experiencing are not the same as “what-is-inferred-to-be-going-on”:
     • Can I ever know what some event ‘is’, apart from even my non-verbal evaluating?
     • What happens when I don’t use the “is of identity”?
     • Does what I do equal what I ‘am’, as a totality?
     • Does what others do equal what they ‘are’, as totalities?
     • How could I ever know what I and others ‘are’, as totalities?
     • What differences will I experience when I focus on what I do rather than on what I ‘am’?
     • What differences will I experience when I focus on what others do rather than on what they ‘are’?
     • What happens when I don’t put over-generalized, over-restrictive labels, like good/bad and smart/stupid, on myself and others?
     • Can I ever describe anything apart from my evaluating?
     • What happens when I don't use the “is of predication”?
     • Can I ever know that something ‘is’ pretty in and of itself.
     • Where are the sights I see, the sounds I hear, the aromas I smell, the flavors I taste, the sensations I experience located?
     • What happens when I say that something looks pretty to me?
       
6. NON-ABSOLUTISM
   • View formulations as hypotheses to be tested:
     • How can I test this out?
     • How will I know to what extent I’ve evaluated this accurately?
     • Can I ever feel absolutely ‘sure’ of my evaluations?
     • What does this suggest?
   • Use quantifiers and qualifiers to express tentativeness:
     • How does this seem to me?
     • What happens when I use the word “Perhaps”?
     • To what degree does this apply?
     • What happens when I avoid the word “same”?
     • What happens when I use “a” or “an” instead of “the”?
     • What happens when I use plurals in place of singular forms?
       
7. SELF-REFLEXIVENESS
   • Take responsibility for my own reactions:
     • What happens when I say “I” instead of the rhetorical “you”?
     • When I say “you” is it you I’m talking about or myself
     • How can I rephrase this using “I”?
     • How can I acknowledge the “to-me-ness” of my evaluations?
   • Recognize multi-meanings:
     • How did I develop my idiosyncratic definitions?
     • Can there be other ways of defining/describing events?
     • How can I remember that we all have personal meanings for words and non-verbal experiences?
       
8. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ABSTRACTING
   • Separate ‘facts’ from inferences, uncover assumptions, etc.:
     • What do I ‘mean’?
     • How do I know?
     • Can I sense what I’m talking about?
     • What observations support or negate my inferences?
   • Note assumption-conclusion-behavior links:
     • What assumptions do I make about this happening?
     • What conclusions am I reaching?
     • How am I behaving?
     • What changes in my assumptions and conclusions will be needed in order to behave differently?
   • Become aware of different levels of internal processes:
     • What’s going on in me now?
     • What am I ‘thinking’?
     • What memories are triggered?
     • What assumptions am I making?
     • What do I believe?
     • What images do I have?
     • What rules for living do I follow?
   • Note dead-level abstracting:
     • Am I getting stuck on either higher-order or lower-order abstractions?
     • What kinds of inferences and conclusions can I draw from what I observe?
     • What do I need to observe to test my inferences and conclusions?
     • What happens when I alternate among these levels?
       
9. MULTI-ORDINALITY
   • Recognize semantic reactions to semantic reactions:
     • How am I reacting?
     • How am I reacting to these reactions?
     • What happens as this process continues?
     • What happens when I get upset about my semantic reactions?
     • What happens when I accept my semantic reactions?
     • What happens when I focus on my current experience, rather than my past experience or anticipated future?
       
10. QUESTION FORMULATING
    • Note answerability of questions asked and usefulness of answers:
      • What kind of answers do I expect when I ask this question?
      • To what extent can I feel satisfied with any answer?
      • How can I rephrase this to find out more of what I want to know?
    • Shift from “why” to “how” questions:
      • How can I know “why” something happened?
      • How far back do I have to go?
      • What will happen when I ask “how” something happened instead of “why”?
    • Avoid complex questions:
      • Does my question include an opinion in disguise?
      • What do I ‘mean” e.g., when I ask, “How could I have done that?”
      • What happens when I separate this into three questions:
        1. What did I do?
        2. How did I come to do that?
        3. How do I evaluate what I did?
           
11. DATING
    • Use dates to show how things change over time:
      • I₁₉₉₆ am not I₁₉₈₄.
    • Separate past from present, look for changes over time:
      • When did something like this happen before?
      • How did I react then?
      • How old was I?
      • How have I changed since then?
      • How have other happenings changed since then?
      • How can these changes influence how I react now?
        
12. INDEXING
    • Use indexes to show differences within classifications:
      • Seminar₁ is not seminar₂
    • Look for differences:
      • How does this situation seem different from similar ones?
      • Do these differences make a difference?
      • How?
    • Develop specific, detailed descriptions:
      • What do I see, hear, smell, taste, touch?
      • What happened?
        • And then?
          • And then?
      • How many semantic reactions can I list?
      • What physiological sensations occur?
    • Develop a multi-valued orientation:
      • What happens when I give up a two-valued orientation and look for continuums instead?
      • For example, what happens if, instead of labeling my reaction as anxious or calm, I rate the degree of anxiety or calm I experience on a scale of 1-10?
      • How can I describe this?
    • Focus on moment-to-moment experiencing:
      • What do I notice?
      • What is going on ‘inside’ of me?
      • How are others reacting?
    • Label what is going on as accurately as possible:
      • How do I react to “whatever”?
      • How can I best describe my reaction?
      • How can I differentiate my reactions, e.g., distinguish anxiety from excitement?
      • How do I know what my reactions ‘mean’?
    • Develop an orientation of minimum expectations:
      • Can I expect with certainty that someone will behave differently than usual?
      • How does having more-than-minimum expectations lead me to react?
      • What will happen when I have minimum expectations?
    • Watch for overgeneralizations:
      • Does that apply all of the time?
      • When and when not?
        
13. QUOTES
    • Use single quotes to note words that you consider elementalistic or otherwise questionable:
      • What happens to my reacting when I note ‘think’, ‘feel’, ‘Mind’, ‘body’ etc., instead of think, feel, mind, body, etc.?
      • How does this alert me to possible problems in evaluating?
        
14. HYPHEN
    • Connect with a hyphen words that suggest separation of what we best understand as unified processes:
      • What happens when I note my thinking-feeling instead of ‘thinking’ separate from ‘feeling’?
      • How about mind-body instead of my ‘Mind’ separate from my ‘body’?
      • Can these ever be separated other than verbally?
        
15. ETC.
    • Use “etc.” to note non-allness:
      • Is that all?
      • What else?
      • What else?
      • Do I have it ‘all’ now?
      • What happens when I add “etc.” to the end of my communications?

ETC.     ETC.     ETC.    ETC.     ETC.     ETC.     ETC.

©1995 Susan Presby Kodish

Permission is hereby granted to share electronic and hard copy versions of this text with individuals under circumstances in which no direct payment is made by those to whom the text is given for the text itself, the volume or other medium or online service in which it is included, tuition or other payment for the course or seminar, and so forth. This notice must remain a part of the text. Any other use is reserved to the Institute of General Semantics and/or the author and requires prior permission. For further information, e-mail the Institute of General Semantics or write: Institute of General Semantics, 86 85^th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11209-4208, USA.

Box Quiz

Decode the following boxes: (Hint: the answer to #20 is "downtown")

1. exxposure	2. dashotrk	3. left chicken	4. the ears wet
5. gegs sgeg ggse	6. YYY men	7. friends standing miss friends	8. s t street e e t
9. fi$$$st	10. p i a n o	11. dark fun	12. sec ond
13. nia g a r a	14. tified with iron tified with iron tified with iron tified with iron	15. p a y m e n t	16. Get me
17. sands a a n n d d sands	18. cycle cycle cycle	19. 0 Ph.D. M.A. B.A.	20. t o w n

What do you see?

Text: Daiek -- Contents

Text: Daiek

Critical Reading for College and Beyond

---

Deborah Daiek, Schoolcraft College
Nancy Anter, Macomb Community College

ISBN: 0072473762
Copyright year: 2004

Table of Contents

---

PART ONE: Preparing to Read College Textbooks

Chapter 1:Reading in College

Why You Should Use a Learning Journal

Using a Learning Journal

How a Learning Journal Helps You Develop Concentration and Why That's Important

What Is Concentration?

Learning with Purpose

Learning Styles

Discovering Your Concentration Blocks

Concentration Techniques

Test Taking and Concentration

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 1-1 Letting Justice Flow by Kafer, A. from That Takes Ovaries by Solomon, R. (Essay)

Selection 1-2 The Thrill of Theft from Newsweek by J. Adler (Magazine Article)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 1-3 The Perfect Picture from Reader's Digest by James Anderson Thom (Essay)

Webliography

Chapter 2: Developing Your Vocabulary

Strategies for Remembering New Vocabulary

Use Context Clues

Analyze Word Parts

Specialized Vocabulary

Test Taking and Vocabulary

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 2-1 The Chemistry of Love from Time by Gupta, S. Buscemi, S. (Essay)

Selection 2-2 It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Plagiarism Buster from Newsweek by Sullivan, G. (Essay)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 2-3 Verbal Abuse: Words on the Endangered List from Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by O'Conner, P. (Grammar/Usage)

Webliography

PART TWO: Key Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Chapter 5: Locating Stated Main Ideas

What Are Topics, Main Ideas, and Details?

Topics

The Stated Main Idea

Strategies for Recognizing Main Ideas

Question Yourself

Look in the Usual Spots

Notice Clue Words

Categorize an Author's Points

Test Taking and Main Ideas

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 5-1 Spider and the Wasp from Scientific American by Alexander Petrunkevitch (Biology)

Selection 5-2 I Just Met a Girl Named Maria from The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry by Judith Ortiz Cofer (Essay)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 5-3 McDonald's from Cultural Anthropology by C. Kottak (Anthropology)

Webliography

Chapter 6: Finding Supporting Details

Major Supporting Details

Minor Supporting Details

Looking for the Bigger Picture in Longer Readings

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 6-1 excerpt from Why America Doesn't Work from C. Colson + J. Eckerd (Social Commentary)

Selection 6-2 Gawk Shows from Lear's magazine by Nicol Fox (Media)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 6-3 excerpt from The Rainmaker by J. Grisham (Fiction)

Webliography

Chapter 7: Using Inference to Identify Implied Main Ideas

Inference Strategies

Noting Comparisons and Implied Similarities

Understanding an Author's Purpose

Understanding an Author's Use of Tone

Detecting Author's Bias

Recognizing Information Gaps

Knowing How Much to Infer

Seeing Author's Perspective

Using the Text to Support Your Conclusion

Implied Main Ideas

Selection 7-1 Hold the Mayonnaise by Julia Alvarez (Essay)

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 7-2 In Contempt by Christopher Darden (Autobiography)

Selection 7-3 A Victim from The Informed Heart by Bruno Bettelheim (Autobiography)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 7-4 Who Do You Think You Are, Viskovitz? from You're an Animal Viskovitz by A. Boffa (Fiction)

Webliography

Chapter 8: Understanding Textbook Methods of Organization

Textbook Methods of Organization

How to Use Patterns of Organization

Organizational Word Clues

The Patterns of Organization Authors Use

Listing

Analysis

Cause and Effect

Comparison and Contrast

Definition

Sequence

Identifying Patterns of Organization

Overall Organizational Methods in Readings

Selection 8-1 excerpt from The Life and Times of the Kid Last Picked by D. Benjamin (Fiction)

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 8-2 Green Frog Skin from Lame Deer Seeker of Visions by John Fire/Lame Deer and Richard Erodes (American Indian Commentary)

Selection 8-3 excerpt from Triple X from ESPN: The Magazine by D. Fleming (Essay)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 8-4 Indifferent to Inequality from Newsweek by R. Samuelson (Essay)

Webliography

Chapter 9: Using Preview, Study-Read, and Review Strategies (PSR)

Questioning Yourself – Preview, Study-Read, Review (PSR)

Preview Stage of Reading

Study-Read Stage of Reading

Review Stage of Reading

Selection 9-1 Formal Magic from The Wicca Handbook by E. Holland (Witchcraft)

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 9-2 Gay by A. Quinlin (Social Commentary)

Selection 9-3 Insufficiency of Honesty by S. Carter (Essay)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 9-4 The Crisis of Authority from American History: A Survey by A. Brinkley (History)

Webliography

Chapter 10: Effective Textbook Marking

What Is Textbook Marking?

Deciding What to Mark

Steps in the Process of Textbook Marking

Preview

Study-read

Mark or Highlight Text

Write Margin Cues

Knowing How Much to Mark

Developing a Personal System of Textbook Marking

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 10-1 Basic Issues in Environmental Sciences from Environmental Science Working with the Earth (Environment)

Selection 10-2 Controlling Nervousness from Public Speaking for College and Career (Public Speaking)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 10-3 Ageism and Stereotypes' from Aging and the Life Course by J. Quadagno (Gerontology)

Webliography

Applying What You Have Learned--Part Two

Selection Getting to Know Someone Else' from Marriage and Family: Quest for Intimacy by Lauer, R. + Lauer J. (Sociology)

PART THREE: Going beyond the Basics

Chapter 11: Reading, Understanding and Creating Visuals

Understanding and Interpreting Visuals

Why Do Authors Use Visuals Anyway?

Types of Visuals

Charts and Tables

Diagrams

Illustrations

Graphs

Time Lines

Creating Your Own Visuals

Charts and Tables

Outlines

Mind Maps

Time Lines

Free-Form Drawings

Selecting the Appropriate Visual

Visual Connection to Test Taking Strategies

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 11-1 Many Former Chief Executives Get Lush Perks and Fat Fees for Limited Consulting Work from The Wall Street Journal by Joann Lublin (Newspaper Article)

Selection 11-2 Thermocouple from Reading Technical Books by Eisenberg (Chemistry)

Selection 11-3 So Far, Steel Tariffs Do Little of What President Envisioned from The Wall Street Journal by Neil King Jr. and Robert Guy (Newspaper Article)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 11-4 Biomedical Therapy: Biological Approaches to Treatment from Understanding Psychology by Feldman (Medicine)

Webliography

Chapter 12: Identifying and Evaluating Arguments

What Is an Argument?

Parts of an Argument

Identifying Argument

Argument Word Clues

Types of Arguments

Deductive Arguments

Inductive Arguments

Evaluating Arguments

Determining Dependability in Arguments

Distinguishing Fact from Opinion

Detecting Fallacies

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 12-1 Barbie Doll from Circles on the Water by Marge Piercy (Poetry)

Selection 12-2 Imagine That Canoeist from The Detroit News by H. Payne (Cartoon)

Selection 12-3 Down and Dirtier from Newsweek by N'Gai Croal (Essay)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 12-4 Racial Paranoia from Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes by David Horowitz (Essay)

Chapter 13: Reading beyond the Words

The Knowledge Level of Thinking

The Comprehension Level of Thinking

The Application Level of Thinking

The Analysis Level of Thinking

The Synthesis Level of Thinking

The Evaluation Level of Thinking

Practice with Reading Passages

Selection 13-1 Letter from a Birmingham Jail from Twentieth-Century Perspective on History and Government by Martin Luther King Jr. (Essay)

Selection 13-2 Call Me Crazy, but I Have to Be Myself from Newsweek by Mary Seymour (Essay)

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Selection 13-3 Fighting the Failure Syndrome by Susan Tifft (Essay)

Webliography

Chapter 14: Evaluating Internet Resources

Accessing Information from the Internet

Seven Steps to Evaluate Internet Information

Know Your Purpose

Double-Check Your Facts and Sources

Consider the Source

Evaluate the Look and Content of Site

Consider Intended Audience

Evaluate the Writing

Does Source Match What You Already Know?

Rubrics Rule

Directory of Useful Internet Vocabulary Words

Chapter Summary

Post Test

Webliography

Applying What You Have Learned--Part Three

Selection A Human Perspective from Human Biology by Mader, S. (Biology)