abstract A paragraph-length summary of the methods and major findings of an article in a scholarly journal.
academic calendar Calendar which shows all the important dates that are specific to your campus such as financial aid, registration, and add/drop deadlines; midterm and final exam dates; holidays; graduation deadlines; and so forth.
active learning Learning through participation—talking with others, asking questions in class, studying in groups, and going beyond the lecture material and required reading.
active reading Participating in reading by using strategies, such as highlighting and taking notes that help you stay focused.
adjuncts Instructors who teach part-time at your college.
annotate To add critical or explanatory in the margins of a page as you read.
annotations Notes or remarks about a piece of writing.
appendixes Supplemental materials at the end of the book.
aptitude Your natural or acquired proficiency in a particular area, which makes it easier for you to learn or to do certain things.
argument A calm, reasoned effort to persuade someone of the value of an idea.
balance A state in which different things occur in proper amounts.
biases Some tendencies against or in favor of certain groups or value systems.
Bloom’s taxonomy A system of classifying goals for the learning process, now used at all levels of education to define and describe the process that students use to understand and think critically about what they are learning.
budget A spending plan that tracks all sources of income (financial aid, wages, money from parents, etc.) and expenses (rent, tuition, books, etc.) during a set period of time (weekly, monthly, etc.).
chunking A previewing method that involves making a list of terms and definitions from the reading and then dividing the terms into smaller clusters of five, seven, or nine to learn the material more effectively.
citation A reference that enables a reader to locate a source based on the information such as the author’s name, the title of the work, and the publication date.
collaboration Working with others.
content skills Intellectual or “hard” skills you gain in your academic field which can include writing proficiency, computer literacy, and foreign language skills.
Cornell format One of the best-know methods for organizing notes which uses two columns—one column is used for note taking during class and the other is designated as a “recall” column where you can jot down main ideas and important details.
credit score A single number that comes from a report that has information about accounts in your name such as credit cards, student loans, utility bills, cell phones, car loans, and so on.
critical thinking A search for truth that requires asking questions, considering multiple points of view, and drawing conclusions supported by evidence.
culture Those aspects of a group of people that are passed on or learned.
database An organized and searchable set of information often organized by certain subject areas.
deep learning Understanding the why and how behind the details.
discipline Areas of academic study.
diversity The set of difference in social and cultural identities among people living together.
emotional intelligence (EI) How well you recognize, understand, and manage moods, feelings, and attitudes.
engaged students Those who are fully involved with the college experience and spend the time and the energy necessary to learn, both in and out of class.
essay exams Exams which include questions that require students to write a few paragraphs in response to each question.
ethnicity The identity that is assigned to a specific group of people who are historically connected by a common national origin or language.
evidence Facts supporting an argument.
experiential learning Learning by doing and from experience.
fill-in-the-blank Test questions which consist of a phrase, sentence, or paragraph with a blank space indicating where the student should provide the missing word or words.
financial aid Sources of money that support your education, such as student loans, grants, scholarships, or work-study.
forgetting curve The decline of memory over time.
foreword An endorsement of the book written by someone other than the author.
freewriting Writing without worrying about punctuation, grammar, spelling, and background.
glossary A list of key words and their definitions.
humanities Branches of knowledge that investigate human beings, their culture, and their self-expression, such as philosophy, religion, literature, music, and art.
hybrid course A course that uses both face-to-face and online instruction.
identity theft A crime that occurs when someone uses another person’s personal information.
idioms Phrases that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of the words.
independent learner A learner who does not always wait for an instructor to point him or her in the right direction.
interlibrary loan A service that allows you to request an item at no charge from another library at a different college or university.
introduction The part of a book which reviews the book’s overall organization and its contents, often chapter by chapter.
keyword A word or phrase that tells an online search tool what you’re looking for.
knowledge The bottom level of Bloom’s Taxonomy which refers to remembering previously learned material and includes arranging, defining, memorizing, and recognizing.
learning disabilities Conditions that affect people’s ability to either interpret what they see and hear or connect information across different areas of the brain.
learning objectives The main ideas or skills students are expected to learn from reading the chapter.
logical fallacies Mistakes in reasoning that contain invalid arguments or irrelevant points that undermine the logic of an argument.
long-term memory The capacity to retain and recall information over the long term, from hours to years.
major An area of study like psychology, engineering, education, or nursing.
mapping A preview strategy of drawing a wheel or branching structure to show relationships between main ideas and secondary ideas and how different concepts and terms fit together; it also helps you make connections to what you already know about the subject.
marking An active reading strategy entailing making marks in the text by underlining, highlighting, or making margin notes or annotations that helps you focus and concentrate as you read.
matching questions A type of exam question which is set up with terms in one column and descriptions in the other, and you must make the proper pairings.
mind map A visual review sheet that shows the relationships between ideas whose visual patterns provide you with clues to jog your memory.
mnemonics The different methods of tricks to help with remembering the information.
multiple intelligences A theory developed by Dr. Howard Gardner which suggests all human beings have at least eight different types of intelligence including: verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.
multiple-choice questions Questions which provide any number of possible answers, often between three and five. The answer choices are usually numbered (1,2,3,4 . . . ) or lettered (a,b,c,d . . . ), and the test-taker is supposed to select the correct or the best one.
multitasking Doing more than one thing at a time.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) One of the best known and most widely used personality inventories to describe learning styles that examines basic personality characteristics and how those relate to human interaction and learning.
nontraditional student Someone who is not an eighteen year old recent high school graduate and may have a family and a job.
office hours The posted hours when instructors are in their office and available to students.
outline A method for organizing notes which utilizes Roman numerals to represent key ideas. Other ideas relating to each key idea are marked by uppercase letters (A,B,C, etc.), numbers (1,2,3, etc.), and lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.) in descending order of importance or detail.
overextended Having too much to do given the resources available to you.
peer-reviewed A term meaning that other experts in the field read and evaluate the articles in the journal before it is published.
periodical A resource such as a journal, a magazine, or a newspaper that is published multiple times a year.
plagiarism Taking another person’s ideas or work and presenting them as your own.
preface A brief overview near the beginning of a book which is usually written by the author (or authors) and will tell you why they wrote the book and what material the book covers; it will also explain the book’s organization and give insight into the author’s viewpoint.
previewing The step in active reading when you take a first look at assigned reading before you really tackle the content.
primary sources The original research or documents on a topic.
prioritize Putting your tasks, goals, and values in order of importance.
procrastination The habit of delaying something that needs your immediate attention.
punctuality Being on time.
race The biological characteristics that are shared by groups of people, including skin tone, hair texture and color, and facial features.
religion A specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects.
reviewing The process of looking through your assigned reading again.
review sheets Lists of key terms and ideas that you need to remember.
research A process of steps used to collect and analyze information to increase understanding of a topic or issue. Those steps include asking questions, collecting and analyzing data related to those questions, and presenting one or more answers.
self-assessment The process of gathering information about yourself in order to make an informed decision.
sexual harassment Any kind of unwanted sexual advances or remarks.
scholarly journals Collections of original, peer-reviewed research articles written by experts or researchers in a particular academic discipline.
short-term memory How many items you are able to understand and remember at one time.
social sciences Academic disciplines that examine human aspects of the world, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and history.
stacks The area of a library in which most of the books are shelved.
stereotype A generalization usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.
summary Provides the most important ideas in the chapter.
summary paragraphs A note-taking format in which you write two or three sentences that sum up a larger section of material.
Supplemental Instruction (SI) Opportunities outside class to discuss the information covered in class.
syllabus Course outline
synthesis An activity which involves accepting some ideas, rejecting others, combining related concepts, assessing the information, and pulling it all together to create new ideas that other people can use.
thesis statement A short statement that clearly defines the purpose of the paper.
transferable skills General skills that can be applied in a lot of settings.
true/false Questions which ask students to determine whether the statement is correct or not.
VARK inventory A sixteen-item questionnaire which focuses on how learners prefer to use their senses (hearing, seeing, writing and reading, or experiencing) to learn.
vocabulary A set of words in a particular language or field of knowledge.