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10/31/2020 HUM-200 - Page 1.1.5 - Four More Keys to Success

https://www.webtexts.com/courses/39511-sanderovsky/traditional_book/chapters/4391571-module-one-introduction-to-the-humanities/pages/3870727 1/6

Applied Humanities

Succeeding in This Course Four More Keys to Success 1 Module One: Introduction to the Humanities / Page 1.1.5 Four More Keys to Success On this page: 0 of 4 attempted (0%) | 0 of 2 correct (0%) Objective: Commit to mastering four key skills for academic success.

Success Skills

On this page, you will learn about four more skills that contribute to success.

At the beginning of this webtext, we looked at four keys to success in college (and beyond): showing up, understanding what’s required, planning time and making commitments, and dealing with adversity and setbacks. But there are four additional skills that you’ll also need to learn: reading closely, asking good questions, making and supporting claims, and revising written work. Master all eight skills, and getting good grades should be a snap.

This is a pyramid graphic of the steps to success. It has gradient shading of light orange at the top to purple-pink at the bottom. There are eight steps to success. From bottom to top they are: Show Up, Know Requirements, Commit, Overcome, Read Closely, Question Well, Support Claims, Revision.

Eight skills that contribute to success.

Clint McFarlin/Soomo Learning

10/31/2020 HUM-200 - Page 1.1.5 - Four More Keys to Success

https://www.webtexts.com/courses/39511-sanderovsky/traditional_book/chapters/4391571-module-one-introduction-to-the-humanities/pages/3870727 2/6

Check out the top half of the pyramid. This is where the skills most people associate with college coursework begin. If the first four steps have been completed, then you’ll likely pass. But if you want to excel, make an A, or actually get your money’s worth out of the course, these next four skills are where success begins.

5. Reading

Taking a course is like taking a deep breath: you inhale new perspectives and ideas, and then you exhale, using these new tools to practice a new skill, build new knowledge, or create something new. This step, “reading,” is about inhaling deeply.

Just running your eyes over the page is rarely sufficient. Each page of a book (including this one) represents many hours of work from someone trying to share something with you. The authors and editors have typically gone over it time after time, carefully phrasing and rephrasing each idea to make it as easy as possible to understand. But communication is a notoriously tricky game of catch. No matter how precisely the ball is thrown, some effort is required on the part of the receiver to complete the pass.

A few tips:

Read through the page once quickly. If something doesn’t make sense at first, it will often become clearer a little further on. After you’ve read through a small section, look away from the text and try to summarize what you just read. What is the author trying to tell you? Why? It’s helpful to write an outline of what you read. Doing this pushes you to pay attention to the text, to notice when the topic changes, and to better remember what you read. Outlining and paraphrasing are long-celebrated means of reading well, increasing your understanding, and improving retention. One more power tool for academic reading is repeated recall. That means not setting an idea aside once you’ve read about it, but instead, revisiting your notes periodically. It’s good practice to set aside a small amount of time once a week to go back over all your notes so far. That way, by the time the course is complete, Chapter 1 will be what you know best. (Without this technique, Chapter 1 would most likely be what you would remember the least.)

Response Board What is one strategy you have used in the past that has helped you read more efficiently and successfully?

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10/31/2020 HUM-200 - Page 1.1.5 - Four More Keys to Success

https://www.webtexts.com/courses/39511-sanderovsky/traditional_book/chapters/4391571-module-one-introduction-to-the-humanities/pages/3870727 3/6

6. Asking Questions

Questions are one important way in which the human brain learns. Hearing the answer to a question you’ve never asked is not helpful. In fact, that information is the kind we discard most quickly. Why would our brains store random facts we don’t need? They won’t. So part of your job as a learner is to make the facts relevant, not random, and to know which facts you need and why.

Where do good questions come from? Good question! Often if you take something that was just presented and try to summarize it for yourself in a way that makes sense, you’ll find holes in your summary—areas that are dark, threads that don’t connect, things that don’t add up. These gaps will prompt questions, and those are exactly the kinds of questions you need to get answered so that what you’re learning will sit well in your mind.

Another great way to find questions is by trying to apply some new skill or perspective. An idea might sound great and make a lot of sense in the abstract, but when we try to apply it, we might find big questions about how it really works.

One more note on good questions: asking a good question is essential to writing well. A good presentation will provide the answer to a question you really care about. If the question you’re pursuing and the claim you’re making to answer that question are genuinely interesting to you, you’ll usually deliver a much better presentation.

Multiple-Choice Question

Speaking of good presentations, can you guess what the most common reason is for a failing grade on a paper?

not following APA Style not using active voice not turning it in not making an argument

7. Making a Claim and Supporting It

When faculty members are grading term papers, their most common complaint is that students don’t know how to make a claim and support it. And employers often complain that new hires don’t know how to research a question, come up with an answer, and share their thinking to support that answer.

10/31/2020 HUM-200 - Page 1.1.5 - Four More Keys to Success

https://www.webtexts.com/courses/39511-sanderovsky/traditional_book/chapters/4391571-module-one-introduction-to-the-humanities/pages/3870727 4/6

The conclusion of the argument you make matters very little to your instructor. But how you argue for that conclusion matters a lot. This is where outlining comes into play, as it’s usually easier to see a good, crisp argument in outline form than when the argument has been fully fleshed out. We’ll go over this in detail in the coming pages, but know that the ability to make a claim and support it is vital.

Multiple-Choice Question

Which of the following shows the pattern of claim and support?

Green Day’s diverse and impressive body of work resulted in a Broadway show built around their music. The Beatles are the most important rock band because their work has been the most influential. Led Zeppelin is widely considered to be the forefather of heavy metal. Bob Marley is the world’s best-known musician of the 20th century.

8. Revising

Probably the second most common complaint among faculty, and thus the second most common reason for grades below an A, is a lack of revision. Writers at all levels, from a blogger jotting down a quick post to an author penning the next blockbuster novel, will tell you that most of the work is in revision. Just like that aspiring Ninja Warrior, you’re not going to get your best results by attempting an obstacle once and then calling it a day.

Getting a first draft done is, of course, essential—that’s part of showing up. But getting it done with enough time left to read it over and revise it at least once is the way to get the most out of the assignment and to not only turn in the results of your best effort, but also to increase what you can accomplish with that effort.

10/31/2020 HUM-200 - Page 1.1.5 - Four More Keys to Success

https://www.webtexts.com/courses/39511-sanderovsky/traditional_book/chapters/4391571-module-one-introduction-to-the-humanities/pages/3870727 5/6

This is a pyramid graphic of the steps to success. It has gradient shading of light orange at the top to purple-pink at the bottom. There are eight steps to success. From bottom to top they are: Show Up, Know Requirements, Commit, Overcome, Read Closely, Question Well, Support Claims, Revision.

Eight skills that contribute to success.

Clint McFarlin/Soomo Learning

POLL QUESTION

Which of these steps do you think will be the most challenging for you?

showing up

understanding what’s required

planning time and making commitments

dealing with adversity and setbacks

reading closely, summarizing, applying, and reviewing repeatedly

asking good questions

making a claim and supporting it

revising

10/31/2020 HUM-200 - Page 1.1.5 - Four More Keys to Success

https://www.webtexts.com/courses/39511-sanderovsky/traditional_book/chapters/4391571-module-one-introduction-to-the-humanities/pages/3870727 6/6

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