Looking Ahead

The act of learning takes place primarily through the process of reading and listening. These skills everyone has, but in varying degrees. Some are better at reading than others and many confuse the sensory act of hearing with true listening. The good news though, is that these skills can be learned and developed to fairly high levels as well.

Since many courses today require that you read online material, it's important to remember to employ the same standards in assessing the information's credibility that you would when reading a printed document. One of the exercises in this chapter will therefore focus on determining the perspective of an article's author in order to assess the reliability and validity of the article. The other two exercises will give you an opportunity to practice listening and concentration skills.