Reading to learn

Reading is often a major part of the course material in university classes. I have two tips for how to best use your course readings to learn the material.

First, read before class. If you read before class, then when your instructor explains the material, you will be hearing it the second time, and it will make more sense. If it feels like class is moving too fast, spending more time with the reading before class might help you keep up. Doing the readings before class will also help you predict where the instructor is going, take better notes, make new connections, and ask better questions. You may find it helpful to also revisit the reading after class, but you can do so strategically, revisiting just the tricky bits or parts you may have misunderstood the first time through.

Second, read with questions in mind. You should be asking three kinds of questions:

• When you don’t understand something or find something confusing, write out a question that puts your confusion into words. This will help you to better identify what you understand well or need to study more. It will also help you figure out how to fill in the gaps in your learning, whether by listening for it in lecture, by asking about in office hours, or by revisiting the reading.
• Ask questions about problems or inconsistencies you find. This will help you to become a more critical thinker.
• Ask questions about how the course material connects to other units in the same course, to other courses, and to your daily life. This will help you remember the material long-term and make it more meaningful to you.

Problem solving skills

Doing linguistics involves a lot of problem solving and data analysis. The goal we are working towards is that you will be able to apply your problem-solving skills to novel data. That is, that you will have the skills to identify patterns in data that you have never seen before.

When you watch your instructor demonstrate problem solving in class, it can be very easy to trick yourself into thinking that you know how to solve that kind of problem, as well. As you watch your instructor, you will likely feel that every step makes sense. But that doesn’t mean that you will be able to figure out what the next step should be when your instructor is not there.

The best way to improve your problem-solving and analysis skills is to get lots of practice! You do not want your first time attempting any kind of problem to be on a test or an assignment worth lots of points. You want to practice throughout the semester, so that when the test or assignment comes, you will be ready!

When practice exercises are assigned to you as homework, first attempt them on your own. If you get stuck, note where you get stuck and then get help. If your instructor is going to go through the answers to your homework in class, do the homework before that class and pay attention to what the instructor did differently than you. When I teach, I try to explain how to avoid as many false paths as I can think of, but my students are always more creative than me and find more!

Although I recommend first attempting the exercises on your own, it can be very helpful to compare your answers with your classmates. If you’re both stuck, figuring out together how to get unstuck will be easier than doing so on your own, and you’re more likely to remember it than if I tell you what to do.

Before you work with your classmates, though, be sure to check your course syllabus about what group work is or is not allowed in your class.

Tackling assignments

I recommend breaking up larger assignments into multiple steps. This is especially helpful if the assignment feels scary or overwhelming. If you break up an assignment into several smaller steps, it can feel much more manageable. If it still feels overwhelming, break it into even smaller pieces. On a day when you are really struggling, writing just one word might be a reasonable goal!

Breaking an assignment into several steps is also helpful because it gives your brain more time to make connections and find creative solutions, it allows you to identify potential problems and get help early, and it gives you more time to identify and correct your mistakes. For problem sets especially, it is often very helpful to have the problem stewing in the back of your mind for several days. It helps you make connections that aren’t immediately obvious.

You should first look at the assignment soon after it’s assigned or posted. Just read it without planning on doing it! That will allow you to identify how much time and which resources you will need and if you have any questions.

You should also separate your thinking and analysis time from the decision process of how to present or write up your answer. By separating these two very different tasks, you will likely have a much better result.

If you have a full or partial draft ready early, before the due date, you can use that opportunity to get feedback from the instructor or your classmates. You will also be able to catch more of your own mistakes if you look at it with a fresh eye on a different day than the day you wrote it up.

When you get feedback or a grade on your assignment, separate receiving the feedback from applying it. First give yourself time to process your emotions. Later, you can revisit the feedback and decide how to revise your work or how to improve your next assignment.

Reading to write

As well as using them to learn the course material, you should also be using the course readings to learn how to be a better writer and communicator.

As you go through your university degree, you will be exposed to and asked to produce kinds of writing that might be new to you. In fact, this doesn’t stop when you graduate! You may be asked to produce writing of different genres, for different communities and audiences, and with different goals. You will be taking many different courses in different fields throughout your degree, which have different genres, cultures, conventions, and more. For example, in some fields, such as English literature or syntactic theory, the convention is to present evidence and analysis together in every paragraph as you go, but in other fields, such as quantitative sociolinguistics or chemistry, the convention is to present your analysis all together in a special discussion section. If you also read and write in multiple language varieties, you may notice that different language communities prefer different strategies and rhetorical structures, as well. English academic writing usually uses explicit and direct argumentation, while other language communities use more inductive and deductive argumentation.

So how should you, as a student, learn to navigate all of these different conventions and genres? First of all, it’s okay and normal if you’re not perfect the first time you try. Learning to be a better writer is a lifelong skill.

In this textbook, I am trying to explicitly explain some of the conventions we use in morphology and syntax writing. But the best way to learn how to write in different genres is to read in those genres. The good news is that you are already reading in these genres through your course-assigned readings. The only thing you need to change is to start paying attention to how your readings are structured.

Here are some questions you can ask as you read the course readings:

• How is the reading structured? Do they tell it like a story? What ‘moves’ do they make?
• Is it an effective structure? Not all academic writing is well-written and sometimes bad writing can help you learn more! If it is effective, how can you use the same strategies in your own writing? If it is not effective, how would you improve it?
• How does the author group related ideas? How does the author move from one topic to another?
• How does the author guide the reader? What signposts do they give the reader to help the reader navigate the reading?

When you don’t get the grades you want

Most students hit a point in their education (or really several points) where things get hard. This does not mean that you have “reached your limit” or that you’re not smart enough, or anything like that. Learning does not happen in a straight line, and so these bumps happen. For me, looking back, it happened between 11th and 12th grade, between 3rd and 4th year university, and also in my MA degree. But if you approach the learning bump as part of the journey or as a problem to be solved, instead of a scary thing to run away from, that’s what’s really going to help you the most in life.

A lot of time, all you need to do to get past the bump is to not give up. Eventually things will click, and after you will look back and say, “Oh I wonder why I thought that was so hard!” Sometimes, it is also worth it to evaluate your study skills, for example changing when or how you’re doing the textbook reading. If this is the first time you’ve struggled in a course, then you might be learning some new study skills for the first time (on top of learning the course material). That’s good! But it is also hard. But the good news is that you can do hard things!

Study smarter, not harder

If it’s time to re-evaluate your study skills, here are some tips to consider. One mistake a lot of students make is to study more but in an inefficient way. Instead of spending equal time on everything, figure out which parts need the most attention and focus on those.

• Identify what needs to be memorized and what needs to just be understood. Very little material needs to be memorized in linguistics. Instead, if you understand the reasoning behind the way we do things, it will be easier to remember, and it will also be easier to determine which tools are needed for a given problem and to apply your knowledge to new data.
• Try to study in active ways (like identifying key points and writing then down) instead of passive ways (listening to the lecture over and over).
• Try to study in little chunks with lots of breaks, maybe spread out over lots of days, instead of all at once. This will result in the material going into your long-term memory instead of your short-term memory, so that you don’t have to study it again the next time it turns up in your degree.
• Try to identify specifically what you understand well and where you’re stuck.
• Use more than one format and more than one sense. Read the material and listen to the material. Draw a picture, diagram, or chart that helps you organize the material in your mind. Read the material out loud. Different people may have different preferred learning styles, but everyone learns better when you combine multiple styles.
• If you’re starting to feel tense or anxious, take a break, maybe go for a walk, have a glass of water, and come back when you’re feeling calm.

What to do if you’re falling behind

For a variety of reasons, you might fall behind in one or more of your courses. Don’t panic! The first thing you should do, as soon as you realize you’ve fallen behind, is reach out to your instructor. The earlier you ask for help, the more the instructor can do for you. Your instructor can help you determine if it’s realistic for you to catch up, give you extensions on assignments, and help you decide which assignments to prioritize. If you wait until the end of term to ask for help, though, there is often very little your instructor can do at that point.

Depending on your exact circumstances, it is often better to focus on the upcoming coursework rather than trying to complete all of the missed coursework and follow the new material at the same time.

Here are some things you should do to help you make a plan on how to catch up:

• Consider why you got behind in the first place. Was it a temporary disruption to your schedule that is no longer an issue, or is it possibly going to continue disrupting your ability to complete your coursework? If the latter, make a plan to mitigate its disruption and/or reduce your commitments.
• Check the syllabus for the late submission policies for your course. If you’ve fallen behind for exceptional circumstances beyond your control, such as ill physical or mental health, there may also be additional accommodations available to you not listed in the syllabus.
• Look up the drop deadlines for your institution and determine what the penalties are for dropping at different dates. If you’ve fallen behind on multiple courses, it might make sense for you to drop one so you have more time to focus on the remainder.
• Check the syllabus to see how much each assignment is worth.
• Figure out how much work you need to catch up on and if it’s realistic for you to be able to catch up. Calculate the weight of the assignments you missed and whether it’s mathematically possible for you to pass and/or get your ideal grade.
• When making your plan for what to do next, prioritize the upcoming assignments that are worth more.

First generation students

Are you the first in your immediate family to attend university? Will you be the first to finish? Will you be the first to go to graduate school, if you go? Are you the first in your family to attend university in the country where you’re studying?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are a first generation student.

Although first generation students make up a sizeable population of the university, many first generation students feel lost and alone. There may be a lot of background knowledge that some of your classmates and instructors take for granted, but you don’t know. Maybe you don’t even know you don’t know it!

There are lots of different kinds of first generation students, with different backgrounds and experiences. Many first generation students simultaneously also face other boundaries to university education, including financial boundaries and identities targeted by discrimination.

If any of this sounds familiar, don’t despair. This Becoming a Linguist series is written with you in mind!

Although I hope this textbook will help, there are two important things you should do to help overcome these barriers. First, ask questions and be curious! Ask questions in class. Ask questions after class. Email your instructor. Post on discussion boards. Go to office hours. Your instructors’ job is to help you learn, so ask them for help! Second, form a community around you. Here are some ways you can build community:

• Make friends with your classmates. Things are less scary when you’re not alone.
• Join clubs. Look for undergraduate linguistics clubs and clubs where other people who share your identities meet up.
• Look for mentorship: by peers who are a little bit ahead of you in the program, by recent graduates, by people in the career you’re interested in, or by faculty members.
• Join the Linguistic Society of America’s First Generation Access and Equity Committee or attend some of their events.

A third thing you can do is explore some resources about how to succeed in university. Some suggestions are listed below in the References and Further Resources section, and even more are listed on the LSA’s website.

 

Check yourself!

References and further resources

For students

Charity Hudley, Anne, Cheryl Dickter, and Hannah Franz. 2017. The Indispensable guide to undergraduate research: Success in and beyond college. New York: Teachers College Press.

First Generation Access and Equity Committee. n.d. Resources for First-Gen Students in Linguistics. Linguistic Society of America. https://www.lsadc.org/af_membercommittee.asp?committeeid=2&sp=1

Macaulay, Monica. 2011. Surviving linguistics: A guide for graduate students, 2nd edition. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.

🔍 Receiving and giving effective feedback. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo. https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/catalogs/tip-sheets/receiving-and-giving-effective-feedback