Why Use Visual Aids?

If you are required to use a visual aid in your presentation, you should be glad! Visual aids can improve your presentation in many ways. They can clarify information for the audience, and help you, as the presenter, focus on the topic at hand.

Visual Aids Enhance Learning

Visual aids will make your presentation a little more interesting for the audience. It's difficult for many audience members to stay focused on a verbal presentation. Visual aids break up the monotony.

• The visual learners in your audience are able to understand information more readily by looking at images.
• Tactile learners will appreciate a prop that they can touch and experience. Period clothing and other cultural artifacts provide a good experience for the audience.
• Auditory learners will enjoy hearing sound recordings that enhance your presentation. A presentation about colonial America could be enhanced by period music, for example.

Visual Aids Help the Presenter

Props and images can make you, as the presenter, feel more at ease. Many students feel more relaxed and secure when they can redirect viewers' eyes to another object.

Visual Aids can help you when you're drawing a blank. If you forget an important statistic or date (which we can do under pressure!) you can look to your poster or chart as a prompt.

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Can't Find Sources?

You've selected a great topic and you've found two fabulous sources. Research is going well, and then suddenly you hit a brick wall. You discover that the resources you've found seem to be the only ones available on your topic.

But your teacher requires five sources! What now?

There are a few steps you can take before you take the drastic step of changing your topic at a late date. Find out how to locate additional sources after the well runs dry, by using some tricks that professional researchers use.

More Resources

• Writing a Research Paper
• Using Note Cards
• First Things to Consider

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Trustworthy Sources

Research is conducted to get at the truth of a subject. As simple as that sounds, you will soon learn that the truth is often very difficult to find!

As a researcher, you will find that every question can have many possible answers and every event will be described differently by witnesses, partly because events are clouded by opinions and viewpoints. You can see evidence of this if you browse through your television news programming.

Look through your news shows and you will find programs with names like "Reliable Sources" and TV channels who make claims to be "Fair and Balanced or "The Most Trusted Name in News." You will also see that any two news organizations will report the very same event in two very different ways.

So where do you find the truth?

You have to develop a critical eye and ferret out the facts for yourself!

A person who has developed critical thinking skills will be able to discern facts from opinions and pick up on small clues that help to determine trustworthiness of sources.

Can You Trust the Source?

It can be helpful to put the topic of trustworthy sources into perspective with an exercise.

Imagine that you are walking down a neighborhood street and you come upon a disturbing scene. A man is lying on the ground with a leg wound and several paramedics and police officers are buzzing around him. A small spectator crowd has gathered, so you approach one of the bystanders to ask what happened.

"This guy was jogging down the street and a big dog came running out and attacked him."

You take a few steps and approach a woman. You ask her what happened.

"This man was trying to rob that house and a dog bit him."

Now you don't know what to believe!

Two different people have given different accounts of an event. To get closer to the truth, you have to find out if either person is connected to the event in any way. You soon discover that the man is a friend of the bite victim. You also realize that the woman is the dog's owner. Now what do you believe? It's probably time to find a third source of information-and one who is not a stakeholder in this scene.

What Is a Stakeholder?

In the scene described above, both the man and the woman providing the reports have a big stake in the outcome of this event. If the police determine that an innocent jogger was attacked by a dog, the dog's owner is subject to fines and further legal trouble.

If the police determine that the apparent jogger was actually involved in illegal and dangerous pursuits at the time he was bitten, the wounded man faces penalty--and the woman is off the hook.

If you were a news reporter, you would have to determine whom to trust by digging deeper and making an assessment about every source of information. You would have to collect details and determine if your many sources were trustworthy, or if they were clouded by distortion. And distortion can stem from many causes:

• Stakeholders' ambitions
• Preconceived beliefs
• Political designs
• Prejudice
• Sloppy research

So What Is a Reliable Source?

It is nearly impossible, after an event has occurred, to determine the exactness of every detail. Every recounting of an event involves points of view and opinion to some degree. The best sources will provide a consensus view and identify all information providers. The following statements should help you determine the trustworthiness of your sources:

• Every writer, lecturer, reporter, and teacher has an opinion.
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• The most reliable sources are straightforward about how and why they are reporting.
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• An Internet article that provides news but does not provide a list of sources is not very trustworthy. (The article you are reading supplies advice as opposed to news.)
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• Anybody can publish on the Internet.
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• Internet publishers can be dishonest about their identity.
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• An Internet article that provides a list of sources for a newsy article is more trustworthy.
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• An Internet article that is published by a reputable research organization or a respected professor at a reputable university and provides sources is even more trustworthy.
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• Any source is more trustworthy if the author and the publisher are easily identifiable and it is clear that the author and the publisher are not driven by profit.
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• Books are generally considered more trustworthy than the Internet because books are stable and unchanging. An online article can be edited at any given moment, while a book is published as a whole at a specific, identifiable time and date.
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• Books are generally considered more trustworthy because the author and publisher are clearly stated and they are held responsible. When a book publisher publishes a book, that publisher takes responsibility for its truthfulness.
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• News organizations are businesses.
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• Cable news, radio shows, and other media sources must make a profit. If you use these as sources, you must consider their many stakeholders and political slants.
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• Fiction is made up-so fiction is not a good source of information.
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• Movies are fiction. Even movies based on real events are fiction.
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• Memoirs and autobiographies are nonfiction-but they contain a single person's point of view and opinions. If you use an autobiography as a source, you must acknowledge that the information is one-sided!
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• A nonfiction book that provides a bibliography of sources is more trustworthy than a book that does not.
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• A book published by a profit-making company has a stake in the success and the popularity of the book. This profit-making potential can cause a book to be more scandalous and more sensational--and less truthful.
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• An article that is published in a scholarly journal is usually scrutinized for accuracy by the publisher. A publisher-especially a university press--has a reputation to protect.
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• Some sources are "peer reviewed." These books and articles go before a panel of non-stakeholding professionals for review and assessment. This body of professionals act as a small jury to determine truthfulness. Peer-reviewed articles are very trustworthy.
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Scholarly research is a quest for truth. Your job as a researcher is to use the most trustworthy sources to find the most accurate information. Your job also involves using a variety of sources, to reduce the chances that you are relying on tainted, opinion-filled evidence.

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Test Mistakes

1. Leaving an answer blank.

There is nothing wrong with skipping over a tough question to give yourself some extra time to think it over--just as long as you remember to go back to the question later. The danger is forgetting to go back to every question you’ve skipped. A blank answer is always a wrong answer!

Solution: Each time you skip a question, put a check mark beside it.

2. Answering a question twice.

You’d be surprised how many times students choose two answers in multiple choice. This makes both answers wrong!

Solution: Review your work and make sure each true/false and multiple choice question only has one answer circled!

3. Transferring answers incorrectly from scratch paper.

The most frustrating mistake for math students is having an answer correct on the scratch paper, but transferring it wrong to the test!

Solution: Double check any work you transfer from a scratch sheet.

4. Circling the wrong multiple choice answer.

This is a costly mistake, but one that is very easy to make. You look over all the multiple choice answers and pick the one that is correct, but you circle the letter next to the correct answer—the one that doesn’t match your answer!

Solution: Make sure the letter/answer you indicate is the one you really mean to select.

5. Studying the wrong chapter.

Whenever you have a test coming up, make sure that you understand which chapters or lectures the test will cover. There are times when a teacher will test you on a specific chapter that is never discussed in class. On the other hand, the teacher’s lectures may cover three chapters, and the test may cover only one of those chapters. When that happens, you can end up studying material that won’t appear on your exam.

Solution: Always ask the teacher what chapters and lectures will be covered on a test.

6. Ignoring the clock.

One of the most common errors students commit when taking an essay test is failing to manage time. This is how you end up in a panic with 5 minutes to go and 5 unanswered questions staring back at you.

Solution: Always take the first few moments of an exam to assess the situation when it comes to essay questions and answers. Give yourself a time schedule and stick to it. Give yourself a set amount of time to outline and answer each essay question and stick to your plan!

7. Not following directions.

If the teacher says “compare” and you “define,” you are going to lose points on your answer. There are certain directional words that you should understand and follow when you take a test.

Solution: Know the following directional words:

• Define: Provide a definition.
• Explain: Provide an answer that gives a complete overview or clear description of the problem and solution for a particular question.
• Analyze: Take apart a concept or a process, and explain it step by step.
• Contrast: Show differences.
• Compare: Show likenesses and differences.
• Diagram: Explain and draw a chart or other visual to illustrate your points.
• Outline: Provide an explanation with headings and subheadings.

8. Thinking too much.

It’s easy to over-think a question and begin to doubt yourself. If you tend to second-guess yourself, you will inevitably change a right answer to a wrong answer.

Solution: If you are a thinker who tends to over-think, and you get a strong hunch when you first read an answer, go with it. Limit your thinking time if you know you tend to doubt your first instincts.

9. Technological breakdown.

If your pen runs out of ink and you can’t complete an exam, your blank answers are just as wrong as they would have been for any other reason. Running out of ink or breaking your pencil lead halfway through a test sometimes means leaving half your exam blank. And that leads to an F.

Solution: Always bring extra supplies to an exam.

10. Not putting name on test.

There are times when failing to put your name on a test will result in a failing grade. This can happen when the test administrator doesn’t know the students, or when the teacher/administrator won’t see students again after the test is over (like at the end of a school year). In these special situations (or even if you have a very stern teacher) a test that doesn’t have a name attached to it will be tossed out.

Solution: Always write your name on a test before you get started!

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"Revisiting" for Test Prep

I've read many studies about the brain and memory, and one thing that seems clear is the importance of "revisiting" material for a memory boost. Revisiting in test preparation means studying a topic one day, setting it aside for a day or two, and then going back to it.

The studies show that you learn the most when you study, step away, and then return to information a few times.

This finding reinforces the importance of starting early when it comes to preparing for a test. You don't have to start early and study constantly. You should start early, study a few hours, close the book, and repeat after a day or two.

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Wrong Word Right Word Quiz

Test Your Word Knowledge

This quiz will test your knowledge of the most commonly-confused words. If you're ready to build your communication skills, this quiz can help. Just test your word knowledge and check your score. If you missed any words, you can study the words and take the test again in a few days!

Wrong Word Right Word Quiz

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Reaction Papers

You may be asked to write a reaction paper in response to reading a book, watching a film, or examining a work of art. This reaction (or response) paper should contain a mix of your own analysis and a summary of your impressions and opinions.

Reaction papers are typically written in the first person and should, therefore, include expressions as "I think" and "I believe" in the text.

The reaction paper can challenge students who prefer to work with clear guidelines and precise expectations. It may help some students to think of a reaction paper as a letter to a friend--a descriptive letter that contains an introduction to the subject (book, poem, or other work) and all your honest thoughts and impressions about it.

Some students will benefit from reading an example of a reaction paper.

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