Frank A. Logan
Verbal Fluency
You should learn:
When leading educators, business executives, and government officials were asked which academic skills are the most important for success, the overwhelming consensus was: "verbal fluency." For this reason, I can confidently urge you to invest the effort required to develop a reasonable vocabulary and to become facile using it. In contemporary society, verbal skills are of paramount importance.
The familiar expression, "Don't judge a book by its cover," is often applied to people as a warning that appearances can deceive us. For example, a warm, gentle person may hide beneath a very tough looking exterior, and a very insecure person may appear to be the epitome of self-confidence. You don't have to win beauty contests to be "pretty inside" and most of us would prefer to be judged, if at all, by the "real me" instead of the person we appear to be publicly.
Nevertheless, people in important positions DO judge others by their outward appearance. In many cases, such as the job interview, that's all they really have to go on. But one's clothes and physical features are not the most critical part of one's appearance. . .it is one's verbal behavior that best reveals qualifications for admission, appointment, advancement, etc. Can you read well enough to follow instructions? Can you listen well enough to understand questions? Can you write and speak well enough to express yourself clearly. The one basic skill that stands out as being indispensable for success in every profession is verbal fluency.
Furthermore, verbal fluency (or lack of it) is virtually impossible to disguise. A person can easily change clothes and can also do quite a bit to change one's physical appearance, but one's verbal behavior was learned gradually and it can therefore only be changed gradually. You can recognize the speech of a well-educated person even if s/he is dressed in dirty, tattered clothes, and an uneducated person cannot fake educated speech. A brief sample of the words you use and how you use them is an infallible guide to your general verbal fluency.
The first ingredient of verbal fluency is a reasonably large vocabulary. I pointed out in an earlier chapter that knowledge is not verbal but that we use words to communicate knowledge. Obviously one cannot express an idea unless s/he has a rich enough vocabulary to put that idea into words. And even though an idea can usually be expressed in several different ways, there sometimes is only one "right" word for an occasion. The frequency with which many people use the expression, "Y'know," is testimony to their inadequate vocabulary because they do not know a good word to express an idea and so they have to rely on their listener's imagination to try to guess what they are unable to put into words.
This is the reason that I have
emphasized vocabulary in this book. To succeed in college and in
later life, you need an adequate vocabulary. But vocabulary is not all
there is to being verbally fluent. . .you must put the words into meaningful
sentences. This means knowing educated grammar.
I do not intend to digress into a study of Latin, but I urge you to study Table 4.1 in order to see the difference between the formal precision of Latin and the irrational conventions of English.
singular plural
Latin English Latin English
1st person: amo I love amamus we love
2nd person: amas you love amatus you love
3rd person: amat he/she/it loves amant they love
Table 4.1. Conjugation of the Latin
and English verbs meaning "to love."In English we do not change the second-person subject word (you) when going from singular to plural. We indicate that the subject is male, female, or neuter only in the third-person singular (he/she/it). In that same place we also put an "s" on the verb. In contrast, Latin always changes the verb ending, never indicates gender, and always changes from singular to plural. Latin is formally precise and consistent; a Latin-speaking child would never make the logical mistake of saying "they loves you." Studying Latin could help one avoid errors by calling attention to these complexities of English.
The Doctrine of Formal Discipline
was never really disproved. It dropped from favor because proponents
of the doctrine could not prove that it was true and students could not
see its relevance. If the students only learn enough Latin to get
a barely passing grade, it wouldn't do much good anyway. Actually,
there has been a regeneration of interest in studying Latin in the hope
that it will improve verbal fluency indirectly. My own belief is
that one's time is better spent in developing fluency directly in English.
The way that you learn from verbal information is by engaging in rehearsal, that is, silent talking to yourself. There are two techniques of rehearsal. One is called maintenance rehearsal because its major function is to maintain information in mind. You do this by simply repeating it over and over again, such as you probably do with a telephone number. You use maintenance rehearsal to memorize material, to learn it "by heart." Although there are some other memory techniques that I shall describe in a later chapter, repeating verbal material word-for-word is the most familiar way to learn. We call this "rote" learning and it is appropriate when you need to know something verbatim.
The danger of rote learning is that you do not really have to understand the meaning of words in order to memorize them. Indeed, you can learn meaningless material (e.g., "Abracadabra"). People may memorize lines without knowing their meaning (e.g., "Four score and seven years ago..."), and we have probably all learned wrong words, (e.g., "a virgin is chased," rather than chaste). Hence, if you feel that you must memorize something in college, such as a definition or formula, be sure you understand it. Otherwise, you may get a "pullet surprise" instead of a Pulitzer Prize.
The other type of verbal rehearsal is called elaborative rehearsal because it requires more than mere repetition. Elaborative rehearsal is necessary if you want to understand verbal information. You can use maintenance rehearsal to learn (memorize) words, but you have to be more active in order to learn from words. Comprehension of ideas is the principal goal of most college courses, and hence elaborative rehearsal, as described below, is the critical form of active participation.
The words one person uses to express an idea convey information to the other person. As we have seen, it then becomes the other person's job to decode the words, figure out their meaning, and learn the idea. This transformation of words into stored knowledge is called information processing. The word, "process," means to change or convert something into a different form. The digestive process converts food into useful minerals; the learning process converts words into useful knowledge. Although learning is as natural as digestion, it may be helpful to reflect on the steps involved in the processing of verbal information. . .i.e., in "digesting" ideas.
(1) Verbal input must first be interpreted so as to identify the words. This is especially challenging in the case of listening because the sounds of speech appear to be an almost continuous stream of complex sounds. This challenge is most obvious when listening to a foreign language (or a lecturer who uses a lot of words you don't know). In the case of reading, although the words are clearly demarcated by spaces, the meaning of the words is often dependent on the context. Hence, in reading as well as listening, deciphering the signals may require some attention.
(2) The next step involves what is called "chunking" the information into phrases. We do not usually think in terms of isolated words, such as...the...large...red...paperback...book. Instead, we lump all of these words together into a single concept or mental image which becomes the unit for further processing.
(3) It is then necessary to parse the chunks of information, by which we mean to determine what is the subject, the predicate, and the object of a sentence. Substantially the same information can be conveyed in a number of different sentences. For example, "John hit Jim with a ball," "Jim was hit with a ball by John," and "It was a ball with which John hit Jim," are different ways of saying the same thing. Parsing means to sort out who did what to whom with what.
(4) We use the word "coding" to refer to transforming words into their non-verbal ideas/thoughts/images/concepts. For the preceding sentence to be meaningful, you have to know who John and Jim are, what a ball is, and what it means to be hit with one. Actually, these meanings are somewhat unique for each of us, but verbal input must be coded into the non-verbal form that represents knowledge.
(5) Coded information usually brings to mind other information that is stored in memory and that has been somehow associated with the new information. Continuing the preceding example, perhaps you have been hit by a ball and the sentence may remind you of that experience. You might reflect on the type of ball involved, or where the ball hit Jim.
(6) Finally, the new information must become integrated into your own knowledge system. For example, your opinion of John may be influenced by this act, and your understanding of the relationship between John and Jim will be adjusted to include this new event. More generally, new information may be compatible with your existing knowledge and simply be added to it, or the new information may NOT fit with what you already know. When this happens, the correct solution is to change your earlier beliefs. We sometimes do this but we are more likely to dismiss the new information as being somehow unacceptable, or we distort the new information to make it fit.
When the steps involved in processing
information are enumerated as I have just done, the task appears to take
on formidable dimensions. Indeed, you may wonder how something you
do so casually could be so complicated. The reason for this apparent
discrepancy is that each time you process an item of information, it gets
progressively easier. For example, when you first started learning
arithmetic, the fact that 2x2=4 was probably difficult to process.
You even had to learn what multiply means. But as you kept rehearsing
that fact and integrating it with related multiplication facts, it became
automatic. This idea is showngraphically in Figure 4.1.
Hi : . (Connect
: . the dots.)
Processing : .
: .
Effort : . "Automatic"
: . /
: . /
: . .
:_________________________________________________
Amount of Practice
Figure 4.1. The amount of mental effort,
or attentional capacity, required to process an
item of information (e.g., 2 x 2 = 4) decreases
with practice.
Note carefully that, in this
context, the word "automatic" does NOT mean an innate reflex, as it did
with attention. Information processing becomes automatic when it
is so well learned that it no longer requires your conscious attention.
It is like riding a bicycle. At first, you had to pay close attention to
keeping your balance, steering, and pushing on the pedals; with practice,
all those things became "second nature." This ability to process
any familiar information automatically enables you to allocate all of your
cognitive capacity to the new information.
The steps required to generate verbal information are the same as processing verbal information except in reverse order. That is to say, you start with the idea, code it into words, and ultimately you organize the words into meaningful sentences. But just as most people can't even spell their name backwards very fast (can you?), most people can't generate sentences about complex ideas nearly as rapidly as they can read them. In both cases, sufficient practice with the backward order leads to fast, automatic performance. However, recall that you learn what you practice. Thus, if you have practiced generating ungrammatical sentences, that is the kind of sentence you have learned to make.
To learn while you are listening to a class lecture or reading a textbook, you need to process the information concomitantly with listening or reading. And because only one thing at a time can be at the center of your attention, you need to divide attention between the words themselves and processing their meaning. This is called mental time-sharing ...switching your attention back and forth between two (or more) on-going tasks.
Mental time sharing is pervasive in everyday life. You frequently carry on a conversation while walking, you probably listen to the radio while driving a car, and you may even sing in the shower. However, there is a limit to how rapidly a person can process information. You get confused if several people are talking to you simultaneously, or for that matter, if one person speaks too fast for you to follow what s/he is saying. You can carry on a conversation while driving a car unless the traffic is very heavy but you can't carry on a conversation while writing a theme or balancing a checkbook. The fact that we have a limited capacity for processing information constrains our ability to time-share several mental tasks.
Nevertheless, I believe that mental time-sharing is a îlearnableï skill, one that can be improved with practice. By analogy, you might think of mental time-sharing as "juggling ideas." Now the reason you probably cannot juggle two or more balls is that you have never taken the time to learn how to do it. If you watch carefully, you will observe that a juggler only catches and tosses one ball at a time; the trick is to keep track of where the balls are, and to shift attention rapidly from one ball to the next. So too, the trick of mental time-sharing is to focus on one idea while keeping the other idea close to consciousness so that you can shift back to it rapidly. Although you have inadvertently developed some skill at doing this, deliberate practice at various tasks such as alternately counting and saying the alphabet will not only improve your skill in this particular task but also your general mental time-sharing ability.
Mental time-sharing is the secret
to effective reading and listening. Do not just repeat the material
word-for-word unless you need to memorize it. If you need to understand
the material, you have to process the words while you are reading or listening
so that the ideas will be meaningful to you.
Because world knowledge is non-verbal, college learning is not as much learning words as it is learning from words. That is to say, the words used in a college course represent thoughts or ideas, and your job is to learn those thoughts or ideas from the words spoken in lecture or written in the text. Words convey information, but you have to "process" the words in order to understand the information.
Processing verbal information is analogous to "digesting" words. Instead of merely mimicking the words verbatim (maintenance rehearsal), you need to interpret the signals as meaningful units (words), chunk the words into larger units (phrases, clauses), parse the chunks into parts of speech (e.g., subject, predicate), code verbal information into nonverbal ideas and then associate_the new ideas with old ideas that are already in memory. Elaborative rehearsal requires dividing attention between receiving and processing the information. This ability to time-share one's limited attentional capacity is learnable.
If the new information contains familiar ideas, these are processed automatically and hence require very little of your limited processing capacity. This is the reason why, in general, the more you already know, the easier it is to learn. The exception to this rule is when the new information is incongruous with your existing knowledge. In that case, it is not only more difficult to learn, but you may distort the new information so as to make it fit better with your old knowledge.
Processing verbal information is the input side of verbal fluency. The output side (speaking and writing) is equally important. Your mind would be a black hole if it could only absorb knowledge and not express it. To be sure that you have really processed an idea, rather than simply memorized it, professors usually want you to "put it in your own words." To evaluate your skill at paraphrasing ideas, you should do the exercises in Appendix E.
In putting ideas into your own
words, you will be judged not only by what you say but also by the way
you say it. Educated people pay attention to their own grammar and
hence will notice yours. You should review the points on grammar
made in Appendix F. Learning to recognize and avoid grammatical errors
is an important aspect of verbal fluency.
Motivation refers to one's need or desire for something. Hunger and thirst are very primitive sources of motivation, but people in our society are more often motivated by fear of social disapproval or desire for wealth and status. Although I believe that people are motivated to learn just for the sake of learning, most students are also motivated to receive grades that lead to a degree and perhaps admission to graduate or professional school. Whatever its source, including pressure from parents and peers, motivation is the impetus that converts good intentions into action.
We can depict this view of motivation in an equation
Performance (R) = Habit (H) x Motivation (M)
where "habit" is one's knowledge or "know-how." When Thomas Edison was asked why he was successful in inventing so many things, he said that "Invention is 1 part inspiration and 99 parts perspiration." I think that Edison understated the importance of good habits, but a good compromise formula for success would be
R = H M10
This formula says that both habit and motivation are necessary; you may be motivated to improve your verbal skills, but you can't do it if you don't know what to do. And, of course, the better that you know how to do something, the less time and effort, and hence the less motivation that may be required to accomplish the same goal. However, a little bit of knowledge can go a long way if you have enough motivation.
In principle, I could motivate you to practice verbal skills. I might attach a couple of wires to your body so that I could give you an electric shock any time you said, "Y'know." With that set-up, I am sure you would work on your vocabulary so that you could express yourself better. But in our society, you have to motivate yourself.
The chances are that your parents have tried to bribe you from time to time in an effort to motivate you to do your best, but in the last analysis, you have to shock yourself into trying hard.
This chapter concerned some
S T E P S to
S U C C E S S in
C O L L E G E
Information
Processing
vs
:
:
Verbal Fluency :
vs :
: Verbatim shadowing,
: Memorizing
3. . . Selective :
Attention :
vs Limited vocabulary,
: "street" grammar
:
2. . . Personal :
Pragmatism Wandering mind,
vs competing mental habits
:
1. . . :
Right Attitude: Pre-occupation with personal problems,
Commitment + ignorance, and impulsive action
Optimism +
Professionalism
vs P I T F A L L Sï
:
Doing aimless/hopeless time