Grad Skills Resource Lists

Resources to help improve your reading, writing, thinking, learning, and research skills.

NPS Graduate Writing Center & Writing Criteria

Writing Tips and Tricks

Books

  • Fish, Stanley. How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One. New York: HarperCollins, 2012.
  • Pinker, Steven. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. New York: Viking, 2014.

Here are some articles that previous participants in the program — especially those who have been out of the academic world for awhile — found helpful.  If you find other useful resources, please forward them to the instructor so they can be added to this site.

  • John Dunlosk et al., “What Works, What Doesn’t,” Scientific American Mind (September/October 2013): 47-53, Box.
  • Peter A. Facione, “Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts” (Insight Assessment, 2011), Box.
  • Deborah Knott, “Critical Reading towards Critical Writing” (Toronto: New College Writing Centre, 2001), Box.
  • Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools (Tomales, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2006), Box.
  • David T. Moore, Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis, Occasional Paper 14 (Washington, DC: National Defense Intelligence College, March 2007), Box.
  • Fiona Patterson, “Provoking Students into Thinking,” no. 1 (February 2007): 79-82, Box.
  • Learning Strategies Development, “Critical Reading for Graduate Students” (Kingston, Ontario: Queen’s University, n.d.), Box.
  • Center for Writing, “Student Writing Support Quicktips” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota , 2004), Box.
  • Miriam E. Sweeney, “How to Read for Grad School,” Miriam E. Sweeney (blog), June 20, 2012, https://miriamsweeney.net/2012/06/20/readforgradschool/.
  • Jeffrey M. Zacks and Rebecca Treiman, “Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read,” New York Times, April 15, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/sorry-you-cant-speed-read.html?smid=tw-share&referer=https://t.co/IObQMOXU0E.

How to Organize a Research Paper Series

Critical Thinking

Biases

Argument Mapping

Innovation and Problem Solving

Strategic Thinking

General

  • Ted Talks
  • Wheelan, Charles. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data. New York: Norton, 2013.
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