Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.

Student: Hi, uh… Professor Anderson… wondering if you had a couple minutes . . .

Professor: Of course, Paula…

Student: Thanks . . . uh, you sent me a letter recently about doing, uh, an honors project-inviting me to come in and talk about . . .

Professor: Right, right, well, as your academic advisor, it’s my job to look out for your academic interests, and based on your grades, and some very positive feedback I’ve heard from your professors, I wanted to formally invite you to consider doing an honors project . . .

Student: Yeah . . . well, thanks . . . uh, actually I kinda wanted to ask you . . . quite frankly-like how much work it would probably be? I mean, I’m gonna be spending a lot of time applying to law schools next semester and . . .

Professor: Well, let me tell you how it works . . . and then you can decide from there.

Student: OK.

Professor: Basically, the honors project is an opportunity to do . . . some in-depth work on a topic you’re interested in before graduating college. You register for the class, but it doesn’t work the same way a regular class does-you find a professor who you want to work with-you ask the professor-a sort of mentor who’s knowledgeable on the topic you’re interested in-the topic you’re gonna write your honors thesis on . . .

Student: Writing a thesis? That’s part of the project? Ah, like how many pages are we talking?

Professor: Usually about 50 . . . but it’s a valuable experience, writing a thesis paper.

Student: So, basically, after I register for the class, I need to ask a professor who’ll sorta help me…

Professor: Actually, you need to do that-a professor needs to agree to oversee your honors project-before you register.

Student: Oh, OK…

Professor: I mean, I know it sounds kinda daunting, but that’s what the professor’s there for-to help guide you through the different steps of the process and . . . uh . . . most students are very pleased with the experience . . . they’re able to demonstrate advanced research skills, which is important; especially in your case, writing an honors thesis would be a big plus . ..

Student: You think so?

Professor: Absolutely. Especially considering your plans, since you’re applying to law schools. It shows initiative, that you’ve done well as an undergraduate-to be allowed to do the honors project . . . that you’re able to work independently and, of course, you would graduate with honors . . .

Student: Yeah, it does sound good-it’s just, you know, l’ve never written something like that before, so . . .

Professor: Well, you choose something you’re interested in-maybe you can even expand a shorter research paper from another class or . . .

Student: So, like, maybe . . . You know, I took this course from Professor Connelly-his course on Comparative Governments last semester and, uh . . . did pretty well-l wrote a paper actually, on political parties in Venezuela and-and he seemed to like my research. Anyway. he, uh, I got an A in the course.

Professor: Good, so it sounds like you do have a general idea for a topic, and you might know what professor you want to work with . . . and look, it’s still a couple weeks before registration, maybe you should talk to Professor Connelly and then get back to me.

Student: Yeah, I will-thanks. I’II come by again sometime next week.

Professor: That’s fine. Good luck.

Narrator: What does Professor Anderson imply when he says this:

Professor: . . . they’re able to demonstrate advanced research skills, which is important; especially in your case, writing an honors thesis would be a big plus . . .

Narrator: What does the woman imply when she says this:

Student: Yeah, it does sound good. It’s just, you know, I’ve never written something like that before . . . so . . .

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a journalism class. The professor has been discussing newspapers.

Professor: About 40 years ago, half of all Americans felt they’d be lost without a daily newspaper. But today, only one in ten Americans say they’d be lost without a paper. In fact, today, half of all Americans say they don’t need a newspaper at all. And so people in the newspaper industry are trying to figure out how they can get more people reading the newspaper more often. They’re trying to crack journalism’s riddle for the ages: what makes people read newspapers? OK, well, let me ask you-as a journalism student, what do you think is the answer to this question? Elizabeth?

Female student: U m, I would probably try to improve the content of the newspaper.

Professor: Better content. Hmm. You mean like well-written editorials and articles?

Female student: Well, I mean provide more interesting content, like, I would first try to find out what readers really want to read . . . and then put that into the paper.

Professor: Yes, in fact, not too long ago, there was an extensive study conducted to investigate what draws people to newspapers. Uh, they found out that there’s a clear, strong link between satisfaction with content and overall readership. Those newspapers that contained what the readers wanted most brought in the most readers. No big surprise there, right? So, what kind of content brings in readers? The study found that people-centered local news ranks at the top of the list . . . stories about ordinary people. For example, you could write about the experiences of those who were involved in a news story, and their friends and relatives . . . The vantage points would be those of ordinary people, not of police or other officials . . . OK? Now the study also showed that people want more stories about movies, TV, and weather, and fewer stories and photos about natural disasters and accidents . . . So. to get reader satisfaction, you need to select the right topics, and within those topics, the right news events or stories to cover. Yes, James?

Male student: It seems to me that a lot of what you just mentioned doesn’t line up with the principles of good journalism. Catering to readers’ tastes may improve overall readership, but what about the social responsibilities that newspapers have? I mean, there are some topics that newspapers need to write about in order to serve the public interest. Those topics may not always be fun and interesting for the average reader, but it’s still the newspaper’s responsibility to make that information available to the public.

Professor: That’s a good point. You need a good mix of content. You can’t just rush towards an attractive topic and forget about the reporting role of newspapers. There’s a danger of going soft-newspapers do have to perform their obligations to citizens. So what newspapers sometimes do is to combine serious journalism with a reader-friendly presentation. Um, let me give you an example: When the justice department opened an investigation on the local police-some pretty serious stuff that could be boring to some readers-well, one local newspaper ran a lead story on their front page, but they also simplified the format by including small breakout boxes that presented-in a nutshell-the highlights of the story. That way, they could report the serious stories they needed to report, and, and still hold their readers’ attention. OK? U h, going back to the research on readership growth we were talking about . . . Uh, the most vital step of all, the study shows, may be making the paper easier to use. How can we make the paper “easier to use”? Well, it means stories need to include information, such as phone numbers, times, dates, addresses, Web sites and the like, so that readers can “go and do” things based on what they’ve read.

Female student: Professor Ellington? Um, when you said we need to make the paper “easier to user” I thought you were gonna say something about use of graphics, colors, and stuff like that.

Professor: Well, I guess those things do help in a way, but it turned out that those contemporary touches, uh, such as more attractive designs, extensive use of color, and informational graphics matter much less than you’d expect. Surprising, isn’t it?

Female student: Yeah, it is . . . Um, how about service? Does the study say anything about improving service? I don’t think people are gonna subscribe if the paper doesn’t arrive, or shows up late ..

Professor: Or shows up wet, which by the way, happened to me this morning. Oh, absolutely. Service affects readership. In fact, improving your service is much more likely to increase your readership than making changes in your editorial content . . . Not only on-time delivery in good condition, but also things like efficient billing, affordability, um .. . Yes?

Female student: They could also, like, increase the number of sites where they sell single copies.

Professor: Certainly that’s one way to improve service.

Narrator: What does the student imply when ha says this:

Male student: It seems to me that a lot of what you just mentioned doesn’t line up with the principles of good journalism. Catering to readers’ tastes may improve overall readership, but what about the social responsibilities that newspapers have?

Narrator: Listen again to part of the lecture. Then answer the question.

Female student: I don’t think people are gonna subscribe if the paper doesn’t arrive, or shows up late . . .

Professor: Or shows up wet, which by the way, happened to me this morning. Oh, absolutely. Service affects readership.

Narrator: What does the professor imply when he says this:

Professor: Or shows up wet, which by the way, happened to me this morning. Oh, absolutely.

Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and an admissions officer at City College.

Student: Hi. Can I ask you a few questions about starting classes during your summer session?

Admissions officer: Sure. Ask away! It starts next week, you know.

Student: Yeah, and I want to get some required courses out of the way so I can . . . maybe I can graduate one term earlier and get out into the job market sooner.

Admissions officer: That sounds like a good idea. Let me pull up the summer school database on my computer here . . .

Student: OK.

Admissions officer: OK, there it is. What’s your student ID number?

Student: Oh, well, the thing is . . . I’m not actually admitted here. I’ll be starting school upstate at Hooper University in the fall. But I’m down here for the summer, staying with my grandparents, ’cause I have a summer job near here.

Admissions officer: Oh, I see, well . . .

Student: So I’m outta luck?

Admissions officer: Well, you would be if you were starting anywhere but Hooper. But City College has a sort of special relationship with Hooper . . . a full exchange agreement . . . so our students can take classes at Hooper and vice versa. So if you can show me proof . . . um, your admissions letter from Hooper, then I can get you into our system here and give you an ID number.

Student: Oh, cool. So . . . um . . . I wanna take a math course and a science course-preferably biology. And I was also hoping to get my English composition course out of the way, too.

Admissions officer: Well all three of those courses are offered in the summer, but you’ve gotta understand that summer courses are condensed-you meet longer hours and all the assignments are doubled up because . . . it’s the same amount of information presented and tested as in a regular term, but it’s only six weeks long. Two courses are considered full time in summer term. Even if you weren’t working, I couldn’t let you register for more than that.

Student: Yeah, I was half expecting that. What about the schedule? Are classes only offered during the day?

Admissions officer: Well, during the weak, we have some classes in the daytime and some at night, and on the weekends, we have some classes all day Saturday or all day Sunday for the six weeks.

Student: My job is pretty flexible, so one on a weekday and one on a weekend shouldn’t be any problem. OK, so after I bring you my admissions letter, how do I sign up for the classes?

Admissions officer: Wall, as soon as your student ID number is assigned and your information is in our admissions system, you can register by phone almost immediately.

Student: What about financial aid? Is it possible to get it for the summer?

Admissions officer: Sorry, but that’s something you would’ve had to work out long before now. But the good news is that the tuition for our courses is about half of what you’re going to be paying at Hooper.

Student: Oh, well that helps! Thank you so much for answering all my questions. I’ll be back tomorrow with my letter.

Admissions officer: I won’t be here then, but do you see that lady sitting at that desk over here? That’s Ms. Brinker. I’ll leave her a note about what we discussed, and she’ll get you started.

Student: Cool.

Narrator: Listen again to part of the conversation. Then answer the question.

Student: So I’m outta luck?

Admissions officer: Well, you would be if you were starting anywhere but Hooper.

Narrator: What does the woman mean when she says this:

Admissions officer: Well, you would be if you were starting anywhere but Hooper

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a world history class.

Professor: In any introductory course, I think it’s always a good idea to step back and ask our-selves “What are we studying in this class, and why are we studying it?”

So, for example, when you looked at the title of this course in the catalog-“Introduction to World History”-what did you think you were getting into . . . what made you sign up for it- besides filling the social science requirement?

Anyone . . .?

Male student: Well . . . just the-the history-of everything . . . you know, starting at the beginning . . . with . . . I guess, the Greeks and Romans . . . the Middle Ages, the Renaissance . . . you know, that kind a stuff . . . like what we did in high school.

Professor: OK . . . Now, what you’re describing is one approach to world history.

In fact, there are several approaches-basic “models” or “conceptual frameworks” of what we study when we “do” history. And what you studied in high school-what I call the “Western-Heritage Model,” this used to be the most common approach in U.S. high schools and colleges . . . in fact, it’s the model I learned with, when I was growing up back-oh, about a hundred years ago . . .

Uh . . . at Middletown High School, up in Maine . . .l guess it made sense to my teachers back then-since, well, the history of western Europe was the cultural heritage of everyone in my class . . . and this remained the dominant approach in most U.S. schools till . . . oh, maybe . . . 30, 40 years ago . . . But it doesn’t take more than a quick look around campus-even just this classroom today-to see that the student body in the U.S. is much more diverse than my little class in Middletown High . . . and this Western-Heritage Model was eventually replaced by-or sometimes combined with-one or more of the newer approaches . . . and I wanna take a minute to describe these to you today, so you can see where this course fits in.

OK . . . so . . . up until the mid-twentieth century, the basic purpose of most world-history courses was to learn about a set of values . . . institutions . . . ideas . . . which were considered the “heritage” of the

people of Europe-things like . . . democracy . . . legal systems . . . types of social organization . . . artistic achievements . . .

Now, as I said, this model gives us a rather limited view of history. So, in the 1960s and 70s it was combined with-or replaced by-what I call the “Different-Cultures Model.” The ’60s were a period in which people were demanding more relevance in the curriculum, and there was criticism of the European focus that you were likely to find in all the academic disciplines. For the most part, the Different-Cultures Model didn’t challenge the basic assumptions of the Western-Heritage Model. What it did was insist on representing other civilizations and cultural categories. in addition to those of western Europe . . .

In other words, the heritage of all people: not just what goes back to the Greeks and Romans, but also the origins of African . . . Asian . . . Native American civilizations. Though more inclusive. it’s still, basically, a “heritage model” . . . which brings us to a third approach, what I call the “Patterns-of-Change Model.”

Like the Different-Cultures Model, this model presents a wide cultural perspective. But, with this model, we’re no longer limited by notions of fixed cultural or geo-graphical boundaries. So, then, studying world history is not so much a question of how a particular nation or ethnic group developed, but rather it’s a look at common themes-conflicts . . . trends-that cut across modern-day borders of nations or ethnic groups. In my opinion, this is the best way of studying history, to better understand current-day trends and conflicts.

For example, let’s take the study of the Islamic world. Well, when I first learned about Islamic civilization, it was from the perspective of Europeans. Now, with the Patterns-of-Change Model, we’re looking at the past through a wider lens. So we would be more interested, say, in how interactions with Islamic civilization-the religion . . . art . . . literature-affected cultures in Africa . . . India . . . Spain . . . and so on.

Or . . . let’s take another example. Instead of looking at each cultural group as having a separate, linear development from some ancient origin, in this course we’ll be looking for the common themes that go beyond cultural or regional distinctions. So . . . instead of studying . . . a particular succession of British kings . . . or a dynasty of Chinese emperors . . . in this course, we’ll be looking at the broader concepts of monarchy, imperialism . . . and political transformation.

Narrator: Listen to part of a Lecture in an environmental science class.

Professor: OK, now let’s talk about another environmental concern-soil erosion. It’s a major problem, all around the world. Sometimes erosion damages soil so severely that the. land can no longer be cultivated and it’s just abandoned. That happened in a big way right here in the United States. Some of you have probably read the novel The Grapes of Wrath. And maybe you remember that the story took place in the 1930s, during the time of what was called the Dust Bowl.

Dust Bowl is a term we use to describe an ecological and human disaster that took place in the southern Great Plains region. For nearly eight years, dust and sand blew across the area and covered everything. It was so bad it even made breathing and eating difficult . . . and farmers could only look on helplessly as their crops were destroyed and the land . . . and their lives . . . ruined.

Now, there’d always been droughts and strong winds in that region, But that was OK because the native grasses had deep roots in the ground that were able to hold the soil in place. So the wind wasn’t able to, you know, erode the soil too badly. This changed, though, between 1900 and 1930. Agriculture was expanding rapidly then, and lots of farmers in the southern Great Plains wanted to grow wheat and other crops they could sell for cash-uh, crops that would be profitable. So they ripped up much of the grassland to plant these crops like wheat, which don’t hold the soil

down nearly as well. At the same time, livestock-uh, cattle, too many of them-were feeding on grasses in the area and damaging a lot of the grassland. So these animals caused even more erosion of the soil.

It didn’t help that many of the actual owners of the land were not living anywhere near the area-a lot of the landowners lived way back east, and rented out the land to local people who lived on the land and worked on it, but, um, didn’t have much reason to take really good care of it. I mean, it wasn’t their land, right? The tenant farmers weren’t really interested in conserving someone else’s soil-not for the long term, anyway.

Also, some thought the land couldn’t really be damaged-you know, that the soil was so rich and deep that . . . it didn’t matter if the topsoil, the soil on the surface, blew away. They thought they could just plow up more. But they were wrong. Good top-soil takes a long time to form-it can literally take thousands of years to create good topsoil that will grow vegetation-and a very short time to ruin it. So after only a few years of excessive plowing, the land pretty much couldn’t be farmed anymore. And people moved on to other places and let the old areas just sit there. And when they didn’t plant anything on that land, that made it vulnerable to even more erosion. So it was kind of a vicious cycle, you could say.

Another problem, ironically, was that advances in technology were actually destroying the land, instead of improving it. A lot of farmers were using huge new tractors that dug deep into the ground and tore up a lot of the soil.

And then, of course, there was the weather. You know, when people look back on the Dust Bowl era, they tend to blame the drought-the lack of rain between 1934 and 1937. We can’t ignore the drought. I mean, it was the worst on record at the time and did help bring on this disaster. But-without the soil destruction-the drought alone wouldn’t have resulted in the devastation we call the Dust Bowl. It was poor farming techniques that made that happen.

Since then, though, we’ve paid more attention to trying to prevent a future Dust Bowl. One thing Congress did was enact a massive government effort to improve soil conservation, called the Soil Erosion Act. Under this law, large stretches of land in the southern Great Plains were identified as being at risk for erosion and were taken out of production and turned into permanent grassland. What that did-by protecting the land from excessive farming-was to stabilize the soil. Also, the Soil Erosion Act helped educate farmers to practice better soil conservation techniques, like reducing how often they plowed and using better equipment that would, you know, minimize damage to the soil structure.

Narrator: Listen again to part of the lecture. Then answer the question.

Professor: A lot of the landowners lived way back east, and rented out the land to local people who lived on the land and worked on it, but, um, didn’t have much reason to take really good care of it. I mean, it wasn’t their land, right?

Narrator: Why does the professor say this:

Professor: I mean, it wasn’t their land, right?

Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and his academic advisor.

Student: Excuse me, Ms. Chambers? Um, I don’t have an appointment, but l was kinda wondering if you had a minute to help me with something.

Academic advisor: Oh, sure. Have a seat. What’s on your mind?

Student: Well, uh . . . I guess I really don’t know where to start . . . It’s not just one class. It’s . . . I’m not doing all that great. Like on my homework assignments. And in class. And I don’t know why. I mean, l just don’t get it! l-l read the assignments and I do the homework and I’m still not doing too well . . .

Academic advisor: Um, which classes? You mean, like Spanish . . . you’re taking Spanish, right?

Student: Oh, no, not Spanish . . . if it weren’t for Spanish I’d really be in trouble . . . no, but it’s really all the others, psychology and sociology especially.

Academic advisor: Is it the material, what you read in the textbooks? You don’t understand it?

Student: No, that’s just it-l think I understand stuff when I read it . . .

Academic advisor: You don’t re . . .

Student: Remember? Well, I remember names and definitions, but . . . like, in class, when the professor asks us about the theories, what they’re all about, I never have the answer.

Academic advisor: Sounds like you’re trying to learn by memorizing details, instead of picking out the main points of the reading. So, tall me, how do you study?

Student: Well, l-l . . . l mean. I read the assigned chapters, and I try to underline everything . . . like all of the words I don’t know, and I always memorize the definitions. But, I dunno, when I get back in class, it always seems like the other students’ve gotten a better handle on what was in the reading. So, maybe it’s just me . . .

Academic advisor: Oh, it’s not. Believe me. Lots of students . . . You know, my first year as a college student . . . I really had a hard time. I spent hours reading in the library . .. but I was just wasting time. ’cause I wasn’t really studying the right things. I did the same sort of thing it sounds like you’re doing, not focusing on what’s really important in the reading, but on the smaller details.

Student: Yeah, maybe. But I spend so much time studying, it seems like I should be doing better.

Academic advisor: The first year of college can be a little overwhelming, I know. Point is, lots of students have trouble adjusting at first, you know, figuring out how to study, how to use their time, you know, to your best advantage. It’s good that you do the assigned readings . . . but, you’ve . . . well, I think you’re unnecessarily underlining and memorizing. That takes a lot of time, and, well, it’s not the best use of your time. Here’s something you can do: when you read, just read the assigned sections, and then . . . and without looking back at the text-write a summary of the key points, the main ideas in the chapter. And after you do that, it-it’s good to go back and reread the text. And you look for any examples you can find to support those key points. Let me show you an example of what I mean.

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class.

Professor: I’II tell you a story about how one astronomy problem was solved. It happened many years ago, but you’ll see that it’s interesting and still relevant. Two, three hundred years ago, astronomers already had telescopes, but they were not as powerful as those we have now. Let’s say . . . they were at the level of telescopes amateur astronomers use today. Tell me, what do you see in the night sky when you use a telescope like that? Quick, tell me.

Female student: Planets . . .

Professor: Right . . .

Male student: Even . . . like . . . the moons of Jupiter?

Professor: Right . . .

Female student: Stars.

Professor: OK . . . what else? , . . You think that’s all? . . . Ever heard of nebulae? . . . I bet you have . . . Well, let’s just, um, put it up anyway . . .

Nebulae are small fuzzy patches you see in the sky, they look like little clouds. Many of them have a spiral shape, and that’s why we called them spiral nebulae . . . So astronomers in the eighteenth century

. . . eighteenth century . . . when they looked through the telescope, they could see planets-and they knew those were planets . . .the moons of Jupiter-and they knew they were the moons of Jupiter . . . and then they saw spiral nebulae and they didn’t have a clue.

What could those be? So, some of them thought-“these things are cloudy and fuzzy, so they’re probably small clouds of cosmic dust, and they don’t have to be very far away from us.” But there were others

who thought, “OK, the things look small and fuzzy, but maybe they’re actually distant galaxies of stars, but we can’t see the stars, because they’re so far away and they seem so tiny that they look like dust, and even the whole galaxy looks like a tiny little cloud.” Which of the two theories do you think was more . . . uh, surprising?

Male student: The galaxy one.

Professor: And why?

Male student: Well, I mean it assumed that the nebulae are not what they look like at first sight. The first theory assumed that, right?

Professor: OK. And now tell me this . . . which one would have seemed more likely at the time?

Male student: Uh . . . They couldn’t tell.

Professor: Right. Two morals here: first, there can be different explanations for the same observation. And second, “obvious” doesn’t necessarily mean “right” . . . What happened next was . . . for a long time nothing. More than 150 years. No one could decide . . . Both hypotheses seemed plausible . . . And a lot was at stake-because if the galaxy theory was right, it would be proof that the universe is enormous . . . and if the dust theory was right . . . maybe not so enormous. So the size of the universe was at stake . . . Finally in the 1920s we came up with a telescope that was strong enough to tell us something new here. When we used it to look at the spiral nebulae, we saw . . . well, we were not absolutely sure . . . but it really looked like there were stars in those nebulae. So not dust after all, but stars . . .But how far away were they, really? How would you measure that? Any ideas? Laura?

Female student: Well, how about measuring how strong those stars shine? Because, if the star is far away, then its light would be weak, right?

Professor: Yes . . . but there’s a problem here. You need to know how bright the star is in the first place, because some stars are naturally much brighter than others. So, if you see a star that’s weak . . . it can mean one of two things . . .

Female student: Oh . . . it’s either far away or it’s just a weak star.

Professor: And you can’t really always tell which. But you’re on the right track. There is a kind of star where you can calculate its natural brightness . . . and-you guessed it-we found some in the nebulae. It’s called a variable star-or a “variable” for short-because its brightness varies in regular intervals. I won’t go into detail here, but . . . basically . . . the longer the interval, the brighter the star, so from the length of those intervals we were able to calculate their natural brightness. This told us how distant they were-and many turned out to be very, very far away. So we can be sure that the spiral nebulae really are very distant galaxies-which is what some eighteenth-century astronomers guessed but didn’t have the instruments to prove . .

Now, one reason I told you this story is that today there are still plenty of situations when we see something out there, but we really aren’t sure what it is. An example of one such mysterious observation would be gamma-ray bursters. We’ve known about these gamma-ray bursters for a long time now, but we can’t all agree on what they are.

Narrator: Listen again to part of the lecture. Then answer the question.

Professor: But how far away were they, really? How would you measure that? Any ideas? Laura?

Female student: Well, how about measuring how strong those stars shine? Because, if the star is far away, then its light would be weak, right?

Professor: Yes . . . but there’s a problem here. You need to know how bright the star is in the first place, because some stars are naturally much brighter than others. So, if you see a star that’s weak . . . it can mean one of two things . . .

Female student: Oh . . . it’s either far away or it’s just a weak star.

Narrator: What can be inferred about the student when she says this:

Female student: Oh . . . it’s either far away or it’s just a weak star.

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

Professor: Today we’re going to talk about how to look at a piece of art, how to “read” it-what you should look for . . . what aspects of it you should evaluate. A lot of people think that if you stand in front of a work of art and gaze at it for a couple of minutes, you’re evaluating it. But truly reading a piece of art, evaluating it properly, is a complex process, a process that takes time.

When we’re confronted with a piece of art, there’re several things we have to keep in mind, for example, its beauty . . . that’s where aesthetics comes in.

Aesthetics is the philosophy that deals with the definition of beauty, which goes all the way back to ancient Greece. They, um, the early Greek philosophers said that beauty and art are based on imitation. Their feeling about art was that it’s beautiful when it imitates life; they thought that the truthfulness of an image, how truthful it is to life, determines its value as art. Today we have a broader definition of aesthetics.

Now don’t identify aesthetics as personal taste. Taste is bound by time; taste is tied to a society, a given set of moral values, usually. You may not like a piece of art from a different culture-it may not be your taste-but you appreciate its beauty ’cause you recognize certain aesthetic principles. Art generally adheres to certain aesthetic principles like balance, uh, balanced proportions, contrast, movement, or rhythm.

We’ll discuss aesthetics more in detail when we look at some pieces of art together. Another thing to keep in mind in evaluating art is that art has a purpose, generally determined by the artist. You may not know what it is, and you don’t need to know what it is to appreciate a piece of art, but it helps. For example, if you know what the artist’s purpose is . . . if you know that a piece of art expresses the artist’s feeling about a political or social situation, you’ll probably look at it differently.

Now, besides beauty and purpose, what are the other aspects of a piece of art that need to be evaluated? Very simple-you examine a piece of art following these four formal steps. The first step is description . . . describe physical characteristics of the piece-like this painting is large, it’s oil on canvas. Describe the subject-it’s a person, it’s a landscape-or predominant colors like, um, earth colors . . . that’s a description.

OK? So, you’ve described the piece. The next step is analysis. You’re looking at the piece for any universal symbols, characters, or themes it might contain. Certain symbols are universal, and the artist counts on your understanding of symbols. Even colors have symbolic significance, as you may know. And also objects depicted in a piece of art are often used to represent an abstract idea. Like wheels or spheres-they look like circles, right?-so wheels and spheres represent wholeness and continuity. I have a handout, a list of these symbols and images and their interpretations, that I’ll give you later. But for now, the point is that after you describe the piece of art, you analyze its content . . . you determine whether it contains elements that the artist is using to try to convey a certain meaning.

If it does, the next step is interpretation. Interpretation follows analysis very closely. You try to interpret the meaning of the symbols you identified in the piece. Almost all art has an obvious and an implied meaning. The implied meaning is hidden in the symbolic system expressed in the piece of art. What we see depicted is one scene, but there can be several levels of meaning. Your interpretation of these symbols makes clear what the artist is trying to tell us.

The last step is judgment or opinion-what do you think of the piece, is it powerful or boring?- but I give that hardly any weight. If the four steps were to be divided up into a chart, then description. analysis, and interpretation would take up 99 percent. Your opinion is not important in understanding a piece of art. It’s nice to say: I like it . . . I wouldn’t mind hanging it over my couch, but to evaluate a piece of art, it’s not critical.

Now you know what I mean by “reading” a piece of art, and what it entails. Try to keep all that in mind next time you go to an art museum. I can tell you right now that you probably won’t be able to look at more than 12 pieces of art during that visit.

OK, now let’s look at a slide of a piece of art and try to “read” it together.

Narrator: What does the professor imply when ha says this:

Professor: Try to keep all that in mind next time you go to an art museum. I can tell you right now that you probably won’t be able to look at more than 12 pieces of art during that visit.