This guide offers books and other resources to support student success available through UMSL Libraries. Click each title for a link to digital materials or location information for print books. This virtual guide accompanies an in-person exhibit on the main level of TJ Library in early fall 2025, but books are available to UMSL students year-round.
eBook. Provides tactical tips on getting the most out of office hours, e-mailing your professor appropriately, and optimizing your performance on assignments and exams. Johnson gives practical advice on using the syllabus to your advantage, knowing how to address your instructors, and making sure you're not violating the academic ethics code. The book also offers invaluable advice about online courses and guidance for parents who want to help their children succeed.
Print. Offers lively and practical advice students can use throughout their college career (and beyond). In the newest edition, students will learn how to use narrative to energize their "I Say," navigate generative AI tools responsibly, and engage more deeply with their assigned readings.
Print. This how-to guide will teach you how to use the web to verify the web, quickly and efficiently, including how to *Verify news stories and other events in as little as thirty seconds (seriously) *Determine if the article you're citing is by a reputable scholar or a quack *Detect the slippery tactics scammers use to make their sites look credible *And more.
Print. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.
Print. Dweck shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset--those who believe that abilities are fixed--are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset--those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.
Print. Explains how to choose significant topics, pose genuine and productive questions, find and evaluate sources, build sound and compelling arguments, and convey those arguments effectively to others. The 5th edition includes discussions about effective presentations, new technologies used in research and guidelines for the appropriate use of generative AI, and researchers' broader obligations to their research communities and audiences.
Print and eBook. College students facing their first illness, accident, or anxiety away from home often flip-flop between wanting to handle it themselves and wishing their parents could swoop in and fix everything. Advice from peers and “Dr. Google” can be questionable. The Ultimate College Student Health Handbook provides accurate, trustworthy, evidence-based medical information (served with a dose of humor) to reduce anxiety and stress and help set appropriate expectations for more than fifty common issues.
Print. A clear, concise, evidence-based guide to the habits that are scientifically proven to help people learn. Acclaimed educational psychologist Richard Mayer distils cutting edge research to focus on the 20 best study habits for college students, including habits for motivating yourself to learn, managing your learning environment, and effectively applying learning strategies.
Print. Explore the fascinating mysteries of our hidden stress response system with Dr. Wulsin, who uses his decades of experience to show how toxic stress impacts our bodies; he gives us the expert advice and tools needed to prevent toxic stress from taking over. Chapter by chapter, learn to help your body and mind recover from toxic stress.
Print. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method.
Print. Offers a manual for developing reading, writing, and thinking skills in tandem. With short, practical chapters, Thinking through Writing helps readers learn to think critically about themselves and the world at large, read carefully and get the necessary literary support, write clearly and persuasively, stay on point, and finish their work as cleanly and compellingly as possible.
Print. Offers a vivid first-person account of the research that supports Steele's groundbreaking conclusions on stereotypes and identity. He sheds new light on American social phenomena from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men, and lays out a plan for mitigating these "stereotype threats" and reshaping American identities.
Print. Offers fresh insights for the mathematically perplexed and mathematical masters alike. Along the way, Orlin shares relatable stories of his own mathematical misunderstandings and epiphanies, as well as the trials and triumphs of his students. And, as always, he sheds further light and levity on the subject with his inept--yet strangely effective--drawings.
The Shallows has become a foundational book in one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the internet's bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? This 10th-anniversary edition includes a new afterword that brings the story up to date, with a deep examination of the cognitive and behavioral effects of smartphones and social media.
Print. A clear and wide-ranging introduction to evidence-based medicine and healthcare, helping readers to understand its central principles, critically evaluate published data, and implement the results in practical settings. Author Trisha Greenhalgh guides readers through each fundamental step of inquiry, from searching the literature to assessing methodological quality and appraising statistics.
eBook. In a conversational tone, and liberally illustrated by anecdotes of past students, the author combines introducing readers to concepts like Bloom's Taxonomy (to illuminate the difference between studying and learning), fixed and growth mindsets, as well as to what brain science has to tell us about rest, nutrition and exercise, together with such highly specific learning strategies as how to read a textbook, manage their time and take tests.
Print and eBook. A classic introduction to the scientific method, known for its accessibility to beginners and its value as a resource for advanced students and scholars. In addition to overall improvements and updates inspired by Chalmers's experience as a teacher, comments from his readers, and recent developments in the field, this fourth edition features an extensive chapter-long postscript that draws on his research into the history of atomism to illustrate important themes in the philosophy of science.
Print. Mike Rose crafts rich and moving vignettes of people in tough circumstances who find their way, who get a second, or third, or even fourth chance, and who, in a surprising number of cases, reinvent themselves as educated, engaged citizens. Rose reminds us that our nation's economic and civic future rests heavily on the health of the institutions that serve millions of everyday people--not simply the top twenty universities listed in U.S. News and World Report--and paints a vivid picture of the community colleges and adult education programs that give so many a shot at reaching their aspirations.
Print. It is more important than ever to understand the implications and potential pitfalls of AI technologies. Reissued with a new preface, How to Speak Machine, first published in 2019, draws on John Maeda's extensive experience as one of the world's preeminent interdisciplinary thinkers on technology and design. Using thoughtful explorations and occasionally whimsical examples, he identifies a framework that describes the key capabilities and pitfalls of any machine learning system.
Print. Includes eight important lessons focusing on 99 principles that will quickly and memorably enhance any individual's money management acumen. Unlike many of the personal money management books out there, this book is a quick, easily digested read that focuses more on the qualitative side than the quantitative side of personal money management.
Print and eBook. Buy as many lattes as you want. Choose the right accounts and investments so your money grows for you—automatically. Best of all, spend guilt-free on the things you love. Personal finance expert Ramit Sethi offers a 6-week program to find what rich means to you.
eBook. A step-by-step guide to writing the different chapters of a PhD dissertation, which will benefit aspiring, beginner and mid-track PhD students and candidates in the Social Sciences. It offers helpful writing guidelines, from the conceptualization and problematization of the dissertation through to the literature review, methodological issues, writing up results and, finally, to the discussion, conclusions and abstract writing process.
eBook. Will help you cultivate the cognitive and emotional skills you need to increase well-being and reach your highest aspirations. You'll also learn positive coping strategies for dealing with stress, sadness, and anxiety--including diet, fitness, and sleep habits. Most importantly, you'll discover three core self-regulation skills to help steer you toward the life you want: self-awareness, attention control, and emotion regulation.
Print. Looks at how science investigates the natural world around us. It is an examination of the scientific method, the foundation of science and basis on which our scientific knowledge is built. Written in a clear, concise, and colloquial style, the book addresses all concepts pertaining to the scientific method. It includes discussions on objective reality, hypotheses and theory, and the fundamental and inalienable role of experimental evidence in scientific knowledge.