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This article relates the efforts of faculty at one community college to define standards for achievement of two SLOs (critical thinking and effective communication) and to gather and analyze evidence of how well students meet those standards. Faculty from 13 disciplines assessed writing samples from 264 students. We found that, in general, students with more credits outperformed those with fewer credits. However, many students at every level demonstrated poor information literacy skills, indicating an area for curriculum improvement.

This article describes a study designed to compare the vocabulary demands of introductory college textbooks in several disciplines. The results suggest that the new-vocabulary load in biology textbooks is not as high as that in foreign-language textbooks – as has often been reported – but is higher than in other disciplines. The article concludes with suggestions for helping students manage the vocabulary demands of introductory courses across the curriculum.

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