Mega Magazine Web Unit

The best way for non-native speakers to improve their reading speed and comprehension is through reading for pleasure. It is important that you read in English EVERY DAY, but it neednÕt be academic or language related material. The best results will can be obtained when you read material you are truly interested in.

For that reason, let's take a trip to the Newsstand, a place where we can find a variety of magazines and periodicals. In this case, we will visit, among other sites, the Electronic Newsstand. I'm sure you'll find something there worth reading.

Let's start by looking at some of my "personal favorites"...

Now use these magazine links to answer the following sentences. Try to answer in complete English sentences.

1) What is the Internet address of Forbes magazine?.

2) What is the date of the latest printed edition of Forbes magazine?

3) What is the cover story of the print edition of Forbes about?

4) How much money did Arnold Schwartznegger make last year?

5) What are some of the headlines of today's electronic edition?

6) Look in the table of contents of the print edition. What are some of the regular departments of Forbes?

7) Now go to Sports Illustrated. What is the featured sport in today's Sports Illustrated?

8) What other famous news organization has joined with Sports Illustrated?

9) What other sports are mentioned on the top level of the CNI/SI web page?

10) Try to find the free samples of the swimsuit photos. Find the photo of:

a) Who made Laetitia's swim suit? How much does it cost?

11) Next go to the Drudge Report. What is the leading scandal today?

12) What is the leading story in AP World News? In AP Breaking News?

13) Go to the National Business Employment Weekly Astrological Job Find and use it to find out what kind of job you should look for.

14) Go to People Magazine and tell me what stars were born today.

15) Go to World Dominion Review, and choose "Fun Stuff". Then look for the link called "Musings on English". Scroll down to the section on "How to Write Good". What is your favorite rule?

16) Find a movie review in People Magazine.

a) What movie did you choose and who are the stars?

b) Did People like the movie?

17) In today's Salon magazine, what book is being reviewed?

18) What is Salon's "Wunderlust" section all about.

Now let's visit the Electronic Newsstand. We see that the magazines are arranged by topic. Some of the more interesting topics are....
 
 

Take a few minutes to browse the Newsstand. Then try to pick one magazine title you would like to read.

Name of the magazine:

From your magazine, pick one article to read and use to prepare an oral report to the class:

Title of article:

Your oral report should be short but accurate and interesting. A sample Oral Report Form can be found here. The object of these oral reports is to share some of the interesing articles we have found with our classmates.

If you use information from a magazine or journal article in a paper or project, you must cite it. That means giving credit to the original author, and giving the reader the information they need to find the information, should they choose to. A good Guide to Electronic Citation can be found here. Please use the citation conventions from the Modern Language Association (MLA).

Now let's use these magazine resources and our newfound knowledge of electronic citation to research some real and controversial issues affecting the world today. Try to find FIVE articles in different magazines about ONE of the following issues:

check out these topics Science - Should cloning humans be legal? Money - Is the stock market going down soon? Internet - Which is better, Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer? Culture - What new movies are good? International Politics - Should Nato expand into Eastern Europe? Medicine - Should medicinal use of marijuana be legal? Sports - What is the most popular sport in the world? Food - Healthy Desserts.

Try to find articles which represent a variety of opinion. In this case, disagreement is good, because we can see more than one side of these issues. Write up your five articles as a formal bibliography, in alphabetic order, following the pattern:

1) Author's name:

2) Title of the article:

3) Title of the magazine or journal:

4) Issue number:

5) Publisher:

6) Publication Date: