<p>My mother told me that, if I read Newsweek every week for an entire year, then my knowledge base and writing skills will drastically improve. Is this true? Feel free to share any personal experiences.</p>
<p>Maybe...but newsweek isn't that much of a bastion of journalistic superiority. There are a lot of fluff pieces in my opinion. Your knowledge base will likely go up b/c you are staying up on current events, something that can somewhat wither away when youre on a college campus (there's a reason why so many students call college "the bubble")</p>
<p>If you want to try this experiment, try The Economist weekly. That will definitely help, and probably a whole hell of a lot more than Newsweek. You just have to be careful about paying attention/recognizing the biases present in most articles.</p>
<p>The New Yorker is another rag w/ great writing. Also the Atlantic Monthly. Perhaps your mother is not familiar with these herself, but I would never recommend Newsweek as a way to inprove reading, writing or analysis skills, sorry about that. Echo the recommendation of The Economist.....however if you are just beginning do The New Yorker + The Economist to ease up to the task.</p>
<p>Could you give me a brief of The Economist and The New Yorker?</p>
<p>I meant a brief description.</p>
<p>Newsweek = mostly fluff.
The Economist = politics. The most painfully boring thing I have ever attempted to read.
The New Yorker = an amalgam of fiction, non-fiction, and reviews. Sometimes excellent, sometimes irritatingly pretentious.</p>
<p>As it happens, my favorite publication is Us Weekly.</p>
<p>Reading something like Newsweek (or my favorite, Time) will probably just boost your current events knowledge. Read something like Shakespeare if you really want to advance yourself.</p>
<p>Reading something like Newsweek (or my favorite, Time) will probably just boost your current events knowledge. Read something like Shakespeare if you really want to advance yourself.</p>
<p>All reading helps--it helps more the more it makes you think--start in small doses:</p>
<p>OP-Ed pages of The New York Times-- The Washington Post</p>
<p>Shakespeare is great, but your local Borders or Barnes and Noble is full of worthwhile stuff --spend a day browsing and read what you find compelling....</p>
<p>keep a journal and a few times a week write a response to something you've read--that you really agree or disagree with or that inspired you in some way. Only writing can make your writing better--pick up good phrases and a wider palette of vocabulary from what you read....</p>
<p>Sorry, but I have to disagree. Reading Shakespeare will probably not help you with your writing skills. We tend to imitate the writing style of others (which is why reading good writing will help your writing) but I think we can all agree that if you try writing an essay test in Shakespearean style you won't get a very high mark. And you're not going to be able to write an essay in iambic pentameter in the time allowed, either.</p>
<p>Regarding Newsweek, I read it weekly, and it's pretty interesting to keep up with current events. Will it help your writing skills drastically? I doubt it. Will it help a little? Maybe. Will it make you not feel stupid when others are talking about current events and you at least have an inkling of what's going on? Definitely. At first I didn't bother reading it much but I like to keep in touch with current events so it's great in that aspect. I find it a little more interesting (even if some is "fluff") than something like "Time."</p>
<p>lol reading newsweek will not really improve your comprehension/writing skills. Its made for the american public (like Time) and has, generally, poor quality writing. Read some magazines like the Economist/New Yorker/Atlantic if want to improve your english skills via reading.</p>
<p>And if you just want to hear relatively moderated debate (albeit, not at the level of more formal debates), listen to NPR ;).</p>
<p>read the economist :-)
some of it IS boring and pretentious, but they have stuff about everywhere and the world and everything that is happening, so you dont have to read it cover to cover
be aware, however, that is has a slight conservative bias, which can be annoying</p>
<p>Read the Economist</p>
<p>I love how there's poly sci majors out there (mostly at crap schools, but some good) who think The Economist is boring because it's about "politics and stuff"...
Atlantic Monthly is well written, so is The New York Times
Financial Times is good too
Read Discover and MIT's Technology to be up on science and technology</p>
<p>Read Business Week, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal if you want to be rich some day.</p>
<p>Most importantly, read good scholarly work/academic journals, as well as good non-fiction about both past and current events that interest you.</p>
<p>You would definitely do reasonably well on the verbal parts of the LSATs and GMATs if you read all of the above regularly.</p>
<p>I highly recommend reading Newsweek, the New York Times, or something like that on a regular basis. But not so you can do better on standardized tests, just for the sake of knowing what's going on in the world.</p>
<p>I was very surprised to find out how little some of my friends knew about current events just a few weeks before the election.</p>
<p>Does the Economist deal with current events in the way that Newsweek does?</p>
<p>I second (or third, whatever) the New Yorker, especially if you like literary magazines (which is essentially what the New Yorker is). The articles are delightfully random, and the fiction is always outstanding. Definitely get the subscription though, because when I got my issue today, the cover price was $4.50 instead of the old $3.95, both of which are extremely ridculous for a very thin, ad-filled, easily ripped magazine. (with the subcription, the magazine, which comes weekly, rounds out to about a dollar an issue)</p>
<p>I really REALLY dislike Newsweek. The style of writing, as mentioned before, has too much "fluff." When I was looking to increase my writing skills I looked into:</p>
<p>Foreign Affairs-really improved my essays
Policy Review-really improved my essays
Harpers-This is by far the hardest reading in this group. If you read this for a full year, and took the time to understand it fully (by means of dictionary, etc.), your writing will improve greatly. I never got around to reading this...
NYTimes-great for current events
Wall Street Journal
Barron's
Economist
Harvard Business Review</p>
<p>Time Magazine, Newsweek = bad.</p>
<p>If you can't tell, i'm a business major :D</p>
<p>BTW, most of these readings have student discounts that sometimes offer around a 50% discount</p>
<p>I think Slate is an awesome read if you want viewpoints.</p>
<p>I use the internet for all of my current events:
New York Times
BBC
WashingtonPost <-- amazing politics and op-ed pieces
SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle)
Economist
Everything2 (more like a Wikipedia-style op-ed encyclopedia...)</p>
<p>Check out your schools Library, They should have multiple copies of all of these mentioned and some schools even have magazine,journal and periodical sign ups for free. They will have them waiting for ya.</p>