This course focuses primarily on understanding the logic and organization of academic texts and on teaching students various techniques and skills to develop their ability to read and synthesize texts of various sizes, while also being able to read critically and evaluate a text for its value to academic research. ESL 1302 also teaches students how to effectively locate academic sources of information through both the library and electronic resources, and to apply this research in academic writing assignments. By the end of this course, students will be able to read lengthy academic texts on a variety of topics, and comprehend the content at various levels (literal, referential, etc.). In addition, they will be able to find scholarly sources related to a specific topic, and evaluate these sources for their reliability, accuracy, and value.