Material in regards to SMART Goals, as this will help you complete your assignment more successfully.  Lecture 6  Developing your Goals & Writing Skills  Introduction  In this Topic, you will learn about the role goal setting plays in academic success. Every college student bears a lot of the responsibility for his or her own education. College is not a place where you can just show up and expect to learn. Like everything in life, you have to put in the effort. The objectives for this Topic, listed in the syllabus, say that after completing this Topic, you will be able to:  · Create personal, academic, and professional goals.  · Relate personal accountability to student success.  · Assess your information literacy skills.  To help you accomplish these objectives, this lecture document has been provided as a guide, along with specific assignments and main forum activities.  Information Literacy and the Writing Process  At GCU, students will be called upon to research information in support of the assignment deliverables for their classes. Research involves investigation and discovery of information regarding a specific topic. Academic research is an essential part of higher education.  Peer-reviewed journals are journals that have a specific editorial process that includes the requirement that articles be submitted to peers or subject experts in the appropriate field of research of the article. Not only must articles submitted for publication meet the journal''s editorial guidelines, but they also must be critically reviewed by subject experts (the author''s peers) in that designated field of research.  Similar to the peer-review process, it is important that students take the time to revise and edit their work before submitting. In last week''s Topic you learned more about academic writing skills and "rules" to help you revise and proofread your written work.  What Makes a Successful Student?  Being a successful student requires learners to demonstrate certain attitudes and behaviors regarding the achievement of course learning objectives. The following paragraphs articulate some of the attitudes and behaviors characteristic of successful students:  Successful students accept personal responsibility for their success. Although faculty support may be needed, pressuring a student to succeed is not necessary. All students have to be personally responsible for their individual success, knowing that it cannot be accomplished without commitment and a considerable amount of personal effort.  Successful students are self-directed and self-motivated.  Successful students are proactive. They make sure they manage time and circumstances to complete course work and maintain daily obligations. They are not procrastinators, and they are willing to contact the instructor to ask questions before it is too late. Adequate preparation for upcoming assignments, regular attendance in the classroom, and timely submission of course assignments are examples of this.  Successful students believe in themselves. They have an innate sense of confidence in their ability to succeed and are driven by a desire to accomplish their goals. Their attitude is such that hard work, late nights, challenges, and naysayers do not cause them to give up or give in.  S.M.A.R.T. Goals  In any endeavor, setting goals is important. An example goal could be I want to learn statistics. Yet, closer examination of this goal statement can lead to more questions: What type of statistics? How do I know when I have learned statistics? Is learning statistics something I can really attain? When will I complete this goal?  Thus, stating a goal involves a more deliberate thought process. One approach is to use the technique of creating S.M.A.R.T. goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely (Top Achievement, n.d.). Included below is a description of each:  Specific - A goal should be stated in sufficient detail. A goal that is too broad will often result in an unmet goal.