Aren't textbooks supposed to help you LEARN?

[Free4Life11]

It drives me up a wall when textbooks are long-winded and dance around the point. It seems to me like so many authors have this gift of turning relatively simple concepts into pages of nonsense that end up meaning very little. Or at least making them way more complicated than they ought to be.

One of my books in particular ("Organizational Behavior" ) is a real gem:
First, in the social cognitive theory presented in Chapter 1 as the conceptual framework for this text, the environment variable in the triadic reciprocal interaction model (along with the personal/cognitive and organizational behavior itself) consists of both external and organizational contexts.

What? Imagine this type of writing over and over again. And the textbook is paperback and in all black-and-what. There's little use of bulleting/numbering important information or bolding. There's no list of key points. And no glossary. He does make sure to have 70 pages of detailed references; I mean, God forbid he leave that out! It's not the least bit student-friendly nor conducive to learning!

And then there was my lovely Accounting textbook that went on a meaningless, two-page tangent about pizza parlors in the middle of the chapter on ABC costing.

Really I can't stand academic writing in general, but I would at least think business related textbooks would follow business writing principles (like K.I.S.S.) I really think a book burning is in order when I'm done with this class.

Sorry to vent, but I just had to get this off my chest because I am starting to lose my mind!

 

[DizBelle]

So, what the heck was the teacher/prof thinking when he/she selected this book? How much did the author pay them to use it?

 

[Free4Life11]

Well that's the best part of it. Turns out the guy who wrote the book is a professor at the university I go to. How suprising, huh?

 

[Planogirl]

I think that some profs get so into their fields that they forget to talk at the student level. That part you posted had my mind spinning in circles! Geesh, good luck with that one.

 

[RitaZ.]

There's little use of bulleting/numbering important information or bolding. There's no list of key points. And no glossary. He does make sure to have 70 pages of detailed references; I mean, God forbid he leave that out! It's not the least bit student-friendly nor conducive to learning!

Those are the worst type of textbooks!!!!

Well that's the best part of it. Turns out the guy who wrote the book is a professor at the university I go to. How suprising, huh?

There is usually something like that going on behind the scenes.

OP, I hear ya! First of all, textbooks are ridiculously priced. Since we have to read and study them, they should be easy to understand. I hate textbooks where the author just repeats the same thing over and over, but in different words. Can you say word count requirements?

About the textbook burning party, just count me in! I have 5 textbooks that I have to sell back, I can bring them to the party.

 

[MouseJunkie]

I know what you mean. Want to borrow one of my law books? Holy moley. Some nights I need two dictionairies just to get through one paragraph. A law dictionary to decipher the legal terms and then a real dictionary to decipher the legal terms. Yeah, it's pretty bad too when you're doing finals and still have to consult a dictionary to answer ONE question. Lots of long winded wordy reading for sure...WOOOH! I'm almost done though. Yahoo!