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Posted by Kara Tyson (Member # 939) on :
 
I have never written a textbook company before, but I was so disgusted I just couldnt help myself.

Our book is the worst.

Let me give you an example:

Example 4.5 will refer to chart 4.1, which isnt located under Example 4.1 (it doesnt have a chart) but is located under Example 4.3 (20 pages before).

However Example 4.3 doesnt have its own chart.

4.4 does have a chart...4.3.
 


Posted by GEDEN13 (Member # 4151) on :
 
put the book's aside kara.go to a parade or picnic.water in the gulf,must be warm...

have a pleasant weekend. , gary

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Posted by weeza3 (Member # 6071) on :
 
Please DO write them Kara, that is just too sloppy and how frustrating to try and make sense.
They may even appreciate the awareness to the lax editing. Speak out.

 
Posted by Kara Tyson (Member # 939) on :
 
I did write them.

The situation with Stats is out of control. My class was canceled, then I was moved into Busines stats, then they changed teachers...twice. Plus they moved me into a term class (4 weeks and an exam).

The first test I pulled a 99, but the 2nd I am looking at an F.

The situation is so bad, that I will most likely have to drop the class (to get into math stats and avoid a D) and push off clinicals. I hate to do it, but I may have no choice.

Here I am with a 100 GPA thinking about F's. I cant believe it.
 


Posted by cootiegirl (Member # 3216) on :
 
Before I got sick, I used to read drafts of textbooks for various publishing companies. I was ruthless not only about content but the kind of thing you describe. There is no excuse for a publishing company to put out a text that is that poorly organized.

In defense of the instructor, the text might unfortunately be a dept decision, so the teacher is stuck using that particular book. In these cases sometimes a faculty member wrote the book and the dept is trying to do a good thing for them - even if it is a crappy book. So if the instructor is any good, they will use a lousy text as little as possible and give the students notes and better examples!

I had a similar situation. We had a dept member that revised a book - it was a bomb to begin with and he did nothing to improve it, but he was 'published' and thought he was something special. He wanted the book to be used by all faculty, but enough of us complained about the poor quality of the book that the chair left the choice of text up to each of us! Needless to say, he was the only one that used his own book LOL!

But I digress.....in any event, stats stinks!!! And the cold irony in all of this is that most of what you are learning can be done on a computer!!!!
cootiegirl
 


Posted by pippy (Member # 6005) on :
 
I concur about stats texts books being awful!
I have a total of (not kidding) 10 stats books from undergrad and grad! I had to get multiple books and versions. Poor editing is so common in technical books. Some of them are so big they can be used as doorstops or taken camping for fire kindling! Errors everywhere! Formulas wrong, no charts, wrong charts, pagination problems...Maybe stats is so boring the editors fell asleep....sure seems like it!


 




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