3 ms·

I don't know if this really matters when it's horrible vs slightly less horrible... It's like you pay hundreds of dollars for a textbook on a subject that hasn

I don't know if this really matters when it's horrible vs slightly less horrible... It's like you pay hundreds of dollars for a textbook on a subject that hasn't changed in generations, and it's filled with pictures and diagrams and asides and any other layout doodadery their software can muster, but when you get to the exercises it's a pig's breakfast. I remember my physics textbook in college was almost $200 ($200 twenty years ago!), I'd grind out the answer with a fair degree of confidence, check the key... wrong!? Then after banging my head against it for hours and giving up, the professor would tell us the next day that the book was wrong. Next year, we had differential equations. Smaller book, older book, more words, fewer pictures--clear as a bell! Probably learned more physics in a semester of differential equations than a year of physics. Good books make a difference. Unfortunately, the physics book was the rule rather than the exception.

novalis78 9y ago
I collect textbooks as a hobby. It amazes me to no end how the textbooks have changed in the last 120 years. It's especially fascinating to look at math and engineering books from the "Apollo program generation". One thing that sticks out is the huge amount of text that guides the student in building up a deep mental picture and lots of thought-associations in all of these technical books. Somehow after the 60s this approach that is fairly consistent going back a 100 years suddenly is replaced with books that feature a ton of pictures and turn into 'trick and exercise' books until they completely explode with color and small text snippets in the 90s. I have my suspicions that the earlier textual approach might have had its merits. Not sure if anyone has done a comparative study on the effects of organizing text books and their long term effectiveness

novalis78 9y ago

I collect textbooks as a hobby. It amazes me to no end how the textbooks have changed in the last 120 years. It's especially fascinating to look at math and engineering books from the "Apollo program generation". One thing that sticks out is the huge amount of text that guides the student in building up a deep mental picture and lots of thought-associations in all of these technical books. Somehow after the 60s this approach that is fairly consistent going back a 100 years suddenly is replaced with books that feature a ton of pictures and turn into 'trick and exercise' books until they completely explode with color and small text snippets in the 90s. I have my suspicions that the earlier textual approach might have had its merits. Not sure if anyone has done a comparative study on the effects of organizing text books and their long term effectiveness