[ba-unrev-talk] Poor textbook publishing practices
I was asked who published the textbook used in the UNIX course I just
completed. I had described it as garbage or words to that effect. I am
duplicating the reply here in the hope of receiving some relevant
information participants in this forum may have to offer on the subject. (01)
Henry (02)
Copy: (03)
"Guide to UNIX Using Linux" was published by Thomson Course Technology.
Although the 2nd edition of this book has three names of authors on the
cover, I know of six having been involved at various times. One author
told me that they did not know one another, i.o.w. they were not the
actual authors. The kind of errors I picked up are not those authors
would make, as I will demonstrate soon. (04)
Amazing thing is that the college I went to has adopted the book for the
next semester even though better is around. I have showed them many
outright technical errors and also that some of them were copied by the
instructor in his notes! (05)
Right now, I am looking at another text, "Bulletproof Unix" by Timothy
Gottleber and published by Prentice Hall (Pearson Education). I am in
Chapter 2 and found one minor error sofar (Linux is said to be a version
of Unix). I did find a lot of stylistic errors, though, which shows that
the publisher did not bother about properly editing the text. This, of
course, propagates the bad use of language through the educational
system and ought be flagged. (06)
I want to do a story on this (what is the point in augmenting poorly
educated minds?) and, perhaps, something for ACM's Ubiquity and a
journal of college teaching. Would love to give a verbal presentation at
an educational conference (where publisher spread their wares around in
the halls!). (07)
High time an issue is made of this sort of abuse where students pay for
books that have been recommended by instructors. (08)
Henry (09)