Textbooks
ER
This is about textbook and not about solving maths problems. When i
took a course in single variable calculus with some algebra in it i
had to buy two books that together cost more than 100 usd. I think
that is very expensive. If you compare two single variable calculus
books naturally you will see that they are basically the same. I am
just wondering why they are so expensive. The same goes for
introductory level electronics books. The knowledge is the same all
books at that level are the same. Why the high prices? I know that
printing companies are milking the students for money but why do the
teachers go along with it? I have heard of cases where the printing
company offers a small fee to the teacher if they make the students
buy a certain book but surely this can't be the case everywhere all
the time. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance
Regards,
ER
Ronald Benedik
news:b6dd5440-8e29-42b1...@m3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
> Hello
...
> Why the high prices? I know that
> printing companies are milking the students for money but why do the
> teachers go along with it? I have heard of cases where the printing
> company offers a small fee to the teacher if they make the students
> buy a certain book but surely this can't be the case everywhere all
> the time. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance
The prices for science here in Europe especially Germany are
much lower. I think compared to the US about the half.
You get the 643 Pages standard Analysis book for 29.90 EUR
from Amazon.de. In Europe the market of science has a
higher density. That's why we export so many scientists to the US.
Marc Olschok
Drop the idea of mandatory textbook for a course.
This should solve the problem.
--
Marc
Mike Terry
news:b6dd5440-8e29-42b1...@m3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
I don't know why the books are so expensive, but here's a suggestion. Why
not set up a student run scheme where students can buy and sell text books
within the scheme at cheap prices? Some students want to buy and keep books
forever, but lots just want to have the books for a specific course (maybe
just one term) and then get rid of them, so they could effectively sell them
on to the next students taking the course through the scheme. If you have a
student's union, perhaps they could run it...
Mike.
Virgil
"Mike Terry" <news.dead.p...@darjeeling.plus.com> wrote:
Some publishers of text books come out with new editions every year or
two and make them different enough, particularly in the problem sets,
that the older books no longer can be used.
ER
I am writing from Sweden and the books are very expensive here. The
two books needed for a course were a 540 page single variable calculus
book and a 310 page algebra and geometry book and togehter they were
around 100 euros. The calculus book was around 60 euros and the
algebra book around 40. A book for the beginners electronics course
was around 75 euros.
Marc
I also think that it would be ok to drop the idea of mandatory books
for a course. The professor could tell the students what is expected
of them and it would be their responsibility to learn. One problem i
see with that is that some students who fail the exam would say that
it is because there was no book on the course and they could not find
the material themselves. This might be a problem at least till they
get used to look for the material themselves.
Mike
Publishers always publisn new editions of the books just like Virgil
says. My persona experience from my course is that we had to buy the
latest edition of a book even though the all the material we needed
and all the problems we had to solve were in the old edition. The
biggest change was that there were more problems in the new edition
and the numbering was different. So i bought the cheaper old version
and just looked up the numbers of the problems in the new book. But
the professor specifically told us to get the new edition and most of
the students did, spending around 25 euros more than i did (which is
quite a few beers).
I see that books in Germany are cheaper so maybe taxes have something
to do with it. We do have high taxes on books in Sweden.
Thanks for you replies. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
ER
On Dec 23, 9:10 pm, Virgil <Vir...@home.esc> wrote:
> In article <3vudnU7nPLeB_6_WnZ2dnUVZ8m-dn...@brightview.co.uk>,
> "Mike Terry" <news.dead.person.sto...@darjeeling.plus.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > "ER" <ernst...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Ilmari Karonen
>
> I also think that it would be ok to drop the idea of mandatory books
> for a course. The professor could tell the students what is expected
> of them and it would be their responsibility to learn. One problem i
> see with that is that some students who fail the exam would say that
> it is because there was no book on the course and they could not find
> the material themselves. This might be a problem at least till they
> get used to look for the material themselves.
I think things like this are largely a matter of local tradition.
Here in Helsinki, which isn't that far from where you are, I can't
recall ever having had to buy a book for a university math course:
most lecturers just use their own lecture notes and exercise sets,
typically available for copying at the department copy room, or
(increasingly) online.
On the few courses where there was an actual coursebook, they were
usually compiled from such notes and published by a local non-profit
student organization. I just checked their prices, and most seem to
sell for around 30 ￜ per book (incl. 8% tax) if ordered directly.
Those books also tend to be well stocked by the university library --
thought admittedly not quite well enough to handle hundreds of
undergrads rushing to check out the same book at the same time.
Mind you, that seems to vary a lot even between the departments here.
As far as I've seen, the practice I described above seems to hold for
the math department, and at least to some extent for the computer
science department. (I've also heard they do something similar at the
physics department here, but I have no first-hand experience of that.)
On the other hand, at the chemistry department they seem to be very
fond of big-name English language books, often imported from the U.S.
I have no explanation for the difference, other than just variation in
departmental culture and tradition.
--
Ilmari Karonen
To reply by e-mail, please replace ".invalid" with ".net" in address.
Frederick Williams
>
> "ER" <erns...@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:b6dd5440-8e29-42b1...@m3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
> > Hello
> ...
> > Why the high prices? I know that
> > printing companies are milking the students for money but why do the
> > teachers go along with it? I have heard of cases where the printing
> > company offers a small fee to the teacher if they make the students
> > buy a certain book but surely this can't be the case everywhere all
> > the time. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance
>
> The prices for science here in Europe especially Germany are
> much lower. I think compared to the US about the half.
>
> You get the 643 Pages standard Analysis book for 29.90 EUR
It must be a bad author who can't cover analysis in a lot less than 643
pages.
--
Pigeons were widely suspected of secret intercourse with the
enemy; counter-measures included the use of British birds of
prey to intercept suspicious pigeons in mid-air.
Christopher Andrew, 'Defence of the Realm', Allen Lane
ER
> On 2009-12-23, ER <ernst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I also think that it would be ok to drop the idea of mandatory books
> > for a course. The professor could tell the students what is expected
> > of them and it would be their responsibility to learn. One problem i
> > see with that is that some students who fail the exam would say that
> > it is because there was no book on the course and they could not find
> > the material themselves. This might be a problem at least till they
> > get used to look for the material themselves.
>
> I think things like this are largely a matter of local tradition.
> Here in Helsinki, which isn't that far from where you are, I can't
> recall ever having had to buy a book for a university math course:
> most lecturers just use their own lecture notes and exercise sets,
> typically available for copying at the department copy room, or
> (increasingly) online.
>
> On the few courses where there was an actual coursebook, they were
> usually compiled from such notes and published by a local non-profit
> student organization. I just checked their prices, and most seem to
> Those books also tend to be well stocked by the university library --
> thought admittedly not quite well enough to handle hundreds of
> undergrads rushing to check out the same book at the same time.
it is a lot less than the 25% VAT we have on everything else. So that
can't be the reason for the high prices. I say it greed... as usual.
I would prefer the system where you get lecture notes from the
lecturer or from the Inet so you can print them yourself. I think thus
would work for science and technology courses at the beginner level.
If something new is discovered in maths or electronics it won't go
into the introductory course. It would probably too complicated. I
think a beginners class in calculus is the same all over the world. A
beginners class in electronics is also the same all over the world.
The same goes probably many other courses. The basics are the same
where ever you are. So they should just put the material on the web
and spare the students to have to spend that money.
ER
ER
include in his book. Many theorems have more than one proof so why
does the author choose the one he or she chooses? Some proofs are
harder to understand than others but i have seen 2-3 proofs to some
theorem and they were equally easy to understand.
Regards
ER
Marc Olschok
>[...]
> for a course. The professor could tell the students what is expected
> of them and it would be their responsibility to learn. One problem i
> see with that is that some students who fail the exam would say that
> it is because there was no book on the course and they could not find
> the material themselves. This might be a problem at least till they
> get used to look for the material themselves.
It depends on the way courses are organized and this may of course
be shaped by local traditions, as somebody else already pointed out.
For example, during my study in Germany professors would usually
prepare lectures and deliver them, and the students would take notes.
If students wanted to consult books, they would just walk into the
library and browse through the shelves. Making a single textbook
mandatory would not have been useful, because the professor would
often compile the material from several different sources.
>[...]
> I see that books in Germany are cheaper so maybe taxes have something
> to do with it. We do have high taxes on books in Sweden.
In Germany there is still a reduced tax rate for books. But another
factor may be that the market for university texts in the native
language is larger in Germany. Even Springer offers affordable
textbooks in German.
--
Marc
Ilmari Karonen
> Does anybody know why an author choses a certain set of proofs to
> include in his book. Many theorems have more than one proof so why
> does the author choose the one he or she chooses? Some proofs are
> harder to understand than others but i have seen 2-3 proofs to some
> theorem and they were equally easy to understand.
Um... personal taste, maybe? People just tend to find some proofs
nicer than others.
Also, a textbook author is likely to prefer proofs that rely only on
theorems derived earlier in the book, or on well known theorems that
the reader may be expected to be familiar with. Equivalent results
can fairly often be proved in different ways using methods from
different branches of mathematics, and if a given book is about field
X, the author may not wish to use a proof that relies on a deep and
nontrivial result from some other field Y, even if that proof might
seem nicer to a reader familiar with field Y.
Conversely, an author might prefer a proof that includes a convenient
lemma that may be used later in the book, or which generalizes in ways
that can be useful later. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the
purpose of a proof (especially in a textbook) is not just to show that
a given theorem is true, but also to demonstrate the techniques by
which such a result can be found and proven. Thus, an author might
choose a particular way of proving a certain theorem because it shows
a useful trick or demonstrates a particular approach to solving
problems, or might reject a particularly short and clever proof that
yields the result "as if by magic" in favor of a more methodical one
that proceeds in simple, straightforward steps which may be applied to
other, similar problems.
ER
during the lecture. That way were not occupied with writing and could
concentrate on what he was saying. That is the best way to organize
lectures i think.
On Dec 29 2009, 7:09 am, Ilmari Karonen <usen...@vyznev.invalid>
wrote:
> On 2009-12-27, ER <ernst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Does anybody know why an author choses a certain set of proofs to
> > include in his book. Many theorems have more than one proof so why
> > does the author choose the one he or she chooses? Some proofs are
> > harder to understand than others but i have seen 2-3 proofs to some
> > theorem and they were equally easy to understand.
>
> Um... personal taste, maybe? People just tend to find some proofs
> nicer than others.
>
> Also, a textbook author is likely to prefer proofs that rely only on
> theorems derived earlier in the book, or on well known theorems that
> the reader may be expected to be familiar with.
>
> Conversely, an author might prefer a proof that includes a convenient
> lemma that may be used later in the book, or which generalizes in ways
> that can be useful later. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the
> purpose of a proof (especially in a textbook) is not just to show that
> a given theorem is true, but also to demonstrate the techniques by
> which such a result can be found and proven. Thus, an author might
> choose a particular way of proving a certain theorem because it shows
> a useful trick or demonstrates a particular approach to solving
> problems, or might reject a particularly short and clever proof that
> yields the result "as if by magic" in favor of a more methodical one
> that proceeds in simple, straightforward steps which may be applied to
> other, similar problems.
This makes sense.
Anyway, publishers will probably always use every trick in the book to
make an extra euro by reprinting the same old stuff and calling it new.