Doorstop par excellence

Yesterday, I received an unsolicited copy of

Precalculus
Concepts Through Functions
A Unit Circle Approach To Trigonometry
(Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007)

by Michael Sullivan, Chicago State University, and Michael Sullivan,
III, Joliet Junior College.

This doorstop weights about 5.5 pounds and has more than 1,100 pages.
As is the case with similar doorstops, the first 260 pages are little
more than a review of Algebra I and II. Exponential and Logarithmic
functions start on page 263, and Trigonometric functions on page 361.

More than 100 users and reviewers are listed in pages xiv-xvi. This
doorstop is written for college students, where a typical precalculus
course is one semester. I would really like to know how much users
cover in one semester, and if they ever reach trigonometry.

Rick Decker...

This is often the result of publishers arguing "Textbook X is a best-
seller and it has chapters on P, Q, R, S, and T. Therefore, if your
book has these chapters (and lots more) it'll be a best-seller."

This doorstop is not much different from those written for high school
students, which are approved by state agencies in California and Texas.
The fact these abominations are being written, reviewed, published,
approved, and adopted is indicative of the incompetence and
irresponsibility that exist at the highest levels.

It seems to me that the purpose of these doorstops is to line the
pockets of the authors, publishers, consultants and sales reps, and to
turn our students into pack animals. There is no question in my mind

Rick Decker...

While I heartily agree with your position on textbook bloat, as an
author I can say with some certainty that it's naive in the extreme
to write a book with hopes of making gobs of money. It just don't
work that way. Publishers make money, but authors certainly don't,
which is why you find so few editors writing books. On all but one
of my books, I could have spent the hours more profitably if I'd
gotten a job where the only requirement was the ability to ask
"You want fries with that?"

that, as long as these abominations continue to be adopted (or "reform
math" junk for that matter), the pseudo-education of American students
will continue unabated.

To get an idea of how our textbooks have completely degenerated,
compare the above (or similar) doorstop with my 12th-grade Advanced
Mathematics textbook, which is discussed at:

http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=1466613

Dom Rosa