Morning Rants

Since Kristine has been bugging me to write another post (so she can do something unproductive when she's supposed to be doing something productive), I am obliging by blogging during this morning's lecture. And since I seem to be pretty good at ranting, I'm going to continue the pattern and complain about textbooks. (My apologies for always complaining about something school-related, but you have to understand that my life at this moment IS school)... Let me preface this by saying I may just be a wee-bit biased because I hate textbooks in general. Unfortunately, I am forced for this first block of anatomy to use the recommended textbooks... which both happen to be written by the same person... and both are written terribly... fml it's gonna be a long quarter haha...

Anyway, my first gripe about these books (anatomy and embryology) is that there is no glossary. No glossary! Hello! How do you write a textbook with an (over)abundance of bolded words with no glossary?! Furthermore, if you have an overabundance of bolded words with no glossary, the least you could do is actually define the words that you are emphasizing. What a novel concept! Instead, when I'm "reading" either of these books, I'll often come across an entire paragraph with just bolded terms. How is that helpful? I wish I knew...

Throughout this quarter, it's become more and more apparent to me and everyone I've been studying with that I am NOT a picture-person. I would much prefer to close my eyes and have someone say something to me than look at it in a picture. However, sometimes when I'm reading these (very well-written and descriptive) textbooks, I'm forced to search for a picture. And when I say search, I mean search. For instance, a sentence could read... "The foot is attached to the leg at the ankle joint (See figure 4.13A.27-42, #2)"... Not only do I have an entire litany of letters and numbers to label the figure, but the figure to which I'm supposed to refer is 10 to 15 pages away from the page on which it's referenced. Oh how I love to flip back 20 pages to find a picture of something that is described crappily on the page I'm am reading. More often than not, the pictures aren't any more helpful... Awesome(ly amazing)...

One more rant to add... At least if you're going to write a textbook, make it somewhat readable. Not only do I have to deal with an entire paragraph of bolded terms, I also have to deal with a convoluted explanation, when there is actually an explanation present. A sentence may read something like this... "The tibia and the humerus are found in the leg and the arm respectively. The latter is attached to the shoulder and the former is attached to the hip. The tibia is the main bone of the leg. The humerus is the main bone of the arm. The tibia is supplied by the popliteal artery. The humerus is supplied by the brachial artery. The tibia is more superficial. The humerus is deeper. etc..." Why not just say the tibia is found in the superficial leg and is supplied by the popliteal artery. The humerus is found deep within the arm and is supplied by the brachial artery... Why do we have to flip flop back and forth? This is not very conducive to me making a simple outline... Jeez...

So, now that I've gotten that off my chest. If a representative for McGraw-Hill would like to contact me about free-lancing as an editor for their textbook division, I would be happy to entertain any and all offers...

That's all folks... Until next time...