As college students, textbooks serve one of the most important jobs in understanding the material that the class is covering. However, sometimes students do not use their textbooks and only focus on the lecture to study. Using only the lectures makes the purchase of a textbook seem pointless and the lack of use of a textbook raises questions about the reasons for not using it. In the social problems class offered here at the University of Oklahoma, the textbook used is Social Problems written by William Kornblum and Joseph Julian. The design of a textbook can often influence the usage of the textbook. Social Problems design decrease the amount readers utilize the textbook because the authors and designers fail to consider students’ response
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For example, when asked about his reaction to the textbook at the beginning of the semester, Nicholas Buscemi said, “When I initially picked up the Social Problems textbook, I was extremely discouraged. The size of the book astounded me. It’s so thick! The length of the textbook seems like it’s going to be a pain to handle throughout the semester.” According to Buscemi, the length and size of the textbook largely impacted Buscemi’s emotional response to the textbook. When the audience interacts with the textbook, they did not like the idea of reading the textbook (Grant-Davie, 266). William Kornblum and Joseph Julian, the rhetors or authors of Social Problems, failed to take into consideration how the textbook would affect the students (Grant-Davie, 269). The size of the textbook discouraged Buscemi and likely impacted the amount that he used the …show more content…
The chapters in Social Problems range from 40-80 pages long. Buscemi goes into depth on the chapters when he says, “I loved how the chapters were spilt up into subsections. They seemed a lot more manageable and I could break up the chapter into segments that I would tackle a bit at a time.” Buscemi suggests that the way that chapters are broken up assists the reader by allowing the reader to take mental breaks from reading the textbook. By separating the chapter into segments, Kornblum and Julian assist the readers’ ability to stay engaged with the material. The reader is more readily able to utilize the textbook for the class
For example, when asked about his reaction to the textbook at the beginning of the semester, Nicholas Buscemi said, “When I initially picked up the Social Problems textbook, I was extremely discouraged. The size of the book astounded me. It’s so thick! The length of the textbook seems like it’s going to be a pain to handle throughout the semester.” According to Buscemi, the length and size of the textbook largely impacted Buscemi’s emotional response to the textbook. When the audience interacts with the textbook, they did not like the idea of reading the textbook (Grant-Davie, 266). William Kornblum and Joseph Julian, the rhetors or authors of Social Problems, failed to take into consideration how the textbook would affect the students (Grant-Davie, 269). The size of the textbook discouraged Buscemi and likely impacted the amount that he used the …show more content…
The chapters in Social Problems range from 40-80 pages long. Buscemi goes into depth on the chapters when he says, “I loved how the chapters were spilt up into subsections. They seemed a lot more manageable and I could break up the chapter into segments that I would tackle a bit at a time.” Buscemi suggests that the way that chapters are broken up assists the reader by allowing the reader to take mental breaks from reading the textbook. By separating the chapter into segments, Kornblum and Julian assist the readers’ ability to stay engaged with the material. The reader is more readily able to utilize the textbook for the class