Dear Larisa,

Thanks for Your answer. In fact the cause for my question is the changing approach of students when learning which I´ve experienced in the last years. I´ve written a series of three textbooks concerning my skills. They are written in my native language (german) and are layed out with a lot of didactic efforts (development of formulas, figures, examples, tasks and solutions). Now I feel that the students mostly rely on the contents of lectures, they rarely dont read in textbooks. Many of them merely dont know how to use a book effectively, eg. using the register, the table of contents and so on.

For undergraduate students I think its impossible to learn from monographs or papers especially when written in a foreign language. In Germany there is an old tradition to use textbooks especially during the first semesters when you learn the principles of your fields.

In graduate studies when you have acquired the basic knowledges you can and must use monographs, handbooks or papers to broaden your knowledges even written in foreign languages.

Thanks again for you comments and kind regards

Hanno

Dear Larisa,

Thanks for Your answer. In fact the cause for my question is the changing approach of students when learning which I´ve experienced in the last years. I´ve written a series of three textbooks concerning my skills. They are written in my native language (german) and are layed out with a lot of didactic efforts (development of formulas, figures, examples, tasks and solutions). Now I feel that the students mostly rely on the contents of lectures, they rarely dont read in textbooks. Many of them merely dont know how to use a book effectively, eg. using the register, the table of contents and so on.

For undergraduate students I think its impossible to learn from monographs or papers especially when written in a foreign language. In Germany there is an old tradition to use textbooks especially during the first semesters when you learn the principles of your fields.

In graduate studies when you have acquired the basic knowledges you can and must use monographs, handbooks or papers to broaden your knowledges even written in foreign languages.

Thanks again for you comments and kind regards

Hanno

A short answer: bad!

Dear Vitaly, I want to add a further arguement. If you have to learn if your textbook is good or bad you need positive and negative feedback from your readers and hints to errors or possible improvements. I´ve learned that this feedback gets smaller by the time. So today I´m really grateful if someone tells me faults or has proposals for improvements. By the hand: Some of the american textbooks are really wel ldone, so I bye some of them to learn and improve my own writing.

Regards

My short answer is Yes, definitely. In my opinion, writing a textbook on your topic(s) tends to sharpen, deepen and broaden your pedagogy. The very opposite situation--the worst one--is to depend on someone else's textbook in writing and giving lectures.

Why? Invariably, I find textbooks miss the mark in my subject areas (topology of digital images and descriptive proximity spaces). This is not so much the fault of good textbook writers but rather the fact that by the time a textbook is published it will contain large hunks that are out-of-date.

If you bite the bullet (a silver bullet) and start writing your own textbook, for sure your teaching based on what you are writing will have a currency and incisiveness that is lacking in textbooks written by someone else years ago. There is one exception to this.

And that is to base your teaching on a seminal work by a giant in your field. Here are a couple of examples:

H. Poincare, La Science et l'hypothese, 1902, readily available (downloadable) from the internet in either French or English translation (see attached pdf file). What could be better a basis for teaching the nature of mathematical reasoning than what Poincare has written? See Part I of his book.

E. Cech, Topological Spaces, based on Cech's 3 years long seminar from 1936 to 1939. This is a seminal work, beautifully written and stuffed with basic definitions and ideas. Keep in mind that proximity spaces were introduced for the first time during the first part of the 1930s by Efremovic (in Russian). Then it is quite extraordinary that Cech has a substantial introduction to his own brand of proximity spaces toward the of his book. In my opinion, Cech's book cannot be beaten as a worthwhile textbook for a 4th year undergrad or first year graduate class to work through.

Dear Dr. Hanno Krieger, My approach will be to judge and ask a few questions to myself before contacting to good publisher/s. 1. Do I have competence to write a standard book? 2..Do really this book is contributing in any forms better than with the available books in the same field (to avoid duplication). 3. How many chapters, design of solved and unsolved problems and time line.4. Can I do it as single author or it demands for associating more authors?

Dear Mohan, your arguements are the point. My experiences are totally equal. Off course I must not sing nursery rythms or find elephants. The main efforts are needed for a mixed readership. Thank you for your answer. Regards Hanno

@Hanno, in Serbia I was not ask to write textbooks, as @larisa mentioned earlier. It was my obligation in order to fulfill the requirements for full professor. Also, assistant and associate professors do write textbooks. My books and textbooks are available here on RG!

Of course, there were some problems with deadlines, faults, critics and financing! That is life my friend!

Dear Ljubomir, thank you for your kind answer. I started to write textbooks after I was ask to do it by a colleque. Later on I continued by own impulse and had the problem (s. my question) to match the different scale of complexity to the different knowledge and complexity of the readers.

Thank you and kind regards Hanno

@Hanno: I have set myself the task of writing a single book on researching aimed at 3 audiences: Undergraduates, Master's students and PhD candidates. (Industrial and commercial researchers should benefit, but are not the primary target.)

In the first chapter I recommend the chapters to be read by undergraduates. In another chapter, I carefully explain the different approaches for a M and a PhD.

I needed 1 year for writing, more than 1 year for editing.

Problems: getting fast feedback to improve the text.

Critics: friends and acquaintances all were congratulatory and encouraging, but really I wanted critical reviews!

New Investment was zero. I have many resources to draw upon. Web, some random books bought, my course notes, my ex-student's 'dorf' questions, my CD-ROM, my experiences.

Running costs: Web access and a good library card, a good coffee machine.

Advice: Start every morning immediately after breakfast and write (or edit next year) a "web page" a day. This is a page on one "learning object", of variable size.

Your answers are: "Yes I can", and "I will teach to make sure I write what

is really needed at all levels".

PS I learned rather late the crucial importance of including an exemplary glossary.

Ian,

Your suggestion about the importance of a glossary is important.

Dear Dr. Hanno Krieger,

With my vast teaching experience I intend to write book on some courses. I am planning to write targeting with technical staff, practicing engineers, UG, PG and PhD students by orienting the topics towards theory and practice. By doing so I shall be able relate education and industry practices.

Dear Jan and James, really interesting tips. I share your opiniuon, that critics not neccessarily come from "friends", they take good care of you. Either they feeel botherd by your demand (friends?) or they want to be kind to you. Helpful critics is rare.

Very imortant is the hit for the different readers like "first read chapters..." and the more difficult passages should be marked (my version they get a "*" at the beginning. I prefer to ask questiuons to be answered by statements or by calculations, so earch reader can choose the suitable tasks.

Dear Afaq, I wish you good luck, the mixed audience is the central problem. You have to start with the elementaries, and then specialize more and more. The risk is that the less educated readers could loose the ambition too early and get tired because they can´t follow.

.

@Hanno: I like your * idea.

You must expect no sales to undergraduates, as they will photocopy

the chapters relevant to themselves and circulate them. {Catch the sales later when they are postgrads!}

Exercises are where the learning really happens. So, I include them liberally everywhere, not collected at chapter ends. In my case the questions are all open-ended, and help the students to construct their research. The questions are best when drawn from your "vast teaching experience"!

Unspoken about here is the problem of catering for different streams of students. Today, Jorge addresses the unspoken problem of catering for different streams of students at https://www.researchgate.net/post/To_teach_the_concepts_of_Limits_continuity_Differentiation_and_Integration_in_Introductory_Calculus_course . In your case the streams will be medical, dental, physics, and engineering students.

Ian and Hanno,

I do book writing (and everything else) in LaTeX. Following up on Ian's suggestion, I have been working on a glossary for my new book on Descriptive Proximity Spaces. In the process, I have found a solution to the problem of incorating key symbols in the glossary. Since symbols (and formulas) are like noise in a sound track when they are included in the body of an explanation of a key term, I found a way to embed small mimoages with wraparound text. Then glossary terms and their explanations wrap around the mini pages containing corresponding symbols and formulas. Later, I will post a sample to show what I mean.

@James: Thanks for your tips. I´m waiting for an example. regards

@Hanno,

An extract for the letter C in a glossary contained in a book I am writing on Descriptive Proximity spaces (to be published by Springer in 2015) is shown in the attached image. I used the PC snipping tool to extract an image showing part of the glossary for terms beginning with the letter C together with an embedded table to symbols. The table has wrap-around text, so that the symbols used in the glosses help the reader see more deeply what the glosses mention.

To do this in LaTeX, I used a combination of

\usepackage[verbose]{wrapfig}

and minipage environment to create a glossary table.

@James, Thanks for your demo. Regards Hanno

Dear Hanno, I am planning with my colleague Prof Shafig to write a textbook about Marketing Research. Discussions about the contents, and the time we need are still in process.

Dear Mahfuz, take a lot of time to develop a didactically working concept. I wish you success and delight. and would like to hear from your concepts and thoughts.

Regards

I will first identify who will read my book or who will be my audiences, for example, if I feel that I will write a book so that both technical (university graduates) and non-technical (other professions) and general people (grassroots people) will benefit. In that case I will try to write the book using simple plain English with much explanation including tables and figures, acronyms and glossary. Of course, the book/book chapters will be peer reviewed by one or more than one experts. You are in need of time to search, sort out and read through journal papers, technical reports and government publication relevant to the book chapters (1), time for preparation of draft of chapters (2), time for peer reviewing chapters by experts (3), time for final chapters incorporating comments received (4), proof read (5) and time for printing (6) etc. So depending on number of chapters and size of the book (pages) and your time and dedication, it may take at least 2-4 years to have a final copy of the book.

Dear Golam,

thanks for the elaborated advice. Indeed the time for a sucessful book is more than 2-4 years. I think and have experienced, a book is developing continuously from the first edition to the later ones. The main problem I see, is the mixture of readers and the combined problem of the didactic and scientific contents and level.

Regards

As regards the problem of receiving a proper criticism of the manuscript, I suggest that an open review mechanism would be helpful. Perhaps one can even use the "Request a review" facility here on RG, e.g. per chapter of the manuscript. But still then, it is not very likely to receive an answer from students, say, especially in the case of largely mixed readership.

A further remark is that textbooks and also reference works are replaced more and more by using "google"/wikipedia. I think that this is counterproductive in the long run, because then, a thorough learning is replaced by hopping from one little topic to the next one without a proper structure of the subject, and often without the ability to judge the quality of the search results. I do not say, however, that the internet is useless. :)

I wonder whether publishing textbooks as e-books or directly in HTML or pdf documents would change the trend to replace them as described above. I sometimes do read textbooks as given by pdf. Compared to reading a book there is the advantage to search in the pdf, and - given the proper software - to add remarks directly in the text - a feature that would be very helpful also for the "Add/Request a review". The disadvantage is that reading on some screen - even using a rather large monitor - is more tedious than using a paper version. Here, I would opt for a combination: A textbook buy should include the access of an online version.

As regards a glossary, I wonder whether this might be treated like, or added to, an index. I feel that a good index, and a proper structuring the text (e.g., highlighting definitions, given abstracts and summaries per chapter) are more important.

@Herbert,

thanks for the clear analysis and tips. I share your sorrow, to downvote paper-books, exactly because of your remarks. The real problem is the almost impossible demand to serve all kind of students and qualifications.

Regards

I would prefer to write a monograph, which could be understood by either graduate or undergradued level, not the textbook. But book writing is a hard labor, needs massive reference list, so, I was approached couple of times by credible publishers, but declined to be committed. But, sure,I respect those who write Science books.

Dear Alexander,

thanks for the comment and tips.

Dear Hanno,

I have written two syllabuses on insect ecology and biological control for the students. Both should be rewritten in order to be more up to date. However, I have no time for them. The third work would be an introduction in agricultural entomology. Generally, I refresh my lectures continually but writing all that what is in my head is sometimes too complicated and needs too much little work. I should write these items at this moment not to discuss at RG! (:- )

Dear András,

I know this situation of refreshing the contents, thoughts and didactics. It´s very time consuming and exhausting. But if you have started once, you have to continue and do efforts, at least it´s my situation.

Best wishes Hanno

Dear Professor Hanno Krieger,

Nowadays writing text book requires many aspects and my arguments will be as:

- Is this course is offered as required or elective?

- Which major and specializations are supposed to take this course?

- What are the number of credits hours?

- Does this course offered in any other levels (Diploma or PG)

- What are the teaching soft-wares are available?

- What are the strong research groups?

- How frequently this course will be offered?

- What are the prerequisites, co-requisites or topic requirements for this course?

- What are the post-requisite for this course?

Dear Prof. Afaq Amad,

many thanks for your thoughts and ideas. The lot of constraints makes it nearly impossible to find a clear line for writing without limitations about the level of the readers. So I think an author should decide, if this textbook shall be a fundamental writing or treat only special scientific fields and just suppose the fundamental rules.

Thanks again and regards.

Book/chapter/review writing , all require a lot of hard work,involvement and dedication. In fact, it is really most challenging task to write a book , which covers all aspects including historical developments, status as on date and also gives direction for future developments.

Dear Hanno,

I wrote about 8 years ago a little descriptive booklet on the important arthropod pests occurring in the EU. I prepared 3 versions: for farmers with basic – very limited - agricultural knowledge, for farmers with at least high school training and for people with an agricultural degree. The third version can be found at my RG profile  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275656906_A_terjedes_es_a_kartetel_szempontjabol_fontos_allati_kartevok_az_Europai_Unioban_oktatasi_segedlet_Occurrence_of_animal_pests_with_importance_from_point_of_view_of_dispersion_and_damage_in_the_Europea

After several years I recognised that this issue is suitable for plant protection students because it is the most up-to date but a brief text for them. I note that there is a shortage of textbooks in entomology in Hungarian. Another trouble for students is the lack of textbook on postembryonic insect development and larval types so I wrote a little chapter:   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283510207_Postembryonic_development_of_insects_corrected_handout_and_study_guide_for_agricultural_entomology

The next challenge may be an introduction to insect morphology and anatomy but I have no sufficient time.

Book A terjedés és a kártétel szempontjából fontos állati kártevő...

Data Postembryonic development of insects (corrected handout and ...

Dear George,

your story is typical for self criticism. And I think all of us have such experiences after a while. A good book is never "ready", because we don´t stop to think and to  improve. It´s kind to let the place for the young generation, but they must show the same efforts.

Thanks for your answer and best wishes.

Dear George,

your story is typical for self criticism. And I think all of us have such experiences after a while. A good book is never "ready", because we don´t stop to think and to  improve. It´s kind to let the place for the young generation, but they must show the same efforts.

Thanks for your answer and best wishes.

Dear András,

I think it´s more complicated to write texts for students with "limited knowledges". But my experience ist the same like yours. The attempt to be "simple and understandable"opens a new readership, not so simple , who also profit from your principle. 

And take time for your project about morphilogy and anatomy, I would like to read it.

Regards

Good expert and teacher is "obligated" to write texts to the required levels. Even simpler texts are then correct and not "crippled" - as some authors can do. And to explain some simple topics, it gives a lot of work. It's not always easy.