I wish this book had more graphics to make it interesting to look at, however, it is the graphics that sometimes make a book out of date more quickly (ex a graphic of a flip phone, car, or some other image that has been replaced by a new and improved version.) There are some tutorials about using Excel that I wonder might become out-of-date as Microsoft puts out new updates. I feel this book is unbiased as different genders and ethnically diverse people were shown with a brief account of their lives and contributions. I do wish the several BLANK pages throughout would be omitted so that any student wanting to print the book could have a more consolidated copy. In the first few pages, the book lists the errors that have been found since its last printing. I did not read this cover to cover nor have I used it to teach from, but in all that I did read, I did not find any errors. Nothing makes me more upset than finding typos and errors in a math textbook. The topics were comprehensive for the audience this book was tailored to cater to. Each chapter in the book covered a topic that was very appropriate for a Math in Society course. We do not teach a course like this at our school, but I wanted to review this textbook and see what would be included in a curriculum for such a course. Reviewed by Shannon Benes, Adjunct Associate Math Professor, Johnson County Community College on 6/3/22 The authors of this book obviously put in a lot of time and effort to create a relevant, accurate, and user-friendly resource. I would prefer more neutral terms and examples. The content is intentionally inclusive but is biased toward current trends in our culture of what is politically correct. I noticed 1-2 two small errors (missing punctuation, wrong word used). Topics are arranged in a logical order that builds upon the topic before. Most of the time, example data is changed so that a problem can be omitted without needing to change several others. There is some self-referencing, such as “in the last section” or “in this chapter”, but this seems reasonable and can be reworded easily if a section is omitted. Terminology is consistent.Įach smaller section includes its own set of problems. Layout is consistent and predictable in the best sense possible. However, when the wording is difficult, thorough examples are given to demonstrate the concepts. The text uses some jargon, without explanation. However, their presence can be a strength for current students. Some topics focus on news and current cultural interests and may need to be revisited in the future. It would be reasonable to expect an instructor to update these numbers when they become obsolete or even to provide actual data. For example, the price of peanut butter is used to illustrate descriptive statistics. Comments regarding bias are included in the cultural section.Įxamples are interesting and transcendently relevant across time and people groups. I would, however, like to see further coverage on Percentiles (other than quartiles) and Counting (Permutations, Combinations, Fundamental Counting Rule).Įrrors are minimal (such as a missing period). I was especially impressed with the thorough section on Contingency Tables under Probability. The topics that are covered are done well. The book does not cover as many topics as I am used to seeing in liberal arts mathematics texts. Reviewed by Heather Kahler, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Wisconsin - Superior on 1/23/23 Journalism, Media Studies & Communications +.
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