Customer Reviews

Biology: A Guide to the Natural World

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I found this book to much easier to read and understand from all the previous textbooks assigned to biology courses. The graphics and tables and examples are completely explained. The format asks questions and answers them in a simple, easily understandable text -- not like the mumbo jumbo that a person would have to read over and over to finally understand its meaning.

I have a B.S. in biology and have tutored biology at my alma mater for years. This past semester they used this text for their introduction to biology course. The book is horrible compared to all the of the previous texts the school used: and that's not just my opion, the biology professors I talked to agreed. There are fewer images and diagrams than the other biology texts used over the years, and there are even missing or bearly convered key concepts. To me, this book fails as even a high school biology text. MUCH better, all around, is "Biology: Eighth Edition" by Campbell and Reece.

There were many formatting errors in this book, such as the glossary columns being switched around-"G" doesn't belong in the middle of the "F" vocab. Some of the page #'s listed in the index were not correct. If you must use this book then you should know that the info can normally be found close to the page listed in the index. The figures/tables were very useful and restated the text in an organized manner, which helped the flow of the writing.

I purchased a book from this seller that was not the product advertised. I now am the owner of a book that can not be resold in the USA or Canada. I would appreciate a refund!

This is a required textbook for my intorductory biology class. Well laid out, easy to read. Tone is sometimes too conversational, I have to really pay attention to the facts. I saved nearly twenty dollars buying at amazon rather than at the school bookstore.

Shipped fast and received in less than a week. The book is in good condition, not torn or highlighted. Saved a lot by purchasing through Amazon.

I'm taking Introductory Biology next semester as a general education elective and even for a non-majors course, this textbook fails miserably at offering a well-rounded introduction to the subject. I've only read through a little over 100 pages so far and I don't know if I can make it through the entire semester without finding supplemental books from the college library. To try and make science more "fun" the author has turned what should be a fact-based, no-fluff subject into a whimsical, almost journalistic narrative that is very distracting to the actual content. He somehow correlates Joni Mitchell lyrics, Google, and the Senate to Biology to give it a "relatable" feel, when instead it just muddies up his points. He talks in endless circles, and goes on and on about how certain concepts might relate just to group the bolded key terms into the same sentence. The worst quality of his writing is that he mostly stays on a linear path of thought until something like "...so don't worry about that now. This is a concept we will discuss later in the text" crops up, and instead of just letting the concept be explained in detail later, he just jumps right into a lengthy description of the thing that doesn't quite tie into what was being discussed, causing me to completely forget what I was just trying to learn because of this brand new thing being shoved at me.

Overall, this book is horrible and not even suitable for a high school class- and absolutely embarrassing as a college text. If you want your textbook to read like a monologue, this book is for you, but if you want something more academic, look elsewhere. If you're stuck with it like me, try asking your college bookstore if they will buy back highlighted books so that you can completely disregard the endless fluff this book is filled with.

Has all the basic Biology information on it. Bought this edition for $10 (instead of the newer one) and bought the online code for $30 for all my class work, worked great.

I LOVE biology but this book was about as boring as a biology text can get.

I got the book and it was shipped right away which was a plus but, it did not have the "my biology" in it....