Don't Be Stupid is everything you need to know to succeed at college. Written by a college professor based on years of experience teaching and advising students just like you, Don't Be Stupid tells you what you need to know [Continue reading]]]> Today I’m releasing my e-book Don’t Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College. A paperback version will be available soon.

Don’t Be Stupid is everything you need to know to succeed at college. Written by a college professor based on years of experience teaching and advising students just like you, Don’t Be Stupid tells you what you need to know to:

1. Write better papers
2. Take better notes
3. Pass almost any test
4. Impress your professors
5. Get and stay organized

And get the MOST out of college! For only $14.00 (Readers of dwax.org get a special discount — click here to see!)

For more information and to order your copy, check out the Don’t Be Stupid page on this site.

If you have a website, be sure to look at the affiliate program — I’ll give 20% of the sale price to anyone who sells a copy of the e-book using their affiliate link.

[Scene: A conference room at Amazon's secret underground headquarters high above the Arctic [Continue reading]]]> Stephen at HD BizBlog follows a train of thought from the Kindle’s terms of service through Fahrenheit 451 to Webster’s definition of “kindle” in his post, Why Call it “Kindle”. Now, I kinda like the Kindle (or, rather, I want to like the Kindle), but I do share Stephen’s curiosity about how the product got its name. I can only imagine it went something like this: [swirly fade out]

[Scene: A conference room at Amazon's secret underground headquarters high above the Arctic Circle]

Marketing Guy One: What should we call this ebook reading device?

Marketing Guy Two: (excitedly) I’m so excited about this.  I think it’s going to really burn up readers’ notions of what reading is!

MG1: (stone-faced) Yes, we’re all excited.  I can hardly contain myself. And I think you’re right: this device is going to set the reading public on fire.

MG2: (squirming in his seat) Yeah, yeah, yeah! It’s gonna be so popular, it will spread like wildfire! Everyone’s gonna want one!

MG1: (shifts imperceptibly) I know that if I read, this is how I’d want to do it. My hands would be burning to get hold of one of these. 

MG2:(explosively) The cool thing is, people can load all their books on it.  They won’t need paper books anymore.  They won’t need all those bookshelves, all those hardcovers taking up space.  They could literally set all their old books on fire!

Marketing Woman: Uh, guys…

MG1: (flickering suddenly to life) That’s It! We need a name that suggests that if you own this device, you could burn all your other books! And that this device is going to start the fire that frees readers from the drudgery of old-fashioned, (sneering) paper books.

MG2: (sputtering) Yes, this device is the kindling that starts the fire!

MW: Guys, I think you’re going down the wrong —

MG1: Yes! Kindling! Hand me that dictionary!

(MG2 hands him a dictionary, sneering at its paperyness as he does so)

MG1: Hmmm… K, ke, ki, kig, kin… here it is, “kindling”, oh look, right before it, “kindle”, “To build or fuel (a fire). To set fire to; ignite.” That’s what we want! The Kindle is starting the fire!

MG2: Reminds me of that Billy Joel song.

MW: Reminds me of Nazis!

MG1: Did you hear something, Marketing Guy 2?

MG2: Nothing important, I’m sure. Anyway, I’m excited abut this.  Readers are going to love this idea.  Burning books is bound to go over really, really well!

MG1: I agree.  So it’s settled: “Kindle” it is.  Let’s get lunch.

(MG1 and MG2 leave.)

MW: (calling after them) Guys, I think we need to talk about this a little bit, I’m not sure this is a great– oh, damn it all!

(She weeps.)

[Curtain]

I’m not sure that’s exactly how it went.  It’s entirely possible that they knew there was a woman in the room, for example, but chose to ignore her instead of doing so reflexively.  Perhaps they thought she would bring them coffee.  And at some point, someone might have said “I think readers dream about book burnings” — it’s unclear from the data I have whether this was actually said, or only thought.

In any case, I am pretty sure that aside from minor inaccuracies, this is exactly what happened.

Related Thoughts:

• Thinking About the Kindle
• Much in the Works
• “Don’t Be Stupid” Now Available on Kindle!

]]> http://dwax.org/2008/01/03/kindling_for_book_lovers/feed/ 0 http://dwax.org/2007/08/08/the_price_of_knowledge/ http://dwax.org/2007/08/08/the_price_of_knowledge/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 college textbooks in the US are grossly overpriced. It's been shown time and again that the same books can cost much less in Canada and the UK, and can often be ordered for less even after adding the cost of international [Continue reading]]]> Let me let you in on a little secret: college textbooks in the US are grossly overpriced. It’s been shown time and again that the same books can cost much less in Canada and the UK, and can often be ordered for less even after adding the cost of international shipping! Because they’re constantly revised (at least in part — most publishers won’t put out a new edition if it’s more than 30% changed from the last ones, because they have to lay out the whole thing over again!) it’s hard to get rid of textbooks, so you end up stuck with Introductory Chemistry when all you really care about is 17th century poetry.

A coule years ago, I found a flyer in my campus mailbox, from one academic publisher or another telling me how to respond to students’ complaints about textbook prices. The thing is, publishers want you to buy textbooks new, at full price; if they could, they’d outlaw the trade in used textbooks altogether. Even the Text and Academic Authors Association, of which I am a member, takes a strong stance against the sale of used textbooks which, after all, mean less royalties for authors.

But that’s not fair. Our audience as academic authors — and the clientele of academic publishers — are college students, many of them struggling to keep their heads above water. I teach some of my classes at a community college, where tuition is low — it is the cost of textbooks that causes many of my students to drop or to fail (because they try to go without books). If you’re writing for or publishing for college students, you have to respond at least a little to their needs — not act the role of the self-righteous victim because students naturally try to find the best deal they can, and not push unnecessary books into circulation when the ones published last year, or even 10 years ago, are still perfectly fine. How much does Introductory Physics change in the 2 years between editions anyway?!

I make sure my textbooks are available in the bookstore, but I also try to find links to discounted or used copies online, and encourage students to find the cheapest textbook prices they possibly can. And I feel fine about that — my job is to teach social science, not to market the bookstore. At the end of the day, fairness counts.

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Related Thoughts:

• A Defense of Used Books at the Text and Academic Authors Association
• Update on Textbook Stickering Case
• Tutorialism

]]> http://dwax.org/2007/08/08/the_price_of_knowledge/feed/ 0 http://dwax.org/2006/01/21/gender_and_sexuality_reading_list/ http://dwax.org/2006/01/21/gender_and_sexuality_reading_list/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Their Eyes Were Watching God explores the the way blackness and womanhood shape the lives of both men and women in the rural South, as well as offering at least one avenue towards empowerment (as I recall -- it's been over 15 years since I read it). Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises deals with a particular kind of (Hemingwayian) emasculated [Continue reading]]]> This is where I, the blogger, ask you, the reader, for your input. I’d like to put together a booklist of works relating to sex and gender. Not non-fiction — that’ll come later — but works of fiction that deal with these issues in interesting and useful ways, the kind of stuff you might assign a class on “Sex and Gender in Literature”. For instance, Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God explores the the way blackness and womanhood shape the lives of both men and women in the rural South, as well as offering at least one avenue towards empowerment (as I recall — it’s been over 15 years since I read it). Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises deals with a particular kind of (Hemingwayian) emasculated masculinuty. What titles would you recommend to someone, and why? What would you put on your imagined syllabus?

PS I’ll ask about movies sometime soon — but given the number of movies based on books, consider something a “book” if you’ve read it, a “movie” if you’ve only watched it.

Related Thoughts:

• Reading Fantasy & Science Fiction
• Thinking About the Kindle
• Notes Towards a Gender Analysis of the X-Men

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