Textbook writing tutorial

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Definition

This article deals with how to write a textbook, i.e. tries to formalize a few recipes. The first sections rather deal with principles.

Disclaimer: I am not a textbook writer. This is just based on summary of some literature and a superficial analysis of some textbooks - Daniel K. Schneider 16:53, 9 August 2007 (MEST).

See also (and maybe before):

• Textbook (Introduction)
• Textbook genres and examples
• Textbook research

Textbook writing and pedagogical theory

Firstly, textbook writing is related to instructional design and therefore one might look at textbooks in terms of someinstructional design models and methods.

On a prescriptive level, one might argue that authors should use at least some kind of backwards design, i.e. define what students are supposed to be able to do (e.g. solve problems) and then write the books that enables them to do so. In the same spirit, one also could argue that textbooks should respect some first principles of instruction, e.g. let's recall Merril's:

• The demonstration principle: Learning is promoted when learners observe a demonstration
• The application principle: Learning is promoted when learners apply the new knowledge
• The activation principle: Learning is promoted when learners activate prior knowledge or experience
• The integration principle: Learning is promoted when learners integrate their new knowledge into their everyday world
• The task-centered principle: Learning is promoted when learners engage in a task-centered instructional strategy

However, textbook writing is a specific activity and one should not forget that textbooks are usually just an element in a given pedagogic strategy and must be planned together with possible pedagogical use cases. E.g. Horsley and Walker (2005:265) identify a changing conception of textbooks that is related to chaning learning theories. Teaching and learning materials e.g. textbooks are used differently according to pedagogical theory:

• Transmission: Source of information, Basis of transmission, Knowledge authority, Structure of a teaching and learning program
• Constructivist: Activity and inquiry source; Provision of multiple sources for students; student knowledge ;construction Multiple sources for teacher selection.
• Sociocultural: Scaffolds learning; Enculturates students into disciplinary knowledge and practices; Source of inquiry activities; Basis of explicit teachings.

See also the related discussion around the pedagogical purpose of various kinds of learning objects.

This short discussion only tells us that textbooks can be analyzed in terms of their function and in this perspective it becomes less clear what a textbook is. E.g. Johnsen (2001) argues that “the definition of a textbook may be as general as to include other books made and published for educational purpose, or even any book used in the classroom. The textbook may also be a subset of an even broader and increasingly more commonly-used term "teaching media"”.

Daniel K. Schneider adheres to the idea that a textbook is a special genre of teaching media and that includes some kind of "built-in" pedgagogy.

Pedagogical objectives

Textbooks are written with pedagogical objectives in mind by the author. Of course, teacher and learners must construct their own representation and they sometimes re-purpose a text in ways not anticipated. E.g. a textbook, instead of for strong instruction, can be used just for reference.

For an author, there are several ways to manage objectives (each ISD model or extensions like the Kemp will tell you more). Often, advise on writing textbooks suggests to plan book chapters in terms of desired learning level outcomes. But the author should be aware that teacher's define reading assignments (textbooks as a whole or portions) in function of their pedagogical objectives. These may not be compatible with the original intent of the author.

The most important objectives concern learning objectives, e.g. what the student should master after having worked through the textbook, usually part of other class/homework activities. Again, both authors and teachers (and one could argue, learners too) should also engage in this exercise. For example, the IOWA writing assistant identifies 6 levels of emphasis based on Bloom's taxonomy of learning that we reproduce here exactly as defined in Applying your results (retrieved 20:03, 27 July 2007 (MEST)):

1. Knowledge: rote memorization, recognition, or recall of facts.
2. Comprehension: understanding what the facts mean.
3. Application: correct use of the facts, rules, or ideas.
4. Analysis: breaking down information into component parts.
5. Synthesis: combination parts to make a new whole.
6. Evaluation: judging the value or worth of information or ideas.

Depending on global objectives of the book, an author can put different emphasis on each "Bloom" level.

Objectives at book and chapter level should also be associated with activities, assessment, etc. Here is an example for Synthesis-level objective. Target students are students in educational technology. They have to prepare an e-Text about e-learning standards as an activity.

• Objective: "By the end of this section, you (as a student) will be able to design a learning object that introduces key components of e-learning standards, and in particular modeling languages.
• Activities: Make your own summary of the most important concepts you can find in articles on and then design of a course module with eXe
• Assessment: The course module
• Key Words: Design, formulate, build, invent, create, compose, generate, derive, modify, develop.

Usually in textbooks, objectives are not just used to plan the text, but they are made explicit. Objectives then can written out at the start of chapters and/or sections and activities inserted where appropriate. Hints for self-assessment can added too.

Texbook language and organization of contents

Textbooks, in language research seems to be identified as a genre (or genres). Most research focus on structual analysis of textbooks, but some research also produces knowledge that can be used for prescriptions: According to Jones (2005), textbook writers have three choices: simplification, easyfication, or the scaffolding of concept knowledge. We shall summarize some prescriptions can be derived from this article.

Simplification strategies - enhanced cohesion/coherence

• simplification of content: explain new technical terms as they arise
• simplification of form: make sure that the text has cohesive links and restores implicit relationships, e.g. when using general-specific of problem-solution progressions.
• simplification by including explanations and exemplifications
• using similar structures, i.e. syntactic repetition acts as a form of syntactic scaffolding.

Note that simplification may turn against learning. For example NcNamara et al. (1996) found that “text coherence improved readers' comprehension, but also that giving readers with sufficient background knowledge an incoherent text that forced them to infer unstated relations engaged them in compensatory processing, allowing deeper text understanding than might occur with a coherent text.”

Easification strategies - enhancing structure

The purpose easification is to “give learners an additional instructional appahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbookratus by developing a kind of "access structure" around the text without his [sic] having gone through the intervening stages of simplified materials” Bhatia cited by Jones (2005:9). Examples of such devices are:

• Provide introductory paragraph(s) to a text (or text segment)
• Provide a structural analysis ('tagging' sections) to a text (or text segment), e.g. as in Advance Organizers.
• Provide a schematic representation of a text (or text segment)
• Add annotations/explanations to the text, e.g. marginalia
• Add metadiscursive commentaries (before, in the middle, or after)
• Add questions to encourage interactions with the text

Scaffolding - providing domain knowledge

“Scaffolding in the sense intended here means the provision of a series of carefully designed pre-task exercises (or activities) which allow students to familiarize themselves with concepts of increasing complexity and to explore these concepts in terms of their reactances and interrelations.” Jones (2005:10)

Typical activities can be:

• filling in gapped texts
• complete sentences
• propositional clusters
• produce or complete tables and flow charts
• write summaries of various sorts, e.g. include critique, most things relevant, organize information, etc.

Note that these activities can be assigned by teacher, i.e. must not necessarily be part of the text itself.

The book structure and genre

Objectives and genres

Textbook genre should be adapted to clearly identified set of objectives. These should include an analysis of learning objectives and pedagogical function of the book within potential learning situations/environments. You may have to compromise here, i.e. anticipate different use cases.

In adddition, in some areas you may consider switching genres in different chapters. E.g. a text on educational multimedia animation, may include a chapter on learning theoretical backgound (e.g. cognitive load) and a introduction to flash. Clearly, such chapters are not of the same kind and may adopt different rhetorics.

See Textbook genres and examples for more details.

Structure

Often textbooks are divided into a structure like this:

Parts
 Chapters
  Sections
   Sub-sections

Parts either represent different major topics (e.g. conceptual vs. technical) or levels

Chapters contain a clearly identifiable major topics. In the US teaching university system, a textbook correpondes to a weeks's work, e.g. two classes and a homework assignment. This may be the reason why most textbooks are divided into 8-12 chapters. You need a least 8 if you want to sell the book to a "teaching professor" it seems.

Sections contain major subtopics, i.e. a independant unit of instruction. Sub-sections usually cover a concept or procedure to be learnt.For a reason I do not understand, sections are not numbered in American textooks.

Each heading that has subheadings must have at least to of its kind. E.g. a chapter should not have just a single section, but at least 2. In most "hard-core" textbooks, everything is usually divided by three or four, plus openers and closers. Btw. this is also how military units are organized ;)

Style of headings may be imposed by the publisher, e.g. capitalization and numbering scheme. Therefore, structuring is not only a pedagogical issue and you may have to give up pedagogical beliefs to comply with external constraints. E.g. I find it strange that navigation is so difficult in typical US textbooks and suspect that this may be the result of "artistic" guidelines.

Anyhow, heading structure have a function as conceptual organizers. The structure “reflects the amount of information you are providing, the amount of differentiation you are making within and between topics, and each topic's relative importance in you scheme of things” (Lepionka: 106).

Textbook chapter elements

Most textbooks are written with a sort of direct instruction model in mind. However, this is not an obligation. On the other hand, also consider that teachers engaged in other pedagogical approaches do not necessarily use textbooks, but rather a combination of manuals and "normal" academic texts.

But in any case, chapters writing should include various functional elements that will at least help the reader to understand the text. These elements also may show visually. This chapter is partly based on Lepionka (2003), chapters 8-10.

Overview and introduction

Lepionka (2003:117-118,123) distinguishes four major elements:

1. Openers

Express “subject, theme, aims, topics, and organization of a chapter [... readers should] know at the outset what they are reading and why or to what end” (Lepionka 2003:117). E.g. if you follow Gagné's nine events of instruction then you should include something to motivate and gain attention (step 1), something to help the frame and organize (step 2) and something to recall prior knowledge (step 3).

2. Closers

Give students opportunities to review, reinforce, or extend their learning, i.e. help with transfer (Lepionka 2003:118)

3. Internal Pedagogical Devices

4. Feature Strands

Typographic Design

Pedagogical discourse should be reflected in layout.

Links

• Richard Felder's resources in science and engineering education.
• What I've Learned about Writing Economics by Hal R. Varian, University of California, Berkeley
• Writing Guidelines for Engine (Eco)ering and Science Students by Michael Alley
• Getting Started Creating A Textbook by David Rees (goals and process). (also here).
• (Instructional literature , Development of Educational Material, CARNet, retrieved 19:57, 8 August 2007 (MEST)).

References

For research-related questions, see textbook research

Practical Advise

• Alley, M. 1996 The Craft of Scientific Writing (3rd Ed.). Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. ISBN 0-387-94766-3

• Ben-Ari, M., Walker, H. M., Redvers-Mutton, G., and Mansfield, K. 2002. Writing a textbook. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on innovation and Technology The Textbook and after... Pierre Moeglinin Computer Science Education (Aarhus, Denmark, June 24 - 28, 2002). ITiCSE '02. ACM Press, New York, NY, 94-95. DOI 10.1145/544414.544444 (Summary of a panel discussion).

• Dale, N., Mercer, R., Koffman, E., and Savitch, W. 2001. Writing a textbook: walking the gauntlet. SIGCSE Bull. 33, 1 (Mar. 2001), 408-409. Abstract (summary of a panel discussion)

• Forbes, David J., (1996), Make History Textbook Writing "A Puzzlement", The History Teacher. Vol. 29, No. 4 (Aug., 1996), pp. 455-461. JSTOR Bitmap/POF

• Hatch, Mary Jo (2007). Writing From Teaching: A Textbook Writer's Tale, Journal of Management Education, Vol. 31, No. 3, 405-412 (2007). DOI 10.1177/1052562906298443

• Jones, Alan (2005) Conceptual Development in Technical and Textbook Writing: A Challenge for L1 and L2 Student Readers, Proceedings of the International Professional Communication Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 12-15 July, 2005. PDF - Abstract

• Lepionka, Mary Ellen (2003), Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, ISBN 0-9728164-0-2. (This practical book gets good reviews. I bought it and find it useful - Daniel K. Schneider)

• Lepionka, Mary Ellen (2005), Writing and Developing College Textbook Supplements ISBN 0-9728164-1-0

• Silv (Eco)erman, Franklin H. (2004), Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials, ISBN 0-9728164-3-7

• Thirlway, M. 1994 Writing Software Manuals: a Practical Guide. Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN 0-13-138801-0

• Ranking, Elizabeth, The Work of Writing: Insights and Strategies for Academics and Professionals, Wiley, ISBN: 978-0-7879-5679-0

Instructional objectives

See also: instructional design and instructional design method in particular.

• Felder, Richard M. and Rebecca Brent (1997). Objectively Speaking, Chemical Engineering Education, 31(3), 178-179 (1997). HTML reprint

• Gronlund, N.E. (1991)- How to write and use instructional objectives (4th ed.) New York, Macmillan.