{"data":[{"id":637,"title":"The Unicode cookbook for linguists: Managing writing systems using orthography profiles","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2018,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":"9783961100903","license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"This text is a practical guide for linguists, and programmers, who work with data in multilingual computational environments. We introduce the basic concepts needed to understand how writing systems and character encodings function, and how they work together at the intersection between the Unicode Standard and the International Phonetic Alphabet. Although these standards are often met with frustration by users, they nevertheless provide language researchers and programmers with a consistent computational architecture needed to process, publish and analyze lexical data from the world's languages. Thus we bring to light common, but not always transparent, pitfalls which researchers face when working with Unicode and IPA. Having identified and overcome these pitfalls involved in making writing systems and character encodings syntactically and semantically interoperable (to the extent that they can be), we created a suite of open-source Python and R tools to work with languages using orthography profiles that describe author- or document-specific orthographic conventions. In this cookbook we describe a formal specification of orthography profiles and provide recipes using open source tools to show how users can segment text, analyze it, identify errors, and to transform it into different written forms for comparative linguistics research.","contributors":[{"id":4740,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Steven","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Moran","location":null,"background_text":"Steven Moran is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Comparative Linguistics, University of Zurich. He has a broad background in computational linguistics and works with data from under-resourced and endangered languages to answer research questions regarding worldwide linguistic diversity and language evolution. He focuses on phonology, language acquisition, and historical-comparative linguistics. He also does linguistic fieldwork in West Africa."},{"id":4741,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Michael","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Cysouw","location":null,"background_text":"Michael Cysouw is Professor of language typology at the Philipps University Marburg. His research interests are broad-scale investigations of the world's linguistic diversity, with a particular fondness for unusual structures from a worldwide perspective. He focusses not only on the content of linguistic diversity, but also on the methodological aspects of doing cross-linguistic research. In his research, language comparison is taken both as a window into language universals (focussing on aspects on which languages do not differ) as well as historical reconstruction (by interpreting differences between languages as the result of historical processes)."}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/computer-science-information-systems"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"}],"publishers":[{"id":615,"url":"http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/176","year":null,"created_at":"2018-11-03T18:40:37.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-11-03T18:40:37.000-05:00","name":"Language Science Press"}],"formats":[{"id":1098,"type":"PDF","url":"https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/176","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2011,"type":"LaTeX","url":"https://github.com/langsci/176","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2012,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/176","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4","textbook_reviews_count":1,"reviews":[{"id":3264,"first_name":"Elena","last_name":"Babatsouli","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"ULL","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The textbook has an easy to follow structure that includes both a theoretical and practical component, as also evidenced in its table of contents. The theoretical component discusses topics in text coding/encoding and principles of writing systems, while also presenting a comprehensive historical background on the development and advances of the Unicode Standard and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). What this text really does is to wed the perspectives and practices of linguistics and information technology in a serious effort to bridge the gap between them for the purpose of informing interested but less computer-savvy linguists. ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The text illustrates analytical thinking and a well-thought out approach with accurate information.\r\n","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date. However, due to the nature of topic being one that continually involves, some of the suggested practical proposals may need to be updated in due time. ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The text is written in lucid, accessible prose, using easy to comprehend terms, and providing definitions that are followed by their respective terms in technical terminological jargon along the way. ","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text follows a clear, succinct and logical argument that builds in intensity and depth as the chapters succeed each other.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The textbook has a clear structure with several subdivisions.\r\nThe theoretical component discusses topics in text coding/encoding and principles of writing systems, while also presenting a comprehensive historical background on the development and advances of the Unicode Standard and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). What this text really does is to wed the perspectives and practices of linguistics and information technology in a serious effort to bridge the gap between them for the purpose of informing interested but less computer-savvy linguists. \r\n\r\nThe practical component proposes specific procedures on how to use the Unicode Standard in the ‘daily practice of (comparative) linguistics’,  making actual recommendations to linguists and computer programmers struggling with these tasks, outlining the likely challenges met, and lastly introducing two open source libraries, in Python and R, as a reference for tacking linguistic data, and phonetic and orthographic profiles.      \r\n\r\n","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The textbook follows the intuitive and lucid structure outlined in its table of contents. ","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The text does not have observable interface issues. It is easy to navigate and it includes clear, error-free tables that do not distract or confuse the reader.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Not any that I have noticed.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally offensive; its topic does not permit such scope.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"If a page full of gibberish like dkjP~oiu._io\u0026ORE@Qds=Sask,jklutiud~zxs2\u00263r/fv@  or □□□□□?| □□□□□ ?|   is something you have encountered but are clueless as to the workings involved, this is the book for you! \r\n\r\nIf you are a linguist working in today’s computerized world, you are already familiar with the exasperation involved in having orthographic and phonetic symbols represented in digital documents in a way that are consistently and universally readable across software, across computers, across languages, across offices or campuses, etc. on an international level. \r\n\r\nUniversals in digital writing systems in our globally multilingual world are as hard to grasp, categorize, make sense of, and tame just like the universal patterns in the worlds’ languages themselves. Learning to resolve these troubles is an on-going effort for those using language, those using computers and, overwhelmingly more so, for those whose work combines the two.    \r\n\r\nThe present open textbook is a resource on computer multilingualism. It is a manual written by two scientists who have combined expertise in human language and information technology to create this resource aiming to inform and guide readers on the notion of encoding in terms of the Unicode, i.e. the digital code that permits interoperability between human and computer language. One could say that Unicode is an attempt to have a lingua franca for computers; just like a lingua franca is powerful in that it allows speakers of different languages communicate while also being limiting depending on the context(s) of its use(s) and user(s), the Unicode is a universal tool that facilitates linguistic interoperability across computers … enduring pitfalls notwithstanding.     \r\n\r\nThe practical value of the manual is that the authors provide recommendations on how to tackle global linguistic diversity (orthographies, grammars, phonetic representations in the languages of the world) and the inevitable IT shortcomings that come with the process of translating such linguistic diversity in computer-readable form.   \r\n\r\nThe textbook has an easy to follow structure that includes both a theoretical and practical component, as also evidenced in its table of contents. The theoretical component discusses topics in text coding/encoding and principles of writing systems, while also presenting a comprehensive historical background on the development and advances of the Unicode Standard and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). What this text really does is to wed the perspectives and practices of linguistics and information technology in a serious effort to bridge the gap between them for the purpose of informing interested but less computer-savvy linguists. \r\n\r\nThe practical component proposes specific procedures on how to use the Unicode Standard in the ‘daily practice of (comparative) linguistics’,  making actual recommendations to linguists and computer programmers struggling with these tasks, outlining the likely challenges met, and lastly introducing two open source libraries, in Python and R, as a reference for tacking linguistic data, and phonetic and orthographic profiles.      \r\n\r\nThe presence of the term ‘cookbook’ in the title is somewhat disorienting in terms of the semantics involved, at least at a first glance, but as one reads the book, it becomes increasingly clear that authors mean it either as a jest, or suggestive of the need to have an instruction manual, a collection of ‘recipes’, that practically address difficult tasks, in the same way that a cookbook suggests lists of necessary ingredients and instructions to use in order to turn recipes into hands-on meals.  \r\n\r\nThe readership aimed is wide-scoped in that the manual is straightforward enough to enlighten the interested layman, student, or non-expert, while also being adequately detailed and comprehensive to be effective for more experienced academics in these fields. The text follows a clear, succinct and logical argument that builds in intensity and depth as the chapters succeed each other, illustrating analytical thinking and a well-thought out approach, using easy to comprehend terms, and providing definitions that are followed by their terms in technical terminological jargon, along the way. \r\n\r\nAlthough a complete answer toolkit is beyond the capabilities of present research, technological advances, and academic instruction, the manual freely put forth in this open textbook format, is certainly an excellent starting point for those concerned in the topics covered, and I am glad for its availability, for having read it, and the opportunity to review it. I certainly recommend this textbook to others.  \r\n","created_at":"2019-11-09T12:51:45.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-11-09T12:51:45.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/the-unicode-cookbook-for-linguists-managing-writing-systems-using-orthography-profiles","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:06:28.000-05:00"},{"id":803,"title":"Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2019,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":null,"license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government \u0026 Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.","contributors":[{"id":5077,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Stefan","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Müller","location":"Berlin, Germany","background_text":"Stefan Müller studied Computer Science, Computational Linguistics and Linguistics at the Humboldt University at Berlin and in Edinburgh. He worked at the German Research Center of Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbrücken and for the company Interice. He worked as acting chair for German and Computational Linguistics in Jena and for Theoretical Computational Linguistics in Potsdam. He had an assistant professorship in Bremen for theoretical linguistics and computational linguistics, a full professorship for German and General Linguistics at the Freie Universität Berlin and is now professor for German language with specialization in syntax at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin."}],"subjects":[{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"}],"publishers":[{"id":782,"url":"https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/255","year":null,"created_at":"2020-01-17T14:56:49.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-01-17T14:56:49.000-06:00","name":"Language Science Press"}],"formats":[{"id":1381,"type":"PDF","url":"https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/255","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":"978-3-96110-202-0"},{"id":1382,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/3961102031?tag=wwwlangscipre-20","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":"978-3-96110-203-7"},{"id":2019,"type":"LaTeX","url":"https://github.com/langsci/255","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":null,"textbook_reviews_count":0,"reviews":[],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/grammatical-theory-from-transformational-grammar-to-constraint-based-approaches","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:06:49.000-05:00"},{"id":841,"title":"Linguistics for Teachers of English","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2018,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":"9781944548179","license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"The primary goals of this text are to acquaint prospective teachers of English with certain aspects of the history, structure, and use of the English Language. Through considering the nature of the English language; how language and culture are interconnected as well as how it is acquired and how and why it changes, readers will come to a fuller understanding of sociolinguistics. This text discusses the nature of language, as well as how it is acquired; how and why languages change, and how the English language in particular has changed (and continues to change); why different varieties of English have developed, and why they continue to be used; how linguists have attempted to account for the (ir)regularities of English; how language and culture are related; and how linguistics can be used as a tool in the classroom. This text presents important topics for English teachers to know: the relationship between “standard” and “nonstandard” dialects, how and why language varies, how we can make informed decisions about what is “right” and “wrong” in language use, and generally how a sound knowledge of how language works can inform and benefit the pedagogical strategies needed to develop as a teacher. Ultimately, I want readers to think about language in ways not thought of before: objectively, passionately, critically, analytically, and logically. This allows readers to move beyond memorization of facts to original thought (which is sort of like the difference between knowing how to add and subtract, and being able to balance a checkbook).","contributors":[{"id":5157,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Carol","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Russell","location":"Kansas State University","background_text":"Carol Russell, Kansas State University"}],"subjects":[{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"}],"publishers":[{"id":820,"url":"https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/24/","year":2018,"created_at":"2020-06-25T11:38:28.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-25T11:38:28.000-05:00","name":"New Prairie Press"}],"formats":[{"id":1469,"type":"PDF","url":"https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/7m01bq41x","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":"978-1-944548-17-9"},{"id":1470,"type":"eBook","url":"https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/7m01bq41x","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4","textbook_reviews_count":9,"reviews":[{"id":4376,"first_name":"CHRISTINE","last_name":"DISCOE","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Colorado State University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Linguistics for Teachers of English covers a wide range of background information about the history, study and knowledge of linguistics, ranging from a broad yet simple explanation of the evolution of the English language, from Old to Modern English, including easy-to-grasp graphics, timelines, important historical moments, such as Roman rule, publication of Beowulf, and the influence of French and Shakespeare to name a few.  The author also augments the content of these items in a fun, lighthearted way, such as adding a video of a reading of a poem from Middle English to highlight vowel shift, allowing the reader to experience the sound of the change to modern English.   The author then outlines foundational concepts in linguistics such as communication and dialects, including discussion of controversial history of adopting certain dialects more than others and a broad explanation of various regional dialects in parts of the US. Finally, she includes  a short history of the use of language in the classroom, the use of sign language, and follows with a comprehensive glossary. This text is more broad than deep; a reader can get a general understanding of history of language and linguistics from this text.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"This text contains lots of dates (Norman invasion, 1066) which seem to be largely factual. One area may be considered biased, such as the explanation of meaning in the use of \"be\" in African American vernacular, which may be out of date, could be updated or has been more recently reviewed.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Looked at as a brief history of everything linguistics, this text is extremely useful to those who haven't taken requisite courses on vowel shift, the phenomenon of borrowing  on the English lexicon, and the history of prescriptivism in grammar . In this way, this text is highly relevant for those new to the field. Some content, especially on the description of lexical adoption, such as the chart on the use of \"soda\" vs \"pop\" may already be out of date, but could be easily updated by inserting new data or charts.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Each unit is written in simple language and easily explains difficult concepts such as vowel shift with current, easily understood examples. Rather than long and descriptive paragraphs, the writer makes use of bullet points, lists, graphs, video links, and charts, which are clear in this context. Technological terms are explained in an accessible, simple way. Several charts have links that may not work in one downloaded version.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Each unit is clearly explained, and ends with a series of questions which can be used for self-study, reference, or class discussion.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is easily divisible and could be used separately or in tandem.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"This book is simple to follow for the novice linguist or English teacher, and is logical and easy to follow.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"In the text, there are links that may not work, but this is addressed by the author in the overview.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book is free from errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The discussion on dialects is presented in a way that informs the reader of the various types of dialects that could be found in Standard American English, and addresses the issue in broad terms while accounting for the possibility that these dialects may be considered more or less stereotypical depending on the reader.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This text is strongly suggested for those who want to have a basic understanding of English language history and linguistics.","created_at":"2020-11-10T18:58:25.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-11-10T18:58:25.000-06:00"},{"id":4387,"first_name":"Regine","last_name":"Pellicer","position":"Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Texas Rio Grande Valley","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book first provides an overview of the history of the English language (pp. 1-38) divided into three sections: Olde English, Middle English, and Modern English. This unit offers maps, visual timelines, hyperlinks, and a fun way to look at the battle of 1066, with pictures representing “the cast”. The second unit, “Language as Communication” (pp. 39-51) focuses on communication styles and the language acquisition process with an abundance of videos enabling the reader/listener to understand the concepts. Follows a unit on American English dialects (pp. 52-69) that is also interactive. An interesting section of this unit, called “Dialects in the Classroom” (p. 62) invites readers (future teachers) to question their attitudes and beliefs about the dialects students may bring to the classroom. The last unit is dedicated to “Language in the Classroom” (pp. 70-81), with an important section on ASL (p.74) and how to accommodate students with hearing difficulties. A section about second language learners and bilingual students could have been added in the language acquisition section, or in the unit dedicated to language in the classroom. A glossary has been provided at the end of the book and provides definitions in simple terms.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The definition of an accent as the way only a non-native speaker of English is going to pronounce words may be a bit simplistic.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date. In the section about dialects, the extract from “Do you Speak American” from 1976 may need to be updated for a younger audience.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is organized in units divided into clear short sections mixing text, images, and hyperlinks.  The text is easy to read and the author has added fun headings to captivate the audience. Technical jargon is kept to a minimum. Quick review sections are added at the end of each unit, and a glossary can be consulted at the end of the book.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Units can be broken down into smaller sections. They can easily supplement lessons on the history of English, language acquisition, phonology, morphology, American Sign Language, etc.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is organized in a clear manner, starting with the history of English, language as communication, dialects, and English in the classroom. Each unit is broken down into subsections presenting the reader with information (text, images, videos), questions to reflect upon, exercises, and a quick review of main terms and ideas.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The book is interactive and offers the reader the opportunity to watch videos and access supplemental material. Some links did not work in the pdf or e-book form.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contains no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"I teach an “Introduction to Linguistics” course for future teachers and I am looking to replace the book I am currently using.  While “Linguistics for Teachers of English” has a nice design and includes a variety of resources, it is not inclusive of a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds, just like most linguistics books I have been considering adopting. Most textbooks forget to mention Hispanics and LatinX, and the cultural and linguistic diversity they bring to the areas where they live. The description of the book mentions how language and culture are related, and it would be appropriate to include a growing segment of the American population in this book to allow a variety of students, and future teachers, to see they are part of the linguistic landscape of this country.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2020-11-15T17:10:58.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-11-15T17:10:58.000-06:00"},{"id":4458,"first_name":"Edwin","last_name":"Battistella","position":"Professor","institution_name":"Southern Oregon University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"Based on the description (\"The primary goals of this text are to acquaint prospective teachers of English with certain aspects of the history, structure, and use of the English Language.\"), I was expecting a more comprehensive treatment of the history, structure and ideology of English that might be used as a stand-alone text.  Instead, the book is a short (84 page) handbook that I would have to be supplemented with other readings (some of the questions in the text for students to answer imply that).  There is relatively little on the structure of  English, per se, or on phonetics/phonology.","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"There were some gems, like the discussion of 1066 and of Old English generally but also some things I would question: small things like the spelling of Olde English (most scholars and texts talk about Old English) and I would question the treatment of the Great Vowel Shift (which is usually dated from 1400-1700 not the  and is misdescribed as (p 19) as 1350-1550 and as \"A period in EmE where most long vowels become short and vice versa.\" (p 29 and 83).  Also non-standard is the definition of language as \"Communication using the voice,\" which excludes ASL. Every other text I know of treats sign languages as language.  Phonology is oversimplified as \"The sounds in a language.\"","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"This is a strength of the book; the organization and content are relatively evergreen.  One aspect that should be reconsidered is a more comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of dialects to include more on social dialects and to differentiate the Mountain south from the Gulf South.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The prose is accessible and clear though much of the text is images and charts.  It is very undergrad-friendly but less of a stand-alone book than I would like.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"This is also a strength of the book.  The table on p 27 introduces symbols for sounds that don't seem to be discussed elsewhere.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The modules work well though in some places more needs to be said. The discussion of Pragmatics on p. 42 is titled A Little More About Pragmatics followed by two bullet points (• What is said previously helps to determine meaning, • Knowledge of all speakers’ meaning within the spoken word).","organization_rating":3,"organization_review":"Generally this works well. The is a little bobble around p 35 where prescriptivism jumps back in after a discussion of word formation.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The interface works well overall, good use of links to video and other documents, lots of bullet point material, and some rather nice charts early on.","grammatical_rating":3,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors per se but there are places where there are incomplete sentences and other gaps. For example \"prescriptivism\" in the glossary is \"The school of thought that language.\" On p. 31 we find the fragment \"Although we credit many words from Scandinavian influences (remember they gave us place names and pronouns!)\" and on p 70 \"Teaching in general and teaching a deaf student.\"","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"There is a good discussion of African-American Vernacular English (that could be expanded to talk about the Ann Arbor case from 1979, code switching  and allude to current issues of language an race) but no mention of Hispanic varieties of English.  Also, I think the discussion of the Deaf community needs to be rethought.","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"This seems very much like a work in progress, so I would encourage the author to continue to refine and expand it and to include a note to the teacher with some guidance on how to use the book with other supplementary materials.","created_at":"2020-12-14T16:55:38.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-12-14T16:55:38.000-06:00"},{"id":4647,"first_name":"Cynthia","last_name":"Kilpatrick","position":"Assistant Professor of Instruction","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":2,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book provides a clear and easy-to-read introduction to some key areas of linguistics, including the history of English, growth of the lexicon, some sociolinguistic factors, competence vs performance, dialects, and accents. However, many subdisciplines of linguistics, such as syntax, morphology, phonetics/phonology, semantics, and pragmatics, are barely touched on. Even the topics that are included are presented in a relatively shallow way, so at times the book feels more like an outline of information to cover more in-depth in class rather than a complete textbook.","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"I have no arguments with the accuracy of major information in the text, but at times the lack of detail may be misleading. For instance, on page 50, the text claims that an included chart shows results for “G-Dropping”, but there is no caption for the chart, nor is there an explanation for how to read it. Logically, a student could read the chart as showing that middle class females G-dropped almost 100% of the time, while lower working class individuals G-dropped less than 5% of the time. However, the text makes the opposite claim (that the working class G-drops more, which is what the research actually found). A clear caption for the chart or a citation to the original research would help clarify when lack of detail may appear inaccurate.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"Content is relatively up-to-date, though it could potentially use some revision in the sections discussing AAVE and ASL. The book is organized and formatted so that it should be easy to update with newer information. For me, a larger problem with relevance is that the text does not make an effort to establish a connection with the content for the reader. In other words, why do Teachers of English need to know about the chosen topics, like the history of English? Establishing the relevance of the content from the very beginning would help students understand why they are learning these things.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The writing is clear and easy to read, with terms defined as needed. Undergraduate students should have very little trouble reading and understanding the book.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The book appears to be consistent in terms of terminology and framework overall, but is not always  consistent with the field in general. For instance, one area where consistency could be improved would be to use IPA for the vowel sound chart on page 27, and then again in discussion of dialects in the final section.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is divided into 4 units: History, Language as Communication, Dialects, and Language in the Classroom. Each Unit is further divided into smaller sections that could be read as individual pieces. The prose included is generally organized into short paragraphs, with liberal use of bullet points and topic headings.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Overall, the organization of this text makes sense. Topics are presented logically, and there is an overall flow. In some places, however, reorganization would be beneficial. For instance, on page 32, in the discussion of prescriptivism, clipping is mentioned, but the discussion and definition of clipping is not presented until several pages later. In addition, while the discussion of prescriptivism seems self-contained on page 32, the author returns to the “6 guys” of prescriptivism on page 35, after the conclusion of the section on the Growth of the Lexicon. Because there is no discussion of how prescriptivism affects the growth of the lexicon, so the return to the “6 guys” makes the section appear disjointed.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"The text is easy to navigate, with no problems that I noticed with the presentation of images or charts. I really liked the inclusion of video clips, but I was reading from a downloaded copy and many of the links would not connect for me. There were also “Click here to learn more” notes in several places, but none of these would open for me. It would have been nice to have the actual link there so that I could copy and paste it into my browser (and so that students with similar issues can still access the relevant media).","grammatical_rating":3,"grammatical_review":"The book is relatively free of grammatical errors, with the exception of frequent sentence fragments.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"I feel that this aspect could use some work, not because the text is offensive, but because it could be more inclusive and be extended to additional speech communities. In the discussion of AAVE, what is it that teachers need to know and remember? In the discussion of ASL and the Deaf community, is it really correct to say that most Deaf students will have ASL as their native language (research indicates that many Deaf children do not learn ASL at home)? The broad generalizations of dialects ignore some key distinctions, and I don’t remember any mention of  Latinx communities and language, or of second language speakers and communities (except in relation to accent).","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"There were many things that I liked about this book, including the organization, clarity of the writing, and the attractive layout with many graphics and pictures. For beginning undergraduate students who want a general overview of the history of English and a brief look at some sociolinguistics, this may be a good choice because it would be accessible and interesting. However, I am looking to replace a book for a Linguistics for Language Teachers class that is cross-listed for graduate and undergraduate students, and this book would not be sufficient for that purpose. Extensive supplementation would be necessary, as would proper citations of primary research that students could read.","created_at":"2021-02-25T13:25:43.000-06:00","updated_at":"2021-02-25T13:25:43.000-06:00"},{"id":4734,"first_name":"Katherine","last_name":"Martin","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Southern Illinois University Carbondale","comprehensiveness_rating":2,"comprehensiveness_review":"“Linguistics for Teachers of English” is a short textbook which covers a subset of key topics that would be critical for a general introduction to linguistics for teachers: the history of English (Unit 1), language as communication (Unit 2), dialects (Unit 3), and language in the classroom (Unit 4). The unit on the history of English is by far the most comprehensive, covering nearly half of the pages in this short book. It provides a good introduction to the history of the language using a variety of attractive, helpful visuals (though some of the details of the timelines may need attention – see below). There are useful examples of influence from specific linguistic sources (including Latin and Scandinavian languages, though the influence of French after 1066 could be further elaborated). Important historical documents and events are introduced, including the Ruthwell Cross, Caedman’s Hymn, the Normal Invasion, the Bubonic Plague, the Great Vowel Shift, Caxton’s printing press, and the early prescriptivists during the Age of Reason (introducing the idea of standardization). The unit on language as communication introduces the idea that language is specific to humans, though it does not go into any detail in explaining the differences between communication and language. This unit also introduces the importance of context for influencing communication and variations in styles of communication, including male vs. female communication styles, major stages in first language acquisition, the distinction between competence and performance, and the fact that social class influences language use and variation.The unit on dialects introduces the idea of Standard American English and newscaster English (though this is called “The Voice from Nowhere” – I term I haven’t encountered elsewhere in my 7 years of teaching introductory linguistics), and reasons for dialectal variation. There are also one-page overviews of three of three regional US dialects: Northern/New England, Upper Midwest/Great Lakes, and General South, and a video example of Appalachian English. This unit also addresses different attitudes toward dialects in the classroom, though in a very attitude-neutral way, without guiding teachers towards acceptance of non-standard varieties, and introduces AAVE with a variety of linguistic examples (though some of these could be updated, see below, and more consideration of the social aspects of dialects, issues of identity, prestige, etc. could usefully be added to make this section more complete. Finally, the unit on language in the classroom re-introduces the idea of a standard variety and presents a number of 20th century writers who debated the preeminence of spoken vs. written language. Sign language is also introduced, along with a useful distinction of the terms ‘deaf’ and ‘Deaf’ and some key behaviors and suggestions for teaching students who are deaf. Importantly, however, critical and foundational components of linguistics are missing almost entirely from the book, including phonetics, phonology, morphology (beyond considering a handful of ways that new words are added to English, such as compounding, blending, and clipping), syntax, and semantics. In addition, there is essentially no consideration of the issue of second language learning, which is almost certainly one of the most relevant aspects of linguistics for English teachers. There is a detailed and useful Table of Contents. There is a glossary with simple explanations (though this has limitations; see ‘Accuracy’ below), but no index. One major piece that is missing is reference to other sources, particularly primary literature and other books students may want to consider.","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"In general, the book is largely accurate in a technical sense, although the content coverage is quite shallow (broad rather than deep) through much of the book and there is a noticeable lack of clear definitions of some technical terms (see the section on ‘Clarity’, below, for more details). However, there are a small number of important claims the book makes that are not accurate, and/or misleading, and which I believe are problematic for a general introduction to linguistics targeting English teachers. For example, in the unit on language and communication, language as defined as being only verbal, and person who are deaf are grouped with “the feral” and “the abused” as exceptions; such a misrepresentation of the status of signed languages as different from full languages is problematic and is something that should be corrected, not perpetuated, in such a text. Later, in the unit on language in the classroom, persons who are deaf are said to usually use ASL as their native language, which frequently may not actually be the case (and may mislead teachers and give the misguided expectations). The unit on language and communication also makes very general and simple claims about male versus female styles of communication, including a link to a video of a comedy routine drawing on common stereotypes, without considering this important issue in a more nuanced and empirically-based way. There is an interesting introduction to AAVE, consisting mostly of linguistic examples, but these examples are also a bit limited and stereotyped, and could usefully be updated and elaborated. Some of the timeline details in the history of English also differ from the more widely used date ranges, for example, this book gives the Great Vowel Shift as occurring in 1350-1550 AD, whereas the dates are more typically given as 1400 and 1700. In addition, some of the glossary entries are problematic. For example, the entry for “accent” indicates that accents only apply to non-native speakers; the entry for “Caxton’s Press (Literacy)” connects Caxton’s press to expanding literacy but does not define or explain the press; the entry for “mother tongue” says that this is “the way to identify the main branch of a language”, a meaning I’ve never seen, and ignores the sense of ‘first language’ that is usually meant with this term; the entry for “phonology” says that this is “the sounds in a language” (which would be a better definition for phonetics than phonology), and the entry for “Prescriptivism (The 6 Guys)” is incomplete.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Most topics that are presented in the text are given in a way that is relatively time-neutral – in other words, they are not particularly out of date and are unlikely to go out of date quickly or easily. However, some of the topics, such as male vs. female communication styles and features of AAVE (mentioned above), would benefit from being updated with examples and explanations that better reflect current empirical understandings (and more nuance, encouraging students to think beyond stereotypes rather than staying within them or even validating them). Some of the examples are generally dated, such as the use of Barbara Walter’s nickname “Baba Wawa” from SNL in the 1970s, linking to the full documentary “Do You Speak American?”, and a focus on Signing Exact English alongside ASL. However, the structure of the text is quite open, meaning that such updates seem like they would be relatively easy to do; the text is not visually dense and there are few or no internal references to specific page numbers, so content could likely be added and changed with little problem.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"Overall the text of this book is written in simple, easy to understand language that should be easily accessible to undergraduate students (or even non-native speakers). However, the level of detail and the presence of clear definitions and explanations are wanting in the main text and some of them are problematic in the glossary (see details above), minimizing the usefulness of the text as a stand-alone resource (more on this below) and likely limiting its appropriateness for post-baccalaureate students. For example, pragmatics is introduced briefly in the unit on language and communication, but consists of only two bullet points without any further definition or elaboration. The definitions of competence vs. performance are not incorrect, but lack detail and connection to this important issue in the theories of linguistics. Social class is introduced as a factor that may influence language use, but with very little actual detail and using a study that may be difficult to understand (examining ‘g-dropping’, rather than the typical example of Labov’s department store study), and with a chart that is difficult to understand. Newscaster English is introduced, but called “The Voice from Nowhere” and there are some unclear or dated headings, such as “Baba Wawa” and a question that is meant to lead students to identify the news anchor Barbara Walters (but she is never actually identified – no answer key may lead to frustration for some questions and activities). ‘Prestige’ is used as a term, but never actually defined, whereas ‘register’ is briefly defined, but in a way that does not fully align with how the term is used in the field more generally. Prescriptivism is loosely defined, but Descriptivism isn’t really (though the term is used in Unit 4). Also in Unit 4, Signing Exact English (SEE) is introduced alongside ASL, but is never clearly defined or distinguished from ASL (and the limitations involved with using SEE are not considered).","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is largely internally consistent. The style and format (both visually and in terms of content and organization) are attractive and used consistently throughout the book. The terms that are defined also appear to be used in a consistent way throughout the text, though their actual definitions need some work in places for consistency with the field more broadly (see above). In addition, some conventions that are used are not representative of the broader field; for example, there is a pronunciation guide given in the section on Middle English, but it is not connected to the International Phonetic Alphabet (which might be useful to introduce both in this section and also to use in the section on dialects). The relative size of the units is quite variable, however; as mentioned earlier, the section on the history of English takes up nearly half the book, with the other sections (especially the one on language and communication) are noticeably shorter.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"For the most part the text is modular within itself. There are four main units, each of which is subdivided into smaller sections on various topics with clear headings to separate them; few topics extend beyond 2-3 pages so they could be easily divided into smaller reading assignments. There are essentially no long, unorganized blocks of text; most paragraphs are short and portions of the text are even given in bullet-point format, with clear headings throughout. There are only minimal references to earlier sections of the text in later sections. Some overlapping issues, such as the topic of standardization/standard varieties and prescriptivism, are addressed in multiple sections, but in a way that is not highly inter-dependent, and thus not problematic for modularity (and in fact have the potential for creating a coherent theme throughout the text, though more advantage could be taken of this possibility). However, I believe it would be difficult to use the text on its own for a course without substantial supplementary materials. There are a variety of discussion questions, activities, and end-of-unit review sections that have the potential to be very useful, but which assume more knowledge than what is presented in the text itself or otherwise might encourage students to rely on assumptions and stereotypes rather than new knowledge. For example, there is a section for practice “translating” from Old English to Modern English, but there is not enough detail in the text to reasonably do this without at least some reference to other sources. Later, there is an activity for “translating” from AAVE to Standard American English, but there is no answer key or further guidance on this activity. After the first discussion of standardization and prescriptivism, there are a set of points to consider in discussion, but some of these points are under-developed and unclear, such as “Phonology – sounds (dialects?)”. The section on dialects asks students to engage with the question of whether languages are converging or diverging, but there is little information in the text itself to help students grapple with this issue. Later, in the review questions, students are asked to consider the issue of whether English should be the official language for the US, but again the text does not actually deal with this topic itself. There is also a reference to a DVD, but exactly what material this is referring to is unclear.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"In terms of the four units, the progression from history to language as communication to dialects to language in the classroom is adequate and not problematic. It might make more sense to begin a course on linguistics for English teachers with defining language vs. communication (presented in Unit 2 of this text), but given the modularity of the text (see above) a teacher could easily assign sections for reading that go “out of order” with little problem.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"There were no issues with navigation of the book or distortion of the images or charts. In fact, the book looks quite visually appealing and has a consistent format throughout. One of the highlights of a digital, OER textbook is the ability to link to other resources; this book took advantage of these affordances in a reasonable way with many embedded links for videos and “Click to Learn More” links. The iBook version of the book worked with few issues; only one of the links was broken. However, an active internet connection is needed to access these, and they are also not accessible from the .pdf version of the book. These may be serious limitations for some users of the textbook.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"There are a number of sentence fragments used throughout the main text and some incomplete sentences (i.e., missing information) in the glossary. However, there are no grammatical errors aside from these.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The text makes sure to directly address important issues such as dialectal variation, Standard American English, and prescriptivism. However, as discussed above, these topics could also be usefully elaborated. The sections on non-standard varieties (e.g., AAVE) and minority language groups (e.g., ASL) are largely not insensitive, but do lack nuance and updated detail in how they are considered – this is an area of improvement that is needed. However, other important cultural groups, such as the Latinx community and second language speakers and immigrants in general, are not considered – these would be a very valuable addition to the book, given the target audience of English teachers. I also would have loved the writer to really take advantage of the opportunity to push English teachers toward greater acceptance of linguistic and cultural diversity – something I felt was somewhat lacking.","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"The simplicity and visual organization are attractive features of this book, but overall I found it too incomplete to be of use as a single text for a course. Much more information is needed to adequately cover the topics that are included, and many important aspects of linguistics are missing (including the main subfields of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, as well as any real discussion of second language learners). The issues of standardization, language standards, and prescriptivism appear throughout the book and provide the possibility of a useful, thought-provoking thread tying together the parts of the text, but this is not really taken advantage of, and there is little meta-commentary to help students understand how the topics covered in the book are relevant to them as teachers of English. Many of the visuals (especially in the first unit) are very useful, but the relevance of the linked material is unclear and/or limited in a number of places.","created_at":"2021-04-01T15:59:08.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-04-01T15:59:08.000-05:00"},{"id":4750,"first_name":"Safia","last_name":"Diarra","position":"ELL Instructor","institution_name":"Earlham College","comprehensiveness_rating":2,"comprehensiveness_review":"Not all ideas of the subject were covered. The textbook is supposed to cover all forms of English but didn't include any examples of global Englishes. And while it did include AAVE, no other vernaculars were included (e.g. Chicano English). What was included in the book was generally comprehensible though.\r\nThe definition of 'accent' on page 42 and in the glossary is not clear to me. The definition provided: \"the sound of words spoken by a person who is not a native speaker of the language\" is confusing because for example, a New Yorker has an accent to a midwesterner but it doesn't mean they aren't native speakers of English.","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"Some definitions in the glossary are either vague or somewhat inaccurate. Example: for the definition of dialect, it states \"the sound of words spoken by a native speaker of any language\". The definition should at least include the fact that dialects can determine geographical and social differences since that is the main idea of a dialect.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"There are a lot of pages that would need to be updated after a short period of time (since language is constantly changing). The pages that come to mind are the coke/pop/soda map (changes will occur as generations die out) and the AAVE page (the slang examples will be out of date within a year as new slang becomes more popular). This is natural with any language though- it's difficult to avoid. One thing the author could have done is include dates of when the data was collected and acknowledge that examples will change.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text, content and points of the book are made clearly. The only jargon used are in the examples and are explained too. To the best of my knowledge, this textbook can be understood by a variety of audiences.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The textbook does seem to be consistent in terms of the terminology given as well as the framework. There aren't chapters per se, but the textbook is consistent with first discussing the history of English and then moving on to specific examples of English types.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Even though the text does not have specific chapters, I can imagine that an instructor can easily use sections of the book to discuss in a classroom setting. For example, the first two weeks can be dedicated to the history of English, the second week about modes of communication (like body language), etc.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics that are presented in the text make logical sense. Starting the textbook with historical background helps the reader understand the English language, for example. Going on to discuss the stages of language acquisition is also a good organizational choice. In general, I like that the reader chooses broad topics of English and then continues to narrow it down to more specific English topics such as dialects.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"When you click on a video and then click out of it to return to the textbook, it takes you to the very beginning of the textbook rather than where you left out. It makes navigation difficult and time consuming. All other aspects of interface were fine (clear images/charts).","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical issues found.","cultural_rating":2,"cultural_review":"It is insensitive not to include all the many forms of English from around the world. The United States is not the only country to speak English, but the textbook only focuses on the English in the U.S. I am glad that they chose to include AAVE at least.\r\nIn terms of imagery, most images are of White people. For example, the stages of acquisition section only includes White babies and children.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"The embedded video on page 45 regarding men and women's brains is pretty offensive. The comedian implies that the way women think is ridiculous. In general, I do not think that video is necessary; the list given on how women and men speak differently is sufficient.","created_at":"2021-04-08T09:28:47.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-04-08T09:28:47.000-05:00"},{"id":5089,"first_name":"Helene","last_name":"Krauthamer","position":"Professor","institution_name":"The University of the District of Columbia","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers quite a lot of ground regarding what a teacher of English should know about linguistics. It starts with an overview of the history of English, then moves into word formation, dialects, language acquisition, sign language, and language in the classroom, among other topics. It does not address all the varieties of English that an English teacher might encounter, but it certainly shows how teachers should be open to diversity.  Also, while it does not go into these topics in the depth of most introductory linguistics textbooks, it presents them in an appealing and engaging way that would encourage readers to pursue these topics further.  Though I could not find an index or a way to search the text, there is a glossary that explains some, though not all, of the terms in the book. For example,  ASL or SEE are not spelled out in the text or in the glossary. Nevertheless, the practical tips for teaching Deaf students are excellent, and this is the first time I have seen this material in a linguistics textbook.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content, to the best of my knowledge is accurate, error-free, and unbiased.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Linguistics for English teachers is a highly relevant topic given that most teachers are not introduced to linguistics until college, and the material in this textbook is basic and standard to the field of linguistics.  Varieties of English are addressed, and the section on the rise of prescriptivism is particularly useful for English teachers.  One necessary update, however, should be a section added on pronouns in the schools, now that  many schools require teachers to use the pronouns that their students wish others to use.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The style of writing is particularly engaging, written with humor and just the right amount of technical terminology mixed with informality.  The glossary at the end provides added clarity for those who need it, though most terms can be explored in other ways.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text and terminology are very consistent. The graphics are helpful in understanding the content, and the inserted videos enhance the content.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Each of the sections can be read independently, though I think that beginning with the history of English is the best way to start, and I especially appreciate how each section gets to some very salient points very quickly.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The overall structure of the book is very logical  Though I don't usually begin my classes with the history of English, I see that this makes sense so that teachers can better understand the changing nature of language.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The videos are good and relevant to the content; closing them, however, either shuts you out of the book or returns you to the beginning of the book, a minor annoyance.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"I am a stickler for usage and mechanical accuracy, particularly in books for English teachers, and, yes, I found some errors in this one, though they do not affect the overall readability. (Example:  p. 66 \"*always in it’s inflected form\")","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"There could be more inclusivity of other dialects in the section on language variation, particularly that of Spanish speakers.  The section on AAVE has an exercise which is unclear (p. 68 Exercises for AAVE) where there are sentences written ostensibly in AAVE but without directions as to what is to be done with them.  Also, as stated earlier, gender inclusivity should be addressed, particularly as it relates to pronoun use, insofar as that is becoming an increasingly important topic for younger people.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I may consider using this book in my course \"Structure of English\" , a linguistics course for English majors, since it is comprehensive, direct, and engaging.   It hits all the right notes and can be easily supplemented with additional online materials.","created_at":"2021-06-13T23:32:36.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-06-13T23:32:36.000-05:00"},{"id":34116,"first_name":"Jane","last_name":"Hardy","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Wabash College","comprehensiveness_rating":2,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text covers the four indicated subject areas (the history of English, language as communication, dialects, and language in the classroom), but some of the coverage is superficial and leaves out relevant, foundational material. For the history of English, it is very difficult to explain and understand sound changes in English or the Great Vowel Shift without at least basic knowledge of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and the English vowel triangle. The symbols used in the text are not well defined and are not used in the field of linguistics. On p. 8, there are pictures to illustrate the terms “dale,” “thwaite,” and “by” for place names, but there aren’t any examples. Similarly, there are no examples of loan words on p. 25, and there are no examples of syntactic or morphological changes in English other than changes in the pronominal system.\r\nThere are links to the “Do You Speak American?” video series with follow-up questions, but there is a lot of content in the videos that could be referenced later. It would be worth mentioning the 1979 Ann Arbor case in the section on AAVE and making reference to the origins and history of AAVE. There is a classroom “game” used to teach children to codeswitch, which could be referenced in the section on teaching SAE and bi-dialectalism (p. 63).\r\nThe section Language as Communication includes information on first language acquisition, but nothing on second language acquisition, which is highly relevant to English teachers. The section on dialects does not include anything on Chicano/Hispanic English or non-native Englishes. There are only two bullet points about pragmatics. There is a glossary, but some of the definitions are incomplete or inaccurate. (More on this below.) Finally, the author doesn’t provide citations in the text (for instance, where did the data on G dropping on p. 50 come from?), nor is there a bibliography where readers could find additional information or do further research.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Most of the content is accurate, although the Great Vowel Shift is usually dated from 1400-1700, not 1350-1550. Definitions of competence vs. performance aren’t exactly wrong, but they are narrow and do not correspond to definitions in other contemporary linguistics textbooks.\r\nThere are also several definitions in the glossary that are not entirely accurate: the definition of “accent” is too narrow, as it refers only to non-native speakers; the definition of “language” is also too narrow, as it excludes signed languages; “language acquisition” doesn’t include second language acquisition in the definition; loanwords can enter a language at any time, not only during the Middle English period; “mother tongue” usually refers to one’s first or home language; and the definition given for “phonology” is really the definition of “phonetics.” The definition of “prescriptivism” seems to have been cut off (“the school of thought that language”).","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The reference to “Baba Wawa” is already very dated. The “Do You Speak American?” series is quite old, but it’s still a good resource. Examples from AAVE and male vs. female communications styles will likely need updating sooner rather than later. The text should also address recent changes in third person pronoun use to include singular use of they/them. The text is arranged in such a way that such updates should be relatively easy to make.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The text is written in prose that should be very easy (perhaps even too easy) for college undergraduates. However, there are several places where information or context is lacking. For example, the acronym SEE (Signed Exact English) isn’t spelled out. The author identifies descriptivism and prescriptivism but doesn’t explain that linguistics as a discipline is descriptive rather than prescriptive (although this is explained in the introductory video). There are interesting activities and questions for discussion scattered throughout the text, but there isn’t always enough information or material included in the text for students to adequately respond without introducing supplementary materials. (For example, translating from Old English to Modern English, considering whether languages are diverging or converging, or whether English should be the official language of the US.)","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"There is internal consistency in terms of terminology. However, as mentioned above, the author occasionally defines and uses terms in ways that are not consistent with the way they are used in the field of linguistics.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is easily divisible into smaller sections that could be assigned in different orders and at different times within a course. There are plenty of headings and subheadings that guide the reader and make it easy to find information.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text is clearly organized. It is mostly good in terms of flow except at the beginning. There is a link to a video that provides an introduction to linguistics. This is immediately followed by the history of English, which doesn’t obviously fall within the 3 central branches of linguistics that are identified in the video.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"All of the links to external videos and websites worked well for me, although the video of the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales read in Middle English is no longer available (or at least it wasn’t available at the time of this review). It would be much easier to navigate if the links opened in a new window. When you return to the textbook after viewing other content, it takes you back to the beginning again.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"The text contains a few sentence fragments, comma splices, and incomplete sentences (specifically in the glossary). There is also at least one spelling error: “Endo-European” rather than “Indo-European” on p. 2.","cultural_rating":2,"cultural_review":"I appreciate the inclusion of AAVE and the very helpful information on ASL. Beyond that, there isn’t much in the way of cultural or racial diversity. There is nothing on Chicano English, immigrants, or second language speakers, which would be highly relevant to English teachers. \r\nSome of the presentation is insensitive or at least lacking in important nuance. For example, the characterizations of regional dialects in the US are superficial and only reinforce stereotypes. Furthermore, there are no citations or references to support the generalized descriptions. The map on p. 64 shows population percentages of African Americans in the US by state, but the heading refers to “nationalities.” The grouping of the deaf with “the feral” and “the abused” is highly inappropriate. The section on male/female communication styles asks students to state whether they agree or disagree with a series of statements, yet some of the information has been documented by research and isn’t really a matter of opinion. Asking if students agree or disagree could be a good warm-up activity, but it should then be followed by actual research findings. The video “A Tale of Two Brains” on p. 45 is highly inappropriate and presents gender differences in stereotypical and offensive ways. (Mark Gungor is a pastor and motivational speaker without any background in linguistics or neuroscience, so why include him?)","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"I appreciate the author’s work in creating a linguistics textbook for teachers of English. The layout is very attractive and it is clear and easy to follow. Sections of the book could be used as supplemental material, but I found it inadequate as a stand-alone text for a class. Important and relevant information is lacking, and some of the presentation is superficial. There are sections of the book that read more like an outline or early draft rather than a fully formed textbook. I am also troubled by the lack of citations or bibliography.","created_at":"2022-11-07T13:41:36.000-06:00","updated_at":"2022-11-07T13:41:36.000-06:00"},{"id":35173,"first_name":"Carly","last_name":"Martino","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Roxbury Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text covers everything that is presented in a very introductory way. The textbook covers the History of the English language and its roots, Language as Communication, Various Dialects of English and Language in the Classroom. While the the text covers the major areas of the topic, the content itself is very brief. If you are looking for an introductory/survey text, this is a good place to start, but you should expect to supplement this text with others that explore the topics in more detail. A glossary of terms and their definitions is included at the end of the textbook for reference.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I have no issues with the accuracy of the content presented.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The information that is included in the textbook adequately presents the information in clear and accurate way and mostly reflects modern attitudes towards language. However, since this is an introductory textbook, and take a survey-like approach, there is very limited information on the variety of Englishes that are found in the U.S. and in U.S. classrooms, For example, while the text presents a brief look at AAVE, there are no other ethnolects presented that represent the diversity of modern classrooms. Updates to include additional ethnolects such as Chicano English or sociolects would be helpful to modernize the text.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text presents the information in a clear and accessible way. The glossary and \"Quick Review\" at the end of each chapter increases the accessibility of the information.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The textbook is consistent in the presentation of the information and in the terminology used throughout.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is divided into smaller subsections for ease of incorporating into a course.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization is clear and strategic, starting with an overview of the history and roots of the language and moving into more modern and specific information and content.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The e-book and pdf versions of the textbook offer interactive parts that enhance the information presented. However, some of the links and videos no longer work.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book is free of grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The book is not offensive or insensitive but leaves out many cultural groups that are relevant. For example, Latinx \u0026 Hispanic groups are largely omitted from the book as well as other Caribbean linguistic groups. These groups make up a significant portion of the U.S. population and would be helpful to learn about. These groups are also largely represented in the Community College system, meaning that attention to their linguistic practices deserves attention.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2024-07-08T15:23:10.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-07-08T15:23:10.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/linguistics-for-teachers-of-english-russell","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:09:56.000-05:00"},{"id":844,"title":"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2019,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":null,"description":"Editoras: Paige Wilson, Margaret Saine, y Anna Traini Este libro, todavía en desarrollo, se dirige a estudiantes de español en universidades estadounidenses y pretende ofrecer una breve y simple introducción a la lingüística hispánica. Incluye conceptos básicos de la lingüística, brinda ensayos que abarcan temas de interés social conectando la lingüística con la vida diaria, y ejercicios para practicar los conceptos. También hay enlaces a materiales relevantes disponibles en la red. El libro está creado enteramente por textos escritos y materiales compartidos por estudiantes mayoritariamente de pregrado y también cuenta con el trabajo y esfuerzo de estudiantes-editoras en un proyecto a largo plazo de pedagogía abierta. Editors: Paige Wilson, Margaret Saine, and Anna Traini This book, a work in progress, is aimed at students of Spanish in universities in the USA and intends to offer a brief and simple introduction to the field of Hispanic Linguistics. It includes basic concepts in linguistics, essays that address topic of social relevance connecting linguistics to everyday life, and exercises to practice the concepts. Links to relevant material across the internet are also provided. The book is entirely created from texts and materials authored by mainly undergraduate students and it also includes the work and effort of student-editors, as part of a long-term open pedagogy project.","contributors":[{"id":5160,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Ashwini","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Ganeshan","location":"Ohio University","background_text":"Ashwini Ganeshan, Ohio University"},{"id":5161,"contribution":"Editor","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Paige","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Wison","location":null,"background_text":"Paige Wilson"},{"id":5162,"contribution":"Editor","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Margaret","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Saine","location":null,"background_text":"Margaret Saine"}],"subjects":[{"id":31,"name":"Languages","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P51","visible_textbooks_count":123,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/languages"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"}],"publishers":[{"id":823,"url":"https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/opentextbooks/3/","year":2019,"created_at":"2020-06-25T13:54:32.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-25T13:56:14.000-05:00","name":"Ashwini Ganeshan"}],"formats":[{"id":1475,"type":"PDF","url":"https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/opentextbooks/3/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1478,"type":"Online","url":"https://linghispintro.pressbooks.com/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1690,"type":"eBook","url":"https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/opentextbooks/3/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":3,"reviews":[{"id":4485,"first_name":"Farah","last_name":"Ali","position":"Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies","institution_name":"DePauw University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The first chapter introduces linguistics as a field and covers some of the basic topics one would expect to find in an introductory chapter (communicative competence, multilingualism, prescriptivism vs. descriptivism, basic functions of language, etc.) and even includes some content that should be in more linguistics texts (professional applications of linguistics). The second chapter provides a thorough discussion of phonetics (introducing terminology, IPA, place and manner of articulation, vowels and consonants, and an interesting section of accents and prejudice (something not often found in introductory texts). Additionally, it provides various relevant exercises/activities that allow students to practice the content covered in the text. However, for an introductory linguistics course, I would have also expected to find material on other core areas of linguistics, such as morphology, syntax, and perhaps sociolinguistics. None of these topics are discussed, so I do think that limits the textbook's effectiveness for an introductory linguistics course that usually covers all of these different topics.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate and error-free.  There does not appear to be any strong bias; the text provides examples from a variety of contexts, including Latin America, Caribbean and peninsular Spanish. The text employs the gender-neutral 'x' throughout.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date and generally relies on widely accepted approaches in Hispanic linguistics, which I do not expect to become obsolete in the near future. Any necessary updates that might seem necessary should be relatively easy to implement and would not be frequently needed. The only item that requires immediate updating is the link to \"Sounds of Speech\" https://soundsofspeech.uiowa.edu/home which will no longer be functioning as of January 2021.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is written in Spanish, and in a very clear, accessible, and somewhat informal style that should be fairly comprehensible to advanced students. Specific linguistic terminology/new concepts are also explained clearly.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The terminology and frameworks presented in the textbook are consistently operationalized throughout.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Each chapter is divided into subsections, all of which are very manageable chunks of reading. Typically each subsection is no more than a few pages, so reading assignments can be very easily divided for any type of course timetable.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is generally well organized. The topics discussed are covered in a cohesive manner with smooth and logical transitions.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The textbook includes links to relevant and interesting sources for further reading, which is a great asset. However, these are only accessible via the online text. The PDF version does not provide website addresses, so there is no way to access the resources that are suggested. There are also the occasional formatting issues (such as the omission of spaces between words).","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text does not appear to have any grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text draws on a examples from different varieties of Spanish, none of which appear to be culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. Furthermore, the language is inclusive in its use of gender-neutral 'x,' which it employs consistently throughout the text.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"In the final section of the textbook, there is a bit of an issue with referring to second language learner accents as \"problemas.\" It is true that language learners are not always able to pronounce certain sounds exactly as a native speaker, but I think that this wording can perpetuate the idea that the monolingual, native speaker must be the yardstick against which second language speakers must measure, and will inevitably always fall short.","created_at":"2020-12-28T12:36:12.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-12-28T12:36:12.000-06:00"},{"id":35002,"first_name":"Alejandra","last_name":"Rodriguez","position":"Associate Professor of Spanish","institution_name":"Hanover College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The author has released two chapters of an ongoing series: an introductory overview of linguistics and a segment on Spanish phonetics. Both are presented in an approachable manner suitable for students proficient in Spanish but new to linguistics. The comprehensive index assists students in differentiating the varied aspects covered in each chapter. Moreover, the book is rich with links to external articles, resources, and sources of current significance, fostering deeper exploration into the topics studied. Each chapter concludes with a detailed set of exercises, accompanied by an answer key, to reinforce and solidify the material learned.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The text is remarkably accurate and devoid of errors. In terms of neutrality, the author has opted for the use of the letter 'x' to eschew the gendered nature of Spanish, aligning with one perspective on the contemporary and contentious debate over language and its socio-political implications, including considerations of phonetics and linguistic colonialism.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The material is up-to-date and is unlikely to become outdated soon, given the author's deliberate inclusion of both contemporary linguistic trends and historical overviews of past methodologies. The content breadth is sufficient to accommodate the ebb and flow of academic discourse.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"While the grammar and syntax are exemplary, the text's approachable tone distinguishes it from the sometimes dry vernacular typical of linguistic literature. A suggestion for improvement would be the incorporation of more visual elements, such as boxes and color coding, to differentiate various structures and categories within the topics studied.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book demonstrates exceptional consistency in its use of terminology and theoretical frameworks.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Given that only two chapters are currently available, the potential for modularity is not fully evident, considering the inherently cumulative nature of linguistics, but it seems the author goes in the right direction to achieve it.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"With the release of just two chapters, the structure is currently clear and logical, encompassing an introduction to linguistics and phonetics.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The interface is functional with no notable issues, apart from a text-heavy design that could be improved for better reader engagement. Future chapters should strive to balance text with visual aids like images, synoptic tables, or conceptual maps to enhance understanding in a less verbose fashion.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are no grammatical issues to note, though the PDF version sometimes lacks proper spacing between words.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is culturally considerate, encompassing various Spanish dialects and their interactions with English, which benefits English-speaking students.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2024-04-12T17:25:35.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-04-12T17:25:35.000-05:00"},{"id":35363,"first_name":"Ana","last_name":"Pena-Oliva","position":"Senior Lecturer","institution_name":"The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"\"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" by Ashwini Ganeshan is a great introduction to Hispanic linguistics book. This book presents a remarkably comprehensive overview of Hispanic linguistics and covers a wide range of topics, providing an in-depth analysis of each. This book is an invaluable resource for those studying linguistics, whether they are novice or experts in the field. The book is easy to understand and makes complex ideas readily comprehensible to readers with varying levels of expertise in the field of Hispanic linguistics.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"\"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" by Ashwini Ganeshan does an excellent job of presenting complex linguistic concepts with outstanding clarity and accuracy. The book offers a well-researched and accessible introduction to the field of Hispanic linguistics, making it a valuable resource for anyone trying to understand or to learn how language works.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"\"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" by Ashwini Ganeshan is very accessible when it comes to the explanation of complex concepts in the field of Hispanic linguistics, which makes it a highly relevant resource for those trying to acquire a better understanding of the field of Hispanic linguistics.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The textbook is very clear and concise. It communicates ideas effectively, without any ambiguity or confusion. It uses plain language and when it comes to vocabulary or ideas that might be unfamiliar to the reader, it presents clear and concise explanations.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The textbook is very consistent, topics and subtopics are presented in a similar and orderly fashion that is logical, and which enhances the reading experience.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The content of \"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" is structured into distinct chapters and sections, with each chapter focusing on a specific topic, allowing readers to easily navigate and understand the information presented in the different parts of the book. The book is divided in chapters that area manageable and that can be read independently while still contributing to the overall topic of Hispanic linguistics.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"\"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" is accurately organized, with a clear logical progression through its key concepts. Each chapter builds upon the previous one, seamlessly introducing new information while providing ample context through well-placed summaries and cross-references. The use of headings and subheadings is particularly effective, allowing readers to easily navigate complex topics and quickly locate relevant details.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"\"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" has a well-designed interface as it is easy to read. The book has visual hierarchy, and it has clear organization which enhances the reading experience. Besides this, the book is available in different formats pdf, online and eBook.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are some minor mistakes, but generally speaking, the book is grammatically accurate. \n¿Para que nos sirve saber más que una lengua? ¿Para qué nos sirve saber más que una lengua?\nCuando tuvo 13 años, Genie fue rescatada por las autoridades y una lingüista se hizo amiga de ella y trataba de enseñarle a hablar y a escribir.\nCuando tenía 13 años, Genie fue rescatada por las autoridades y una lingüista se hizo amiga de ella y trataba de enseñarle a hablar y a escribir.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The content of \"La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción\" directly connects to the social contexts of Hispanic cultures, incorporating elements like language variations, idioms, social practices, and historical references that resonate with Hispanic communities, allowing readers to understand linguistic features within their cultural framework.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"No additional comments","created_at":"2024-12-18T01:14:39.000-06:00","updated_at":"2024-12-18T01:14:39.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/la-linguistica-hispanica-una-introduccion-capitulo-1-y-2-disponibles-otros-capitulos-en-desarrollo-ganeshan","updated_at":"2026-06-15T09:25:34.000-05:00"},{"id":846,"title":"Bate-Papo","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2019,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":null,"license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"An Introduction to Portuguese","contributors":[{"id":5164,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Eduardo","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Viana da Silva","location":"University of Washington","background_text":"Eduardo Viana da Silva, University of Washington"}],"subjects":[{"id":31,"name":"Languages","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P51","visible_textbooks_count":123,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/languages"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"}],"publishers":[{"id":825,"url":"https://uw.pressbooks.pub/batepapo/","year":2019,"created_at":"2020-06-25T15:41:36.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-25T15:41:42.000-05:00","name":"University of Washington"}],"formats":[{"id":1480,"type":"Online","url":"https://uw.pressbooks.pub/batepapo/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1481,"type":"PDF","url":"https://uw.pressbooks.pub/batepapo/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1482,"type":"eBook","url":"https://uw.pressbooks.pub/batepapo/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":null,"textbook_reviews_count":0,"reviews":[],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/bate-papo-viana-da-silva","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:11.000-05:00"},{"id":357,"title":"Reading With My Eyes Open: Embracing the critical and the personal in language pedagogy","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2013,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":"9781909188211","license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"Untangling the various approaches to language teaching and their history, Gerdi Quist maps recent thinking in language studies at university. Using an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, drawn from educational philosophy, cultural studies, intercultural studies and language pedagogy, the author discusses the many tensions and currents in contemporary language teaching. The author puts forward an alternative pedagogy, that of a cultuurtekst-perspective, which engages learners at complex linguistic and cultural levels. In discussing the case study in which this approach is tested, the author develops her argument for embracing various critical perspectives through the personal engagement of students. From the start the author acknowledges her own engaged position as a language teacher in a liberal humanistic educational environment. She adopts a self-critical perspective through which her engagement with adverse student reaction leads to deepening insights both for the author and her students as part of the non-linear process of learning. Gerdi Quist teaches Dutch language and lectures on multiculturalism and intercultural communication. Recent publications included a book chapter and journal articles on language pedagogy and intercultural communication.","contributors":[{"id":3843,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Gerdi","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Quist","location":"University College London","background_text":"Dr. Gerdi Quist. Lecturer in Dutch. Currently researches language-and-culture teaching and the development of language learning materials from a social semiotic perspective. As well as publishing theoretical articles on the issue, she has also produced self-study materials for Dutch as a Foreign Language."}],"subjects":[{"id":5,"name":"Education","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"L7","visible_textbooks_count":144,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/education"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"},{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/humanities"}],"publishers":[{"id":268,"url":"http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=533884","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-26T13:17:20.000-05:00","name":"Ubiquity Press"}],"formats":[{"id":448,"type":"PDF","url":"https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/33210","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":6,"reviews":[{"id":1635,"first_name":"Mikel","last_name":"Cole","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Clemson University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The author is clear that this textbook is \"based on a classroom study exploring a particular intercultural\napproach to language teaching\", she does a commendable job situating her cultuurtekst approach to language teaching in historical context. The first two chapters also do a decent job of presenting the theoretical framework in which the study is situated. It is not, however, a thorough overview of language teaching approaches (e.g., grammar-translation, audiolingual, task-based).","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"There are some minor type-editing issues (e.g., the following sentence fragment on page 1: Secondly, that attempting\nto develop students’ critical awareness and language competence would need an even clearer conceptualisation coupled with a more considered pedagogical approach.). However, there are no glaring misrepresentations of competing theoretical perspectives or empirical research.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The text presents a close examination of a new/emergent language teaching approach, grounded in empirical data drawn from the author's own teaching experience at a \"traditional university\" in Britain. AS such, it is much like a published study, or dissertation. It promises to inform ongoing scholarship, especially as publishable manuscripts make their way into the academic mainstream. This text also stands out in the OER world as a rare example of a textbook focused on innovative approaches to language teaching.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The author writes in an incredibly approachable style, even when delving deeply into critical theoretical approaches in Chapters 2-3. There is certainly a fair amount of jargon, as the author coins new terms and employs relatively-new theoretical constructs. however, they are explained with the patience and clarity of a classroom teacher, and students/teachers/researchers alike will find it easy to read and useful.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The author carefully lays out the theoretical perspectives used throughout the book. Terminology is consistent throughout.","modularity_rating":3,"modularity_review":"I imagine that the clear organization of material would make the book highly appropriate for remixing/reusing the material. The potential for modularity is considerable, though honestly, I would worry that much would be lost in the process. This is a dissertation-style, expansive report on a single study. The theoretical/historical sections are probably fine to excerpt, but I wonder if the data and implication sections would stand well on their own.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"As demonstrated clearly in the Table of Contents, and in the use of Headers and Subheaders throughout, the book is very well organized.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"the text is free of interface issues, as it loads neatly in .pdf format.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"See my note in the \"Clarity\" section. There are some typographical issues here and there throughout the text. It might benefit from a professional type-editing pass.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"This text is culturally relevant, but perhaps not in the way this question is intended. I imagine the question to be asking about cultural relevance or responsiveness as discussed in Geneva Gay, Gloria Ladson-Billings, and Samy Alim and Django Paris. Rather than drawing on culturally-specific knowledge about students and their communities to transform classroom pedagogy, this book does a nice job of centering the cultural aspects of language learning. In fact, this is the focus of Chapters 2-3.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1769,"first_name":"Karin","last_name":"Sprow Forté","position":"Professor-in-Charge, ESL","institution_name":"Penn State Harrisburg","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text provides a comprehensive view of two theoretical approaches (traditional, instrumental vs. liberal humanist) to language teaching in a UK university and discusses how their underlying theoretical assumptions ground language teaching paradigms. These concepts are then connected to the traditional separation of the culture and language, decreasing the potential for language learners to communicate intercutlurally. The second half of the book focuses specifically on the author's research on these topics in the classroom as learners interact with written texts. ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The theory content is accurate, and the research content appears to the same. The author has a clear goal of exploring and interpreting the data from a particular theoretical perspective.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The content of the book is relevant to today's discussions of language and culture, particularly in light of the globalization that increase every day with the ability to communicate with individuals all over the world at a moment's notice. For traditionally-oriented language teachers, the text provides a contrasting view of how language teaching in this developing environment can be interpreted and implemented.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The prose is clear and accessible to individuals with some background in learning and language learning approaches.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is consistent and clear in the way it explains ideas and the path on which the author takes the reader. The organization of the book is logical. ","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The chapters in the first half of the book are easily divisible into smaller reading sections and clearly laid out in a logical way to assist instructors in identifying when to utilize which sections. The second half of the book is referential and would need to be read in order. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics are presented in a logical order and follow the traditional dissertation pattern, making it easily accessible to those in academia.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no interface issues noted. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammar errors were noted, but readers should be aware of the fact that the author is writing from the UK. Readers from other English-speaking locations may find some word and phrase choices to be distracting. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is culturally relevant, particularly in light of the intercultural communication topics addressed in the book. ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This text is appropriate for graduate-level courses in language acquisition and/or culturally responsive pedagogy courses. ","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":2576,"first_name":"Andrea","last_name":"Emerson","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Western Oregon University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text covers the rich history of language pedagogy from two important perspectives.  Both the critical and the personal lenses for studying and questioning language and text are unpacked for the reader at length in the first half of the book.  The second half of Reading with My Eyes Open provides applied examples of the researchers observations of students encountering themselves as they engage in text and discourse analysis.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The content I found most helpful was the historical and theoretical perspectives of language pedagogy.  My work with pre-service teachers requires that I help them see how they are cultured.  This text provides consumable history and theory as tools for pre-service teachers to explore their interpretations of language both personally and professionally.  I think the content of this book provides a strong foundation for discussions regarding new approaches such as Emdin's (2016) Reality Pedagogy.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The historical and theoretical content of this text is somewhat timeless.  The interpretations and practical applications are subject to the constant questioning and reinvention of pedagogy in educational research.  Nonetheless, I think this text provides a strong foundation and is relevant for initiating discussions that assert that the cultural and the critical are not new trends in language development or education at large.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The theoretical and historical nature of this text may prove dense for some readers.  Nonetheless, the author does a good job of keeping the prose concise and intentional","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The author is consistent in the utilization of vocabulary relevant to language pedagogy throughout the text.  In addition, each chapter is careful to introduce, define, and cite additional concepts and terms in order to orient the reader.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"This text would be a great addition to any syllabus inviting pre-service teachers to consider the complexity of language in the classroom.  Chapter 2 provides a strong foundation for further discussion of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Reality Pedagogy, or even the recent Abolitionist Teaching.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The book is well organized.  The table of contents provides a clear guide to the themes of each chapter.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text has no interface issues.  ","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"The book is written in British English.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"This text addresses culture head on.  The theoretical and historical perspectives to seeing language through personal culture has potential to be a powerful tool for students in higher education.  This approach informs students in ways that doesn't directly question their own implicit or explicit culturally biased use of language and text.  ","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2019-02-21T09:38:35.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-02-21T09:38:35.000-06:00"},{"id":2753,"first_name":"Jack","last_name":"Peterson","position":"Associate Professor of English Language Teaching","institution_name":"Taylor University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text gives a comprehensive treatment of how liberal humanist and instrumentalist approaches to education have informed the language classroom. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The classroom study that anchors the book is presented with nuanced complexity. Quist carefully addresses the biases of the author in how the classroom enactment is analysed. ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The theoretical framework that sets up the foundational study for this book could benefit from more recent approaches to language pedagogy, particularly those informed by translingual approaches to language. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"This book is clearly written. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The reader comes away with a strong understanding of the problems and concepts that are immanent to this text. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"There are sections that could certainly supplement other classrooms on language pedagogy and culture. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book reads like a dissertation study. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no distracting or confusing interface issues. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not encounter any grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Intercultural communication is a central concept of this book and is presented with great sensitivity. ","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"After an insightful treatment of the shortcomings of liberal humanist and instrumental approaches to language teaching, Gerdi Quist critiques approaches to teaching culture in language pedagogy as being out of step with a world of interconnectedness and fluidity. The fixedness on culture as national attributes found in the influential CEFR is a particularly prescient focus of Quist’s book. \r\nQuist incorporates an ethnographic approach to texts in the language classroom that allows her students to “be intercultural” as they are languaging, rather than merely acquiring cultural knowledge or functions of language that allow for intercultural communication. \r\nQuist shows how these ideas are enacted in a Dutch language classroom, to great effect. The result is not a neatly packaged study, but one that revels in the complexities of being intercultural in the language classroom. \r\nI see this text as useful in a couple of ways. One, it was helpful to me as a language professor to articulate the foundations of the tensions that I experience in a higher education classroom. In this regard, this text will be valuable to those thinking about what it means to teach language in today’s world. Secondly, I could see the theoretical framework that Quist develops in the first few chapters as being helpful supplements to any undergraduate or graduate level classroom concerned with thinking through the relationship between language and culture, and how this relationship is manifest in the modern college or university. \r\n","created_at":"2019-04-09T12:54:44.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-04-09T12:54:44.000-05:00"},{"id":3877,"first_name":"Xue","last_name":"Song","position":"Adjunct Chinese Instructor","institution_name":"Bunker Hill Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"Although the book is based on the author's classroom study, it provides information related to basic concepts. The holistic introduction of theories and the unique classroom practice of the author in language education are organized in a concise and clear manner. The index and glossary are effective and helpful.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book is student-centered from several perspectives. First, by introducing and presenting conflicts between language and culture learning, as well as students' feedback on different approaches, the content is to a certain extent unbiased and encourages critical thinking. Moreover, the concept and relationship of language, culture, education and pedagogy are organized to bring people into the reality of university language teaching and learning, instead of just textbook theory. I think a good textbook is not the one that covers all  concepts of a certain area, but presents and highlights the notions that are worth discussing and/or implementing.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The focus on personal experience in language classes is up-to-date and culturally responsive. The author encourages pedagogies of engagement where students can make personal connections with the language and even the community behind it. By far, this is the direction that a lot of researchers and educators are heading towards and is worth discussing.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"As the author explains this new theory, there are quit a number of terms taken from other researchers and created by Quist. Most of the terms, however, are provided with detailed historical information and are illustrated in various contexts.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is pretty consistent in terms of terminology and framework. The overall structure follows a historical timeline and a balance between theory and practice.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections if there's need to just emphasize on only some parts of the book. Other than giving readers a taste of each chapter in the Introduction, each chapter has its own introduction and conclusion. Within each chapter, the main terms/ideas/concepts are distinguished and are reader-friendly.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The text is logical and clear. The highlight that distinguishes this textbook from some theoretical and analytical books might be its illustration of the author's unique classroom data. The interviews of two students are at the very different ends of the spectrum. It might be more objective to include more information from students who are in the middle.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No interface issue identified.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors identified.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"As mentioned before, the approach advocated by the author is culturally responsive. It's  inspiring and encouraging to see that culture has been considered as an organic part of a language class with more than extracurricular cultural activities. One thing might also need to be taken into consideration is that the further the difference between a learner's native culture and a target culture is, the more efforts and strategies we may need to cross the barrier in learning.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I think this will be a good book/reference for a course like creative pedagogy or second language acquisition.","created_at":"2020-05-31T11:59:26.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-05-31T11:59:26.000-05:00"},{"id":4646,"first_name":"Sarah","last_name":"Knowles","position":"Professorial Lecturer","institution_name":"American University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text is extremely comprehensive in its discussion of various approaches to foreign language teaching over the years. The discussions of culture/intercultural theories are also very robust. The integration of language teaching theories with culture/intercultural theories (Chaps. 1-3) provides a thorough background to the research study that Quist describes in Chaps. 4-5 and in her concluding chapter. The research context, participants, and methods are described in detail. The index includes topics and referenced scholars. There is no glossary, although the concepts discussed in the book are well-defined and illustrated through citing and responding to seminal sources.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is well-aligned with the work of the best-known scholars in this area (e.g., Kramsch, Byram, Foucault, etc.) and accurately reflects their definitions and perspectives. Although I am not an expert in this area myself, the claims seem to be well-supported through relevant cited literature and the argumentation is logical. Her interpretations of her data are reflective of the theoretical concepts that provided the foundation for her study. It's helpful to have so many verbatim quotations from her participants (from transcribed classroom interactions and transcribed interviews), which strengthens the credibility of her analysis.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"It’s interesting that Quist is reporting on a study that she conducted many years prior to writing this book, while reflecting on how her own pedagogy has changed since that time. Quist references seminal, earlier works from key scholars that have been since updated by those authors, so we get the sense that she is reflecting both the origins of these ideas and how the ideas have evolved over time. Since she is reporting on a study that was conducted many years ago, I doubt that there would be a need for updating. However, I would love to learn more about what she is currently doing as a result of her reflexive practices in this area.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Readers will need a substantial amount of background knowledge in language teaching, critical pedagogies, discourse and culture studies, and intercultural communicative competence in order to understand the text. This text is definitely not an introductory text nor one that would appeal to someone without a philosophical orientation to the topic. However, I found her discussions and connections to these theories to be very helpful and validating. I have certainly read more accessible texts on these topics, but her discussions are insightful in providing a “next level” context. She is a very good writer, and manages to balance the heavy theorizing in Chaps. 1-3 with the more pragmatic research descriptions and findings in Chaps. 4-6.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Yes – we see the same ideas/concepts woven throughout the chapters. She constructs strong, coherent threads among the theories and the research and the classroom practice.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I would suggest reading the book chapter by chapter, although each chapter does have many well-titled subheadings that could be sectioned off. However, each chapter presents such a thorough discussion of the particular concepts that it would be difficult to divide the reading of each chapter into smaller reading sections. The text is very well-organized, reviewing what was previously discussed and previewing how it connects to future chapters in the book.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"In some ways, the book reads like a doctoral dissertation with extensive introduction and literature review making the case for the study (Chaps. 1-3) and then methods and findings presented (Chaps. 4-5). The conceptual chapters are lengthy and contain quite a bit of information that requires a concentrated reading. However, the subheadings are clear and the internal structure (reviewing, previewing, connecting) is very effective in linking the overall organization of the argumentation and evidence. \r\n\r\nA small suggestion would be to re-format the TOC so that the main subheadings are indented and not bolded. In the TOC, Chaps 2-3 and 4-6 all have bolded subheadings that are aligned and formatted in the same way as the title of the chapters themselves. The bolding of certain main subheadings (e.g., ‘Teaching Culture’ in Chap. 2 and ‘Intercultural Communication in Language Teaching’ in Chap. 3) is confusing, especially because they are the same font/alignment as the chapter titles themselves.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No interface problems.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors or infelicities.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The topic of the book is centered on intercuturality and intercultural competence; it is not insensitive or offensive but rather provides important rationales and compelling data for how/why we should approach foreign language teaching in a more humane, meaningful, and personal way.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I teach graduate students in a TESOL program, so I was hoping that this book would be useful for my methods and cultural issues courses. After reading the book myself, I don’t think I would use it in my graduate TESOL courses. My students don’t have the requisite background knowledge on the topic. Many of them are non-native English users themselves who would struggle with the level of academic writing in this book. The book would be more suited to PhD students or other scholars who specialize in this area. \r\n\r\nHowever, I find it extremely useful for myself in clarifying my own understanding of the topic and in identifying examples of  English language teaching approaches that I want to share with my students. I can reference Quist’s concepts, research, and findings in my own classes and distill key takeaways for my students. Her work is meant to inform classroom practice rather than to stay in the ivory tower. I appreciate the depth of thought, research, reflection, and connection that Quist infuses throughout the book. \r\n\r\nI would love for her final chapter to be extended to share *more* of what she currently does now in her classroom practice. My only real criticism of the book is that it focuses on a previous iteration of her practice that has since evolved; although it is helpful to understand how thought and practice evolve, it would be great to see a “part 2” written with an updated discussion of how she continues to evolve her practices in addressing discourse and interculturality in L2 instruction.","created_at":"2021-02-24T21:49:34.000-06:00","updated_at":"2021-02-24T21:49:34.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/reading-with-my-eyes-open-embracing-the-critical-and-the-personal-in-language-pedagogy","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:05:52.000-05:00"},{"id":358,"title":"Conventions 101: A Functional Approach to Teaching (And Assessing!) Grammar and Punctuation","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2016,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"This is a collection of cumulative units of study for conventional errors common in student writing. It's flexible, functional, and zeroes in problems typically seen in writing of all types, from the eternal “there/they're/their” struggle to correct colon use. Units are organized from most simple to most challenging.","contributors":[{"id":3845,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Chauna","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Ramsey","location":"Columbia Gorge Community College","background_text":"Chauna Ramsey grew up in Dundee, Oregon and now lives in Hood River, where she has taught for over twenty years at Hood River Valley High School."}],"subjects":[{"id":5,"name":"Education","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"L7","visible_textbooks_count":144,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/education"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"},{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/humanities"},{"id":33,"name":"Literature, Rhetoric, and Poetry","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"PE1408","visible_textbooks_count":124,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/literature-rhetoric-and-poetry"}],"publishers":[{"id":381,"url":"https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","name":"Open Oregon Educational Resources"}],"formats":[{"id":654,"type":"Online","url":"https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/conventions101","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1626,"type":"PDF","url":"https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/conventions101","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1627,"type":"eBook","url":"https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/conventions101","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":27,"reviews":[{"id":765,"first_name":"Marie","last_name":"Lechelt","position":"ESL/English Instructor and Writing Center Co-director","institution_name":"Riverland Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text does exactly what it says it does in the introduction.  It covers many errors in grammar and punctuation that are commonly made by our students.  The index lists the topics and each chapter included a brief description of how to teach the topic with helpful links to handouts, practice exercises, and quizzes. It does not cover every grammar or punctuation topic, nor should it.  Instead, it focuses on those that students struggle with the most. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"After thoroughly reading the explanations on each grammar and punctuation topic, I did not find any errors.  The rules are at times brief, but they are correct.  As explained in the introduction, Chauna Ramsey is not included formal rules or using complex grammatical jargon.  Instead, the topics are explained in an easy to understand language.  Unnecessary rules are not included. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date, as grammar and punctuation rules rarely change.  Every student in a Freshman Composition course and others need this information.  They are common errors that I have seen throughout all of my students' writing over many years.  If other topics need to be added, they would be easily incorporated. In addition, other materials that may be used in the future (worksheets, PowerPoint presentations, websites, etc.) could be added with ease.  I believe this text could be used far into the future by English teachers. ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The premise of this text is to not use any jargon or technical terminology.  While the author admits that some grammatical terms must be used, like run-on or fragment, other unnecessary terms are not used.  These terms and others like them are used consistently in all English courses, so students need to understand them.  However, difficult grammatical terms, like dependent clause, are not included.  Even without these, the author is able to clearly explain each rule and then have students practice that rule.  If there was more detail or expansion in the chapter summaries, this would be helpful.  Each introduction to each chapter is almost exactly the same.  ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Consistent terms are used throughout the book.  He adds each previous chapters content to the quiz for the next chapter, so students are required to remember all that they have learned.  Many times, after the test, rules are forgotten, but this method reinforces each grammatical or punctuation point.  The book is well-organized, and each chapter lays out a similar framework for teaching the material, so it is extremely consistent. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text would most likely be used by instructors to teach the material, not students.  The handouts, worksheets, and assessments would be used by students though.  These are found in the links in each chapter.  If needed, an instructor could easily pick and choose which topics she would like to teach.  Certain chapters may be skipped, if the students already understand the topic.  As the author mentions, the practice exercises can also be skipped, if they are not needed. ","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"As mentioned earlier, the organization is very clear.  There is an introduction, which is humorous, realistic, and informative.  Next, each chapter includes a brief explanation of the topic is taught and the links to the materials used to teach the topic.  It is extremely clear, but additional information specific to each topic may be helpful as well. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no interface issues in this text.  It is easy to navigate, and there are no other features to distract or confuse the reader. I did notice that if you open the text as a pdf, the links do not appear.  Viewing it as an online book works the best.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Since this book is about grammar, clearly grammar was looked at closely by the author.  While the introduction is fairly informal, there were no significant grammatical errors that hindered the reader's understanding anywhere in the book. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The purpose of this book is to teach grammar and punctuation.  Because of this, no cultural material is mentioned.  There are not culturally insensitive or offensive materials in this book. ","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"This is material that I have used in my English classes for many years.  It is extremely relevant.  Some instructors may feel that they should not have to teacher grammatical or punctuation conventions, but it is necessary when our students will be judged on whether of not they know these in their future writing.  All these materials put together in one place with exercises and quizzes is very helpful. I will use this book in the future. ","created_at":"2016-12-05T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2016-12-05T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":960,"first_name":"Jean","last_name":"Mittelstaet","position":"Writing instructor","institution_name":"Chemeketa Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text provides material for teachers and students to preassess, teach, practice, and assess the correct use of the conventions of standard Written English in student writing.  There is a pre-test which teachers or students could use to gauge exactly what areas need work.  Each “unit” which follows includes one or two conventions issues (like “their there they’re” or “you’re your” or “two to too”).  There are two versions of the instructional material; each file contains information, examples, practice exercises, and quizzes.   At the end is a post-test which could be used simply as a final “gauge” or a more comprehensive “final exam.”  While not every conventions issue is addressed, the text includes many of the common ones found in student writing, particularly first-year comp students or those with less experience writing.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Explanations and examples in each unit are generally correct.  And since grammar instruction is by necessity rather dry, there is no bias on the part of the author.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"When people communicate in writing, there are always issues with conventions.  When a reader encounters such issues, it is hard for him to ignore the issues and focus on the message.  Indeed, this may bias a reader against the message.  So addressing issues with conventions is definitely relevant and will always be so.  The instructional material can be easily updated as a teacher requires for student strengths or learning needs.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The prose in the book is quite readable.  The content and writing style are appropriate for the target audiences:  teachers who want to give students extra instruction in the conventions of standard written English.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is very consistent from beginning to end.  Information is easy to find, different names are not used for the same concept, and meaning is clear to readers of all levels.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is very modular, in that each unit is self-contained.  A teacher could cover part or all a unit with a class or could assign it to individual students as needed.  A teacher could even provide a link to this text in a resources page and refer students to it for their own use, even after a term is concluded.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The first chapter discusses how teachers could make use of the text.  The next chapter is a pre-assessment activity, and the final unit contains a post-assessment.  Individual units in between are in no particular order, which does not interfere with the usage of this text, since teachers can pick what is needed and not have to progress through increasingly more difficult material.  That is not the purpose of this text, so its organization works well for all users.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The “Online” version (Pressbooks) is the best and easiest to use.  Accessed via Web browser, it can be used by any user with an Internet-enabled device.  The Table of Contents provides easy access to each unit.  Once on a unit’s page, links to the instructional material in Word and PDF format are apparent at the top of each page.  These links are also present in the eBook versions, although the interface is less elegant and requires a user to download the document.  Once done, it is also readily used.  The PDF version, while containing all the content, is very utilitarian in appearance and use.  Links to the instructional material are not clearly delineated; a user would not know they were links without mousing over them.  This is not intuitive to students at all, who should be directed to the “Online” version.  ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are few to no discernible errors in the standard written English of this textbook.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The instructional material and examples are basic in nature and do not provide any offensiveness or insensitivity.  Because it is quite customizable by a teacher, culturally relevant examples could be added if she wanted to.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Good resource for teachers of writing on many levels.  I will definitely consider using it in my own classroom.","created_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1055,"first_name":"Amelia","last_name":"Kaspari","position":"Part Time Faculty","institution_name":"Chemeketa Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book has a relatively focused scope: common errors that high school and college students make regarding spelling of common words, punctuation, and grammar. Ramsey's goal does not seem to be comprehensive (there are many, many common mistakes not included in the book - \"past/passed,\" \"breath/breathe,\" etc.), but the lessons that are included seem to target some of the more crucial and widespread mistakes students make. This book would make a great supplement to other texts that provide instruction regarding the writing process.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is highly accurate in terms of quiz questions and explanation of rules. A few of the grammar rules seem a little prescriptive and oversimplified (this author tells her students to avoid the word \"you\" in academic writing because it is \"too casual and vague,\" which is usually true, and very helpful for high school students, but college students might need a little more nuance).","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The grammar rules that are included are foundational enough that they will probably be relevant for quite some time. The sample sentences in the worksheets and quizzes are generally not culturally bound, and would hold up well over time. A couple of rules (the difference between \"all ready\" and \"already,\" and \"all right\" and \"alright\") may indeed be undergoing some change, at least in spoken language, but overall the content is extremely relevant, especially in the academic writing setting.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Ramsey does an excellent job using language that students can understand, and avoiding jargon such as grammatical terminology that would only confuse, rather than enlighten, students. However, some explanations seem a little simplistic - the explanation for \"there\" (as opposed to \"their/they're) is that \"there\" is a response to \"Where?\" or \"How many?\" But there are many other uses of the word \"there,\" as in this sentence, which Ramsey doesn't elaborate on.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The layout is fairly consistent - although I noticed in the second unit, Ramsey begins introducing Spanish terms to clarify the meaning of English words - specifically, the difference between \"your\" and \"you're.\" This makes perfect sense for many education environments, but may cause confusion in others.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The text is clearly divided into short units, and each unit contains a worksheet in PDF and Word format and a quiz, also in PDF and Word. It would be easy to target a unit that covers errors a particular group of students is making. However, the quizzes are cumulative, so you may need to adapt a quiz to fit your needs, if you haven't covered all of the previous units.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Ramsey states in her intro that the units progress from least difficult to most difficult; this seems to be true. In addition, quizzes are cumulative, so each quiz incorporates information from previous units, in addition to info from the current unit.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The interface works well. The text itself is for teachers and instructors, and the PDFs and Word documents are for students (worksheets and quizzes). The materials are designed to be printed and completed by hand - there are questions that ask you to circle things, fill in the blanks, etc. This would be difficult to do with an online class, but works well if the instructor is prepared to print out worksheets and quizzes.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Ramsey is a careful and grammar-conscious writer.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"Overall, the material is neutral when it comes to race, ethnicity, and background, although sample sentences and exercises seem a little careless in regards to gender. In the unit on distinguishing between \"women/woman,\" sample sentences often deal with jewelry and shopping, etc. While these sample sentences are intended to be simple, to put the focus on grammar and punctuation, they occasionally feel a tad reductive. \n\nIn addition, in the pretest, a multiple choice question containing 8 sentences (one of which was correctly punctuated) also includes the sentence: \"I didn't take no test's.\" This could provide a great opportunity to talk with students about dialects, Black English, etc., but in the context of the pretest, it seemed a bit odd and out of place, compared to the other sentences in the multiple choice question.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"Overall, the skills covered in Ramsey's book are essential, and I wholeheartedly agree with her introduction, in which she states, \"Yes, your students’ previous teachers should have done that [taught them these rules]. Maybe they did; maybe they didn’t, but here we are.\" We can't ignore that these conventions of spelling and punctuation affect our students' ability to be understood, as well as their credibility. As Ramsey points out, we need to teach these skills one way or another, and her book provides a concise, pre-assembled strategy for doing so.","created_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1128,"first_name":"Kelly","last_name":"Meyer","position":"English Faculty","institution_name":"Anoka-Ramsey Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text offers very good coverage of some of the most frequent convention errors and most common points of grammar confusion in student writing. Some of the points of focus, such as phrases like \"nowadays,\" which Ramsey identifies as not to be used in academic writing, are ones I have rarely if ever encountered in student writing, but the spirt of the instruction in conventions of writing is that it makes students more informed and aware of their choices. As Ramsey articulates in the introduction to the text, she sees it as a continual work in progress, and instructors would use, sample, and adapt Ramsey's units and materials with that in mind. While the text could certainly serve a self-motivated student directly, it is primarily an instructor resource. With that purpose in mind and as another reviewer noted, the chapter content itself might be expanded with more extensive notes from Ramsey regarding the particular opportunities, challenges, and approaches relative to teaching the particular unit. The engaging style of the text's introduction would be a welcome addition to the chapters themselves. But ultimately, as a text meant to support the aspects of \"objective assessment\" that English instructors often feel themselves lacking, students can see the flexibility of writing anchored in these foundational conventions.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The text is accurate, with clear explanations and examples within the instructional materials that provide enough information for students to learn the concepts but not so much rationale and jargon to bog them down in their study of conventions.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The text is open to evolving with collaboration of the instructor who chooses to adopt it. Such as the iPhone news notification example Ramsey uses to illustrate the need for the Oxford comma, the instructor could continue to infuse the framework of this text with current and relevant examples from different situations and media.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book and supplemental materials are written in a clear, uncomplicated style and would be easily understood by instructors and students working together or by students working through the text as their own grammar primer.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Once the instructors (and students, if directly accessing the text on their own) have learned the format of the chapters by accessing the supplemental materials, they will find the same pattern for every chapter. The book is about the materials--to be accurate, they are EVERYTHING, not really \"supplemental\" at all--and doesn't offer significant chapter content otherwise, so a reader would look elsewhere for more extensive, less practical musings on conventions.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text could be very easily accessed and used in pieces, with instructors selecting the individual units or even the particular materials, handouts, and worksheets or quizzes that fit their own course design.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The text logically progresses from small, common issues of word choice to punctuation and eventually sentence structure. The order is logical but reflects one particular approach to organizing the instruction of grammar, and instructors might adapt Ramsey's structure to fit their own trajectory of goals. Many instructors would be likely to rearrange the order of the units. However, the cumulative quizzes would need to be revised with any such rearranging.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"With multiple formats available, the text is easily accessible with the linked materials. Using the ePub file through the iBooks program offered the most attractive interface for my MacBook. All instructors and students should find an accessible format with a little exploring.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text, following its own rules, contains no noticeable errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally offensive or insensitive. The examples are varied and don't reflect or prioritize one group over another. Within Unit 2, Ramsey offers Spanish words to help students understand the difference between \"your\" and \"you're,\" and instructors could further adapt her materials to reflect more intentional inclusivity.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1224,"first_name":"Elizabeth","last_name":"Aydelott","position":"Adjunct Instructor","institution_name":"Lane Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text is aptly named Conventions 101, since it is an introductory approach to English usage. A more advanced text would include more linguistic and etymological explanation, possibly including regional and dialectal variations. As it stands, this book would be an excellent text for lower-level composition courses as a supplementary text.  I believe that most courses would need to include a comprehensive composition handbook as well, since this book is focused exclusively on sentence structure without any reference to paragraphs, the organization of essays, logic, or research.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is excellent for what it intends to cover.  The content is accurate and error-free.  It is unbiased, covering Standard American English, yet taking into account the complexities of the language.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"In the area of relevance, this text's specificity is a strong point because changes in formatting styles will not affect it.  I foresee only minor changes being needed, in comma usage, for instance.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The worksheets in the text are clear and understandable.  They give the students ample access to necessary information, written in an outline form ideal for studying. I can imagine students keeping these review sheets (\"Cheat Sheets\") for other couses.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"This text is extremely consistent, with each week laid out in a three-day format, easily altered for other schedules.  It also progresses from the simple to the complex in its treatment of English language conventions.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I am using this text not sequentially this term, and students are able to follow easily.  Each section is self-contained, and I am able to combine chapters easily to cover the content that I need for my course.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Topics proceed from simple to complex, from word usage to sentence structure.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Students should be advised to use the online version of the text rather than the PDF.  Without this advice, students would find the text impossible to navigate.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text follows its own advice and contains no obvious errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text seems to be free of bias in terms of races, ethnicity, and background.  Examples used are consistently inclusive.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"This text is geared for the instructor: Notice that the introduction is addressed to the teacher, not the student.  To use this text effectively, a teacher would supply links to the students for the individual chapters, but probably not a link to the entire text.  This is very definitely a worksheet and review sort of manual.  I find it very helpful for what it intends to achieve.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1256,"first_name":"Annick","last_name":"Todd","position":"ESL Instructor","institution_name":"Lane Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Note that this review is only of the PDF version of the text, which was discovered to be less complete than the other versions.  Chauna Ramsey’s PDF-version of the book includes a very clear and comprehensive table of contents showing the progression of writing conventions in her course.  Organized into 19 units of conventions, with the last unit consisting of the final exam, the text appropriately covers all areas of the subject matter which are taught in her course.  Note that the PDF version does not include the actual exercises or links to the exercises.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"In the PDF version of the text, the only error found in the text was the typo “choose” in the first line under the header in Unit 4 which says:  “Unit 4 pdf: Whose, Who’s; Fewer, Less; Choose, Choose.”  However, once the reader sees the header (“Unit 4: Whose, Who's; Fewer, Less; Choose, Chose”), it is clear that the second “choose” in the first line under the header is a typo and should be “chose.”  No other errors were found, and the text was highly accurate and completely unbiased.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The author’s writing conventions in the PDF version consist of classic, relevant content which will remain so over time.  The content is very clear and well organized, so readers should be able to quickly and easily make any needed updates and insert additions regarding extra writing conventions they may need to cover in their courses.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The author uses a very clear, concise writing style, which flows nicely throughout the PDF version of the book. The text is enjoyable to read, which makes it easy to forget one is reading.  There was no inaccessible jargon or terminology.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Throughout the PDF version of the text, the author uses an extremely consistent framework as well as terminology.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Before proceeding to reading units in a random order or reorganizing units for a class, it is essential to read the introduction in the PDF version as well as Units 1 and 2, which are longer and more detailed.  Doing so will give the reader enough background information related to the author’s steps.  The reader will soon discover that it is easy to begin any unit as of Unit 3 and implement the steps.  The text is extremely readable and consistent in each unit of the PDF version as well as fairly brief and concise, and the units can be easily reorganized and realigned without disruption.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The selection and progression of book topics in the PDF version are very logical and clear, and the steps from unit to unit remain consistent.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There were no interface issues or navigation problems in the book in the PDF version. The book does not include images or charts.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors were found in the PDF version.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"No cultural insensitivity or bias was found, and there were no cultural references in the PDF version of the text.  It would be interesting to see the exercises, which were not included in the PDF version, to see if culturally inclusive examples need to be added.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The PDF version of the book was written to guide writing teachers through the steps of introducing and assessing students’ writing convention knowledge.  As of Unit 2, the steps include assessing the previous and current units as well as giving a pre-assessment of the next unit. The author emphasizes the importance of teaching conventions as there could be a multitude of reasons that students do not already know them. \nNote that the PDF version does not include the actual exercises, and at the completion of this review, I learned from prior reviewers that other versions had the actual exercises or links to the exercises.   Apparently, such differences among formats are uncommon, and there may have been a technical glitch during the exporting of PDF content.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1292,"first_name":"Martha","last_name":"Kuchar","position":"Professor","institution_name":"Roanoke College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book does not aim for comprehensiveness, nor should it. It is a troubleshooting guide for students who persist in certain errors. These are generally well selected and appropriate: common spelling errors in words such as \"grammar,\" \"separate,\" and \"privilege\"; common usage errors such as \"definite v. defiant,\" \"accept v. except,\" and \"everyday v. every day\"; and common grammar errors such as \"for Tom and me v. for Tom and I\" and \"that v. who.\" The coverage of such topics represents the most frequent writing (and speaking) errors that instructors encounter. It benefits students and instructors to have a great many of these problems compactly presented in this volume. Of course, one could add other topics: avoidance of intensifiers like \"very\" and \"really\"; usage of \"different than\" v. \"different from\"; verbs of being (v. action) and their complements.  But one cannot do everything in one book!","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"The book is mostly accurate, but one could quibble with a few statements. For example, a semi-colon \"can take the place of a period.\" Well, in a certain sense, yes, but not really. What happens when a student puts the semi-colon at the end of a paragraph? Perhaps this prohibition would be discussed in class, but if we must rely on that to happen, then the book loses its \"go-to\" character as a grammar guide. Another inaccuracy: the author uses \"then\" as a conjunction in at least two chapters (3 and 14), with commas and no coordinating conjunction. This is incorrect; \"then\" is an adverb and requires a coordinating conjunction and comma. One could point to a few other inaccuracies in the book: the word \"to\" in front of the infinitive form of the verb is not accurately called a \"preposition\"; it is an infinitive marker. For the most part, aside from a few statements, the book is accurate.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The topics are quite pertinent. The errors reflect the common faults of students today. One could always add sections/topics, but changing the facts of the topics won't be necessary. However, I would make one suggestion: The book clearly addresses a high school audience. Many of the writing prompts and even the exercise sentences reference high school students and experiences. If this book is to be marketed as a college textbook, even as a developmental English skills textbook, then the language needs to be altered. References to homecoming dances and plans for going to college \"next year\" should be revised to cover college students' lives.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The book is well written, accessible, and free of jargon. I understand preferring to avoid heavy grammatical and linguistic terminology; however, this can go too far. In the present volume, the author occasionally uses technical terminology like \"infinitive\" and \"preposition,\" but she studiously avoids more advanced concepts like \"clause\" and \"modal\" and \"adverb\" even when she uses those forms in both the explanations and in the exercises. \"Last night\" is an introductory phrase, and so is \"Although he was late\" is as well. What is the difference between them? Astute students will want to know, and it isn't enough to say that both are introductory. One cannot avoid teaching clauses for long if a student is to learn the rudiments of good grammar and usage. To say that the SOBA words join two SENTENCES (rather than two CLAUSES) seems to invite more questions than it answers. Similarly, the exercises sometimes ask students to use an examined word (such as \"choose\" in the lesson on \"choose\" v. \"chose\") in gerund form but with no explanation (even though in the notes section, \"choose\" is identified as an infinitive and \"chose\" as past tense form). So there's an unevenness in the presentation. I would suggest that students will respect technical terminology if it helps them understand usage: \"I want to choose my courses\" (infinitive) v. \"I chose my courses\" (past tense) v. \"Choosing courses is tough\" (gerund). This doesn't mean loading the book down with a lot of dense jargon.","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"Apropos of my previous comment, the book does suffer somewhat in consistency. The use of grammatical terms is a bit inconsistent. If terms like \"infinitive\" and \"items in a series\" can be used effectively, then it will not hurt students to learn the difference between phrases, clauses, and sentences. In fact, it will help them. Similarly, the author states that the word \"there\" is an answer to the question \"how many?\" which is an odd way to teach what many might call an expletive construction or \"sentence starter.\" It would be better if the book consistently introduced one or two (or more) technical terms in each chapter.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The pacing and length of each chapter (\"convention\") is good and appropriate, especially if the book is used as an adjunct to other texts in the course. The book's lessons are cumulative, however, so moving and rearranging units isn't possible. But this is as it should be. The lessons are incremental, and the exercises build on previous material so that the lessons are reinforced.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Organization and flow are good. The lessons build on one another such that the last several chapters on commas, colons, apostrophes, and other punctuation must be covered in the order given. The order is logical and clear.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"This question doesn't apply to this book since it is presented as a series of worksheets. However, in some future iteration, it might be nice to see the slides AS slides (say, in PowerPoint form) rather than as blocks on a page. On another point, some of the exercises are duplicated (in chapters 5 and 9, for example).","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No problems with the writing. The author's style is conversational and friendly. I suspect students will find this to their liking.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The book is neutral on this front. Its exercises address ordinary concerns of ordinary, reasonably educated people. I would say there's no great effort to represent a plurality of ethnicities or races, nor should there be. One small point, however: In chapter 2, the Spanish equivalents of \"you\" forms are given. Why? This should be omitted since no other language equivalencies are given in the book, not even any other Spanish forms.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"The exercises are plentiful! They reinforce the lessons and give students ample opportunity to practice the forms. The sentence and paragraph exercises alone wouldn't be sufficient, however, and for this reason the author assigns many paragraphs and short essays. Reinforcing the lessons in longer forms like short essays is a great way for students to apply what they've learned.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1311,"first_name":"Megan","last_name":"Heiman","position":"English Instructor","institution_name":"Vermilion Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text covers many of the \"confusables\" that college students in developmental writing class need practice with, including homonyms and words commonly misused. In addition, sentence boundary issues such as run-ons, fragments, and misuse of commas (comma splices) are covered. The text includes all of the topics I expect to cover in an developmental English course. As the writer shares in the Introduction, the book \"zeros in on errors commonly found in students' writing\"--which I find practical. I covers the basics, which is consistent with other textbooks for developmental writers. Another benefit is the quizzes in the book are comprehensive, so students have multiple opportunities to assess their learning of foundational topics; the cumulative practice approach will serve them well as they advance.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is mostly error-free. I found a few inconsistencies, e.g. Unit 3: Where, Were; Could Have, Could “Of”; Lose, Loose does not contain practice with lose/loose. Also, I wasn't sure how the roots/quizzes fit in with the other material.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content covered in this book is relevant. I don't know how much I'd focus on spelling and the English roots in the courses I teach, but other than that the material in the book is up-to-date and would require minimum updates, if any. I might alter the content just a bit to fit my learners, but overall I could implement the material right away with minimum changes/updates.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The writing in the book is clear and concise.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"One of the book's main strengths is its consistency. The material is very structured; I was able to identify the pattern/rhythm of the course material right away.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The material is divided into manageable sections, and the writer suggests following a three-class-session structure, with the first day being an introduction of concepts, the second day a review, and the cumulative quiz on the third day. This is the writer's consistent recommendation throughout the book.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"All topics are presented in a clear fashion. I reviewed the online book, which was well organized.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text has no interface issues. I was able to navigate the website without confusion. All documents displayed well. I like that the writer offers both Word and .pdf files of course materials.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find grammatical errors in the textbook.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The author presents material in a culturally relevant manner. The students I teach have diverse backgrounds, and I would feel comfortable presenting this book to them.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"This book delivers what its title suggests. It is a functional, practical approach to teaching basic grammar and punctuation that I know my students would appreciate. I like the writer's approach, philosophy--and sensitivity to learners. In the Introduction, the writer acknowledges that many of us who teach the conventions probably didn't have to learn them the way our students do. The cumulative approach also reflects the writer's keen awareness of our learners. \n\nBecause the book \"doesn't use phrases unfamiliar to students,\" I believe students will find the book comfortable and the material approachable and attainable. The students will be free to focus on simply the conventions, the basics, and not get tangled in the terminology of most grammar books.\n\nI plan on using this textbook with my ENGL 92 (second in the sequence) class this fall.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1324,"first_name":"Jennifer","last_name":"Ruden","position":"ESOL Instructor","institution_name":"Portland Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The title is true to the content in that both grammar and punctuation is broken down in a very easy to find and teach way. However, I would say that not all grammar is reviewed, such as verb tense. The goal of the text doesn't seem to be comprehensive, rather it may be best used as a supplement to a curriculum. The Table of Contents is easy to navigate and I love the option of PDF versus a Word document in each unit.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content appears to be accurate. There is some advice on the worksheets that I may not fully agree with, but the fact that it is a Word document and that I have the ability to delete or add my own reasoning is extremely convenient.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The Case for the Oxford Comma in Unit 9 is brilliant! (A screenshot of a news alert on a locked phone.) The content is relevant to both native English speakers and non-native English speakers.  This book is cleverly put together in a way that both my students and I will enjoy using it.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Very little jargon is used, which is helpful, but I think some students (especially ESL students) who are used to being taught the technical grammar rules might feel like something is missing. As a supplement, or a foundation for a concept, I feel this book is adequate, as long as the teacher scaffolds the information enough to satisfy the students.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The content is very clear and consistent. Each unit includes the same type of information, which is easy to find and use. However, the author's writing style isn't very consistent. A copy editor may go mad reading this because the author will switch back and forth between putting periods at the end of bullets, and using different font sizes and bolding for reasons I can't quite understand.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Each unit has a little introduction for the teacher which explains what is included in the unit (worksheets, practice, quiz) and how to use it. Reading these introductions isn't necessary. The book is written in a way where you can source and use content very quickly.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization of the text is pretty easy to follow. It begins with a focus on concepts and then follows up with practice. Each unit is reliably organized in this way.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Reading the text online was the easiest method for me as it includes the unit introductions and links to PDFs and Word documents. When I downloaded the text, I only got the unit introductions and couldn't figure out where to access the materials. This could be user error, but I feel a text like this should account for users like me. Regardless, I like the online version so much I will still give it a 4.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"I didn't find any grammatical errors in the text. Her writing voice is distinct (for example, writing \"BAD BAD BAD WORTHY OF FAILURE\"), so I would change some of the directions and explanations to fit better fit my own style.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I found the text to be culturally sensitive and personable, especially for my ESL students.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1410,"first_name":"Dean","last_name":"LeBret","position":"ABE/GED instructor","institution_name":"Linn Benton Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is a text regarding the application of grammatical conventions. There is one cited reference, but the content does not really seem to need citation. It is pretty much public domain information, not rich on theory. It also does not really need a glossary as terms are defined in text. It does cover the top errors in student use of grammatical convention in a very accessible way. There is enough to progressively cover the material for several different learning styles. \n\nIt is the multiple assessment opportunities that really tie comprehensions together. Language Arts is so often subjective. This course is largely objective with subjectivity as a spice to enrich learning. Students and instructors alike can keep up with understanding with relatively quick and progressive feedback.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I didn't find any errors. The content was so concise, I would imagine it easy to spot; but I didn't find any. I certainly didn't find anything to be biased.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"English conventions do not change quickly. The author is very much in touch with the different student learning styles. These may evolve, and would be easy enough to adapt in the classroom on the fly with what she included. What drew me to this text was the instruction in English conventions written for adults. There is a glaring absence of such textbooks. This finally provides conventions instruction without infantilizing the content. I think, in terms of textbook longevity, this one is timeless.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"I have been told that academic writing should not include the voice of the author. I have often disagreed, and find my disagreement particularly true in textbooks designed for remedial audiences, like adult basic education programs. I find that humanizing the content makes it more accessible. I loved hearing the authors voice in the text. I think it echoed the feelings of Language Arts instructors everywhere and clarifies the lessons for the student from within the text. What I loved the most is how I can use this text to work with adults, because it is simple and concise; relatable, but not juvenile.","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The framework was a little tough to follow. There were a few times that I had to stop and re-read a section because I thought I missed something. Titling was not always there and with inconsistent font size changes, it made it difficult to follow. There were a few sections where there was work to do, but no instruction as to what to do with it. There was some prefix and suffix practice that was without instruction and some Latin where I didn't know what to do. Everything that was clearly instructed was absolutely clear and easy to understand. (I did assume that the reference to Elmo regarded the little red Muppet.)\n\nTo be more concise, I found the framework strong, there were just spots where the walls seemed unfinished.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This was wonderful. The individual lessons were absolutely bite sized. It was a big bite; mind you, but it was designed to allow the instructor to pare down lessons into what they need while providing extra for the motivated student. There is not to much, but nothing is lacking.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"I never understood why Language arts texts present grammar before punctuation. They all seem to, and perhaps the absence of understanding that is my failing. This text orders the information as I have seen it ordered in other textbooks with similar content. It was easy to follow and didn't seem out of place. I would probably teach it in order, as written; only changing the amount of instruction based on student need.","interface_rating":2,"interface_review":"This is my biggest issue. Because there were so many inconsistencies with font size, boldness, and underline applications; and missing titles and the only occasional application of color, I had to keep checking if the issues were with my lack of technological savvy, or the text as written. In one unit, there was a screen shot of a cell phone screen meant to illustrate the use of the Oxford comma, and I did not understand the reference because of the ellipses that cut off the sentence. The text is meant to include overheads and worksheets, but the were often shifted wo they were not paged correctly, with one title appearing at the bottom of a page and the content on another. I can't fix that in a .pdf, so it becomes difficult to use the textbook.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The author begins her introduction by explaining that the learned Language Arts instructor will find certain errors because the content was directed at introductory learners and those particulars that academicians love so much only render the basic understanding of the course content unattainable. I want to say an emphatic, \"Its about damn time!\" I find that to many textbooks mistake academic inclusion and overreach for high standards. I appreciate that this author explains why these errors might be allowable. It is vanity to think  that the students reading a primer will solve the Grand Theory of Unification with their instruction. I can teach this to beginners and those looking for refresher alike without getting bogged down in trivia.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I am not easily offended. My students tend to be of the same ilk. I didn't find anything to be offensive. There were some references I didn't understand. Unit 13 had a reference to a 'lock in'. I have an idea what one is, but I have never done one. I even asked my adult children; who are relatively recent graduates, about one, and their first thought was a lock down for a bomb threat or an active shooter. I believe that the author's intent refers to a recreational event. I found most content to be relevant and respectfully cross-cultural.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I like this book. I intend to use this book. I will figure out how to work with the technical challenges within to use this book. It is a breath of fresh air for an adult basic educator to find a textbook that teaches English conventions without the content addressing preschoolers or people writing their dissertation. I am excited to use this because is seems more accessible than my entire current bookshelf of Language Arts material.\n    I want to add that I am not a Language Arts instructor. I am a Sociologist teaching multiple subjects. Just reading this for review, I learned things new to me. I was excited at discovering this in the Library, and I am even more excited to try it in the classroom. I showed it to my Honor student daughter, and she said, \"where the hell was this in my Freshman year?\" I couldn't say it better.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1441,"first_name":"Corrie","last_name":"Larson","position":"Adjunct Instructor","institution_name":"Chemeketa Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The title of the book leads the reader to expect more variety in the conventions covered.  There are no units about adjective/adverb confusion, tense shift, double negatives, or lack of parallelism; however, many of the common errors in student writing are addressed such as comma usage, pronoun case, sentence issues, wrong verb forms and subject-verb agreement. The majority of the 'conventions' addressed are pairs of similarly spelled words whose meanings are commonly conflated.  There are probably an endless supply of such spelling errors which vary according to the population, so I'm guessing that the author's choices reflect those she has encountered most in her own teaching.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The title of the book says that it is a 'functional' approach, but some of the teaching reflects more of a prescriptivist, traditional approach than one informed by corpus linguistics. For example, there are claims that it is an 'error\" 'to say or write “that” when referring to people instead of saying “who.”' Corpus linguistics proves scientifically that the publishing world finds \"that\" highly acceptable in formal publications. Also, she uses the notional definition of ‘sentence’, \"a complete thought\", whereas a more common functional definition of a sentence would be \"A meaningful combination of words that starts with capitalization and ends with a full stop.\" The notional definition becomes confusing when trying to teach about how to use commas and coordinating conjunctions to join clauses, because the term ‘sentence’ is substituted for the correct term, ‘clause’.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The topics addressed in the book are timeless; however, a true functional approach would give more attention to how language does change over time and be a little less rigid about some of the forms that the 'real' world of publishing finds perfectly acceptable even though schools continue to call them wrong.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The book should not be used as a handbook for students, as much of the teaching points are in a sort of 'shorthand' that needs to be qualified in order to avoid confusion.  A lot of the instruction is on an intuitive level that will need to be brought up to the level of consciousness for a student to grasp it.  For example, the teaching about colon usage: “Only use it if the sentence doesn’t make sense without it.”  How do student writers discern that their writing 'makes sense'? If the writer is a student who is writing the sentence, the sentence will always make sense to that writer (regardless of correct punctuation), since the ideas originate in that writer's brain.  The outcome in learning conventions is to write in a way that makes sense to others, and that is what needs to be taught.  Likewise, there is some oversimplification which could be corrected by using grammatical terms. For example, in order to ensure subject-verb agreement for compound subjects where \"I\" is the second subject, the author suggests writers 'ignore other people in the sentence next to the “I” or the “me,” then listen for the correct word:   “Troy and I went to school together.”    (Cross out Troy, and it’s obviously “I.”)  If you crossed out Troy, you would have “and I went to school together.”' But this only works if the teacher explains which words to listen for--the subject and verb--and contrasts “I went” versus “me went”.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"It was striking to me that though the pretext of the book is to address errors of convention in academic writing through a functional perspective, close to 100% of all the practice sentences have no connection to the major academic writing genres.  In fact, all of the examples and practice sentences look like they came out of narrative prose.  Narrative prose such as fiction and the personal narrative can be considered academic writing, but it is the persuasive and informative texts that are more commonly emphasized in the today's academic world.  So it is unfair to students to provide them only with models from narrative prose, which have different conventions than other academic forms.  For example, the whole business about using a 'complete sentence' and avoiding fragments should be thrown out the window in narrative texts, because their primary purpose is to convey emotion.  Fragments are one of the primary ways a writer can use to accomplish this in a narrative text--for example, through one-work ejaculatory expressions (\"Hooray!\") or self-talk (\"Oh no...not again.\").  To tell students that using fragments in all writing is limiting their knowledge of writing conventions.   I would expect a functional approach to point out the differences between difference kinds of writing based on their function.  Other than this, this book is very consistent in terms of its way of arranging the lessons and providing a great structure for presenting and practicing the material.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The way the text is divided works very well if the instructor wants to use the book as is and use all the materials provided, such as the pre-assessment and the quizzes, in the order in which they are presented.  However, it is not conducive to mixing up the order, because each successive quiz contains questions from the previous units.  However, the quizzes and handouts are available as editable Word documents, so they could still be used as a framework for creating one's own questions.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is divided into eighteen units that are meant to build on one another in terms of the practice provided and the quizzes.  There is a manageable amount of information in each unit.  Though the units are designed to build on another, it would also work to mix up the order if an instructor just wanted to use the teaching parts.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"I read the online version, so I'm not sure if that is different than other versions' interfaces.  It was easy to navigate, the links to the supplemental materials were obvious and well-labeled, and there wasn't unnecessary language littering the landscape to wade through.  On the other hand, when I clicked on the Table of Contents button, I was hoping to be able to jump back and forth between chapters, but I wasn't able to do so.  I could only get to the beginning again by clicking on the back button page by page.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Mostly excellent grammar usage. There are a couple of minor grammatical errors in the teaching examples: no hyphens in compound adjectives such as \"grape flavored, licorice flavored, popcorn flavored\" and renegade commas that divide subjects from their verbs: \"Will you arrive early, or leave late?  We’ll go out to eat, then go home.\"","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This book contains nothing to make you splutter in your coffee in brow-furrowing consternation. It will not cause riots in your classroom or incite intercontinental warfare.  It will not make grown people cry and sue each other.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"I liked this book's simplicity and straightforward organization.  I think that left as is, it may be more useful for teaching native speakers of English than for instructing ELLs, but it could be adapted to serve their needs as well.  I will likely use it as a basis for teaching the points it contains and just adjust the concepts to suit myself.  I also really appreciate the pre-assessment resource and the cheat sheet at the end, which provides an at-a-glance guide that seems like it would be very useful for students to have.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1649,"first_name":"B. David","last_name":"Ridpath","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Ohio University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book is very comprehensive and is effectively laid out in a table of Contents. Easy to follow and find specific subjects.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Very accurate--considering the author is an English professor-I found no obvious errors in the units or exercises.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Since grammar and usage rarely changes or goes out of style--this book will have a long shelf life. Any updates would be easy to do, but since this is a rather static area, the book as is can live on forever. It will always be relevant to students and faculty. I will be using the book to improve my own writing.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Written very well and easy to read. Written at a high school level so very easy to understand and follow.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Very consistent format-units that cover a topic with exercises in support. Effective format and style","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Very well organized as mentioned above. Easy to navigate and one can skip around to focus on specific areas. All units can be followed in order or specific units can be used as needed.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Very well structured with regard to organization, structure and flow. Easy to follow and read. Will be a great resource for me.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The book is free of any of these problems in all formats I tried.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Very good grammar wise. Since it was written by an English teacher I expect nothing less!","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This book applies to everyone and certainly can assist non-native speakers in improving English speaking and writing. Can be valuable to all races, genders and backgrounds. I find the writing to be culturally sensitive.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Excellent resource and I look forward to using in the future.","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1958,"first_name":"Karen","last_name":"McDonnell","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"James Madison University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"Let me begin by saying that this book is an excellent resource for high school teachers (especially those teaching ninth or tenth graders). Clearly, the audience is high school teachers. Since I'm looking for an open-access textbook to use for a college-level writing course, Conventions 101 would not suit my needs. The title, which is set up to mimic a college-course title, is thus a bit misleading since it implies that college students could use this text in an entry-level college course. I would not recommend this text for a college course unless it were for remediation. That said, the rest of this review will imagine an audience of ninth- or tenth-grade teachers—the intended audience, which the description of the book should make clearer. Language Arts teachers who focus on the early years of high school will find this book to be helpful for ensuring that students know the basic rules of Standard Written English. As a college instructor, I expect my students to arrive at college knowing the rules that are explained and tested in this book. Only one assessment included in the text has an answer key. I would suggest that an answer key for each assessment should be included as an appendix. There was no index, but the table of contents worked fine to guide teachers to the parts that they might be searching for. Perhaps I’m too much of a traditionalist, but I missed page numbers. The navigation used “next section,” but sometimes I was confused about whether I had missed something since there was no real indication of continuity other than section numbers. For instance, when Latin and Greek “roots” are quizzed, I was baffled because they had not been introduced up to this point. All in all, the text is a compilation of solid teacher lessons that can be used “right out of the box,” but lacked the cohesiveness of a traditional book.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"On the whole, the rules that are explained are quite accurate, helpful, and clearly articulated. There are, however, some points that seem frivolous, awkward, or unexpected. For example, some of the assessment sentences are so silly and awkwardly phrased that they are unrealistic. Sometimes, this is the author’s humor poking through, which I appreciate. Still, I worry that unrealistic and awkward sentences don’t help students learn to be fluent readers and writers since such sentences model the opposite, thus tacitly endorsing awkwardness. Finally, some “rules” seemed arbitrary and frankly unhelpful. You’ll notice that the last sentence in the preceding review section begins with “all in all.” Conventions 101 forbids this. The former sentence uses the second person (you’ll), which is also forbidden by Conventions 101. These “rules” seem arbitrary. ","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"It’s true that in our digital era, the language is in flux. Nowadays, digital communication technologies are speeding up the natural changes that any language undergoes. (Side note: The latter sentence begins with the word “nowadays,” which is another word arbitrarily forbidden by the text’s author). In ten years, for example, the apostrophe section will likely be obsolete. Confusion about the apostrophe is rampant—so much so that I would suggest that we are losing this mark of punctuation entirely. Nobody pauses to insert an apostrophe when texting or tweeting. Often, autocorrect will add an apostrophe, thus ensuring that writers will lose the ability to correctly deploy an apostrophe. What I’m seeing in college students’ writing verifies this point. These days, even very strong writers are confused about the apostrophe. \n\nAlthough the outdated term “overhead” is used near the beginning, most of the book uses the term ELMO, which I would change to DocCam.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The clarity of instruction is a strength. It is simple, straightforward, and helpful for basic skills. It is appropriate for those teaching high schoolers. ","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text's content is consistent to the point of repetitiveness. Repetition is important for learning, though, so this is a forgivable matter. However, one section appears to be entirely duplicated, which seems like sloppiness. The most glaring inconsistency is the presence of one answer key. Answer keys for all assessments would be beneficial. I am also a bit confused by the sudden appearance of yellow highlights, and I never quite figured out how bold text was being used. It seemed to fluctuate wildly. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The lessons are divided appropriately into manageable chunks. Topics are reinforced throughout the text. ","organization_rating":3,"organization_review":"I would suggest some changes in organization. For example, apostrophes probably ought to come before colons, though I very much like the discussion of the colon. The book mentions the semicolon at least one, but never teaches the concept. ","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"It was a nice touch to include the lessons in both PDF and Word formats. The “base” page of each section was annoyingly repetitive. As noted above, page numbers would be helpful (a few lessons had page numbers marked, but they always started at 1). The navigation was fine, but it took me a while to figure out how best to navigate the book. ","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"Since this is a book about grammar (and spelling and vocabulary, it turns out), accuracy is essential. The text is generally free from misspellings, typos, and grammatical errors. There is a very occasional technical error, which could cause confusion for the astute student. For example, the abbreviation vs (for versus) is deployed without a period. This is obviously nitpicky, but there are a few more serious errors. Sentence 10 in the pre-assessment demands a semicolon, but a semicolon is not an option among the answers. I have never heard the initialism SOBA for learning which conjunctions function as coordinating conjunctions. Instead, I use FANBOYS, which is mentioned in the text, but never explained. Obviously, FANBOYS includes three more coordinating conjunctions (for, nor, and yet), so it’s not clear why SOBA is useful (though so, or, but, and and are the most common coordinating conjunctions).","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"There was a spot with Spanish translations, which is fine and clues readers in about the intended audience, but nowhere else does this matter come up (and its presence was unexplained). Otherwise, this book seems to assume a very traditional white, middle-class, college-bound student. There was nothing offensive, but it also didn't seem particularly aware of a variety of cultures.\n\nMy only advice in this section would be to point out that these are the “rules” of Standard American Written English. Real writers often flout these rules, but not knowing these rules can damage a writer’s credibility. ","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"This text is not what I’d call a book in the traditional sense. If you’re looking for a book, this text will not meet your needs. As I’ve tried to emphasize, the intended audience is secondary-school educators who are looking for prefabricated lesson plans on the basics that all ninth and tenth graders should be taught. ","created_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2027,"first_name":"Jocelyn","last_name":"Pihlaja","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Lake Superior College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is definitely not a comprehensive handbook, but that’s not its intention. Rather, it’s meant to act as a supplement to other grammar/usage instruction. Overall, the content of this book largely addresses homonym confusions with a few other tips on commonly misused usages sprinkled in (who vs. that or the nominative I vs. objective me). The net effect of this approach is a book that feels a bit whimsical -- specific to one teacher’s sense of what needs addressing with students more than a fully comprehensive text that systematically explains, say, all homonym issues. Since this text is not intended to be a “backbone” text of grammar and usage instruction, it’s more the kind of book teachers might turn to when they have 20 minutes of class time to fill and think to themselves, “Hey, how about a quick brush-up on lose/loose?”  ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Since this text covers long-accepted rules, it can’t go too wrong, in terms of its accuracy. However, and this ties back to its whimsical, specific-to-one-teacher feel, there are a few stern recommendations that come as news to me. For example, the text strongly asserts “All in all” should never be used (really?) and explains “now in days” isn’t a phrase at all, which is true, but I’ve never in 27 years of college teaching seen a student use that phrase, so it feels like an odd caution. More pressing would be explaining to today’s student readers the difference between “definitely” and “defiantly.” Even more, what the author refers to as SOBAs (coordinating conjunctions), kids in our city learn in K-12 as FANBOYS. I was so curious about this discrepancy in acronyms that I polled all my teacher friends on social media, and no matter where they are in the country, all reported they teach FANBOYS. The SOBA acronym might be specific to the author or her region. Ultimately, while the text is accurate enough that I could see myself using some of its lessons for a quick in-class supplement, it does also have a few moments of “Nah.”","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The misuses that the book focuses on are definitely prevalent; for the most part, the text covers chronic problems. At the same time, this book does feel dated; the handouts and quizzes look like those I used twenty years ago, so the document font and formatting could be freshened, particularly because the implication is that the book presents handouts that are ready to go – ready for other teachers to grab and use. Personally, I would need to retype and update the look of the worksheets and quizzes. Relatedly, reference is made to “overheads.” We don’t use overheads these days. Other worksheets are labeled at the top with the words ELMO Practice, which feels limiting, as there is no assurance of an ELMO being a device that is used in every school. Still other handouts have the author’s name at the top. Thus, for this book to feel more professional and usable by other teachers, it would make sense to provide quizzes and worksheets that look more contemporary and that are more generic (not clearly taken from the file folder of the author). Finally, the book also feels dated because our classrooms are more and more becoming oriented towards active learning instead of rote worksheets and quizzes. The content, however, has longevity, as these usage issues have long been problems and will continue to be problems.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The writing in this text is clear and easily understandable. Explanations are short and direct. It would be helpful to have more than one illustrative example sentence for each correct usage of a homonym; some words are given two examples, but many have only one. For students who are trying to grasp correct usage, more examples would provide greater direction and context.\n \n","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The overall structure of the book is consistent, with each unit following a predictable format. Within the units, though, there are moments of inconsistency which can feel baffling. For example:\n\nUnit 2 – Why is there Spanish translation of some words all of a sudden? Why do all the units not have Spanish translations, then?\n\nThe type of usage issues being addressed in this book is about 80% homonyms and 20% “other common misuses,” so the content itself is not consistent in that sense.\n\nSuddenly, in Unit 9, the handouts use color and highlighting and an image (a screenshot). Why here? Why now?\n\nThe formatting of the book would be more unified if all the handouts used a consistent font. Spacing between sentences on handouts and quizzes is sometimes “off,” as well, with one sentence single spaced while all others are double spaced.\n\nUnit 15 – The Apostrophe Pre-Assessment has the teacher’s (the author’s) name on it; for teachers wanting to print and use these handouts, that’s a whiteout-at-the-copy-machine moment. This is true on the final exam, too.\n\nThere is no Word copy of the Final Exam, which is a departure from all the other units, which provide a choice between PDF and Word.\n","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Overall, this book is easily usable because the units are small, focused on just a couple issues, and follow a predictable format for how to structure the content into each week’s class periods. The various quizzes and worksheets also seem readily excisable – as though a teacher could give a quick mini-lecture followed by some time working through the practice sentences. A downside to the way the units are put together, though, is that there is overlap from one week to the next, in terms of the previous week’s concepts cropping up again the successive week; while this reinforcement of concepts is a good teaching strategy, it does limit how much the order of the lessons can be randomized by instructors who want to use, for example, Unit 5 after Unit 2. The only other downside is that there are 19 units, and college teachers tend to work on a 16-17 week semester schedule, so there is no one-to-one match between number of units and traditional number of weeks in the semester. Certainly, this can be managed, but I have to admit: when I see a textbook with 15-17 chapters in it, I immediately realize the author has carefully considered the pacing of a semester.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Its simple, straightforward organization is one of the text’s greatest strengths. There is good overlap and cross-referencing of unit concepts, as each unit takes a look back and a look forward, in this way knitting skills together and re-emphasizing them. I also really like that, after a stretch of units covering homonyms, the transition into other types of grammar issues starts with a general Comma Review (Unit 11). In terms of the rhythm of the book, this review appears at a good point and is a helpful reminder of the rules. No matter the topic of each unit, they all are presented in the same manner, which makes the structure of the book predictable and easy to follow.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"This book reads easily straight from the web, which was important to me, as I don’t have a Kindle and didn’t want to download a huge PDF. For teachers and students who might well be reading the book from a variety of devices throughout the weeks of the class (I work from my phone and two different computers), this straight-from-the-web-with-no-problems option is huge. Similarly, the handouts are available either as PDFs or Word documents; this is an important versatility and very practical. Even more, I experienced no frustration as I navigated through the book; often, with online books, I get irritated with how difficult it is to click from one section back to another. With this text, there is a Table of Contents that makes maneuvering easy. \n\nThe main problem I see with the interface is one mentioned earlier: the fonts and layouts are inconsistent, there is one place with a screenshot image, there are some handouts with underlining (which does not work well with the automated reading tools used by people with visual impairments), and there are some random rather than standardized uses of highlighting and colors. Considering the ADA mandate to make instructional materials accessible to all students, this is a significant problem.\n","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"While there are no pervasive or painful grammar errors, the truth is that any book dedicated to the subject of grammar and usage needs to be flawless, and this book isn’t. The grammar is fine. The grammar is not strictly perfect. A few examples of wobbly moments, either in grammar or formatting, appear in:\n\n--The Introduction when the author uses a comma before a conjunctive adverb (“…this book isn’t right for you, although it might be just right for your students”) and when the author uses a comma before “and” – as though an independent clause follows (“I encourage you to find out the college placement test your local community college uses, and arrange for your students to take the Writing part of that placement test at the beginning and the end of the school year”) \n\n--The Conventions Pretest when the author fails to use a comma before the coordinating conjunction “and” when an independent clause follows (“…I then hand them out randomly and we correct all but the last page”)\n\n--In the Their/There/They’re handout when, occasionally, but not always, there are two spaces after periods\n\n--In the Where/Were handout when an example sentence contains a comma splice, which makes it hard to focus on the intended error related to Then/Than (comma splice: First we go to school, then we go home)\n\n--In the Already/All Ready handout when there is an extra space between two words (“Are you all  ready to go?”). The same thing happens elsewhere (as in Unit 7 with “every  day”)\n\n","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"If the author wrote her own practice and quiz sentences, I’m going to guess she is a white woman; it comes through in her handouts. The example sentences are generic and not particularly interesting; when names are used, they “traditional” Caucasian names that don’t reflect diversity. John, Mary, Lisa, Fred, and Bill do a whole lot of things in this book, from buying apples to eating Mom’s chicken soup.\n\nFor an entirely different cultural issue: in Unit 19, “No Credit Due to Poor Conventions,” suddenly a software named Criterion is introduced and explained (it’s campus-specific, not something used nationwide necessarily, not a “common” software). Beyond that, there is reference to lab times at the school – again, in a textbook meant for students anywhere, these instructions tie to a campus-specific culture. At least one practice sentence talks about going to OSU, which is Oregon State University and not necessarily a place on the radars of all students who might be completing these handouts, if they are used by teachers from all over.\n\nFinally, the text does feel culturally passe in yet another way. In the last few years, I have found myself eager to see a grammar book that discusses the evolving rules for pronouns – to fit into this era of non-binary gender, gender fluidity, trans acceptance, etc. This is a big part of our current cultural discussion, and the beauty of an online text is that it can be extremely of the moment and part of cultural conversations. This book does not do that.\n \n","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"This text is serviceable, if not ground-breaking. It provides worksheets and quizzes for teachers who might be needing materials to address chronic problems with English usage and who might appreciate having prepared worksheets that can be adapted easily to fill a gap of twenty minutes during class time. However, the approach this book takes leans towards rote over active learning, and it feels homespun more than professional – due to the inconsistencies in formatting and the location-specific references. Although I appreciate having supplementary worksheets so readily available, I still would love to see more polished, up-to-date OER books available for our students.","created_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2082,"first_name":"Charles","last_name":"Lynn","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"University of North Carolina Wilmington","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Conventions 101: A Functional Approach to Teaching (And Assessing!) Grammar and Punctuation thoroughly covers all aspects of grammar needed to teach at the high school level. This text would work well for a new teacher looking for lesson plan ideas or perhaps a seasoned teacher in need of new ideas. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I could not find any grammatical errors in the content. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"I feel that the content of this text will remain relevant for years to come. This would be a wonderful resource to have on hand for any high school language arts or ESL teacher. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is extremely accessible. The author's style of presentation is conducive to easy reading. ","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The 19 units in the text are consistent in their content. However, I did find some of the exercises lacking clear directions. The font was not consistent in places as well. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The 19 units are easily divided into stand alone lessons. One could pick and choose specific topics from the text without having to read the full book. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics were logically divided. The topics are also not interdependent. One can pick and choose to the units based upon specific needs. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I did not notice issues with interface. All aspects of the online text worked flawlessly. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not see any grammatical errors in the book, which is refreshing considering the topic. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The material is presented in a culturally relevant manner. I did not feel that their was any cultural bias present in the information. ","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I have been exposed to many grammar and punctuation books throughout my career in education. Conventions 101: A Functional Approach to Teaching (And Assessing!) Grammar and Punctuation strikes me as a worthwhile addition to my library. I am always on the lookout for new ways of teaching grammar. This text offers just that. ","created_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2331,"first_name":"William","last_name":"Kron","position":"Adjunct Professor / Middle School Administrator /  Former High School English Teacher","institution_name":"Bethel University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"It's difficult to offer a comprehensive support book for developing writers and I don't think the goal of this book is to look at all the potential grammar traps that writers may come across.  This text does offer strategies and tools to help a teacher create a system to address common grammatical challenges.  In sum, this text offers a very manageable system to identify, teach and assess common grammatical errors.  It's comprehensiveness lies in its approach and tools designed to support teachers and writers.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"This text was absolutely accurate which is important in a grammar text.  ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The issues addressed, tone of the text and solutions offered are timeless.  This easy-to-read text is written appropriately for its intended audience and the supporting tools and discussion will not lose their relevance.  The format of the text and the individual chapters is consistent.  This makes them easy to use and comforting in their predictability.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The prose is accessible for struggling writers.  I can see this being used with upper elementary kids, struggling college students and everyone in between.  In the introduction, the author describes a desire to stay away from phrases that might be unfamiliar to students.   This is an important goal which the author accomplishes.  Writers will understand the challenges and solutions as the author stays away from jargon or potentially confusing \"grammar speak\". ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"I think the strength of the book is the consistency in the process.  Each chapter is organized around an information, practice, review, quiz and assessment cycle.  It works and is transferable.  The strategies of the book could easily be used for any potential grammar challenge.  ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This text and format lend themselves to using bits as needed.  The pre-test helps teacher and student identify potential problems and those could be addressed as needed.  The text is written so that teachers in other disciplines could easily adopt the process to suit their own writing needs.  I'm thinking that students writing lab reports or other types of technical writing could be easily supported with this text.  This text could effectively be used by teachers in other disciplines.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is very straight-forward in its organization and presentation.  The table of contents is easy to use and will be valuable for both teacher and student.  It's a logical progression.  It will be easy for a teacher to adjust or differentiate depending on students' needs.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Both PDF and Word formatting were helpful.  There are no navigational issues; I do think that it may get tedious if a student is working through numerous chapters.  While the repetition is helpful for organization I could imagine it being tiresome to repeat the same process in rapid succession.  I found the inconsistent font size and style in the practice resources to be a bit distracting.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are no grammatical errors.  There really is no discussion of style or using grammar to enhance writing or understanding.  This is not a text for an advanced writer ","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The text is not insensitive or offensive.  The examples are non-controversial in any way, shape or form.  At the same time, the text did not use any examples that promote cultural sensitivity.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This text addresses very common grammatical challenges with an efficient and effective process and strategies.  It is very use-friendly and has a playful style that may appeal to the target audience of writers in the formative stage of their process.  The strategies are transferable to other errors and may be applied to the addition of style to a writer's tool-kit.  I'd recommend this for a teacher looking for supplemental resource to support writers.","created_at":"2018-10-09T13:04:06.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-10-09T13:04:06.000-05:00"},{"id":2369,"first_name":"Norma","last_name":"Hogan","position":"Professor Emerita and Senior Affiliate Faculty","institution_name":"East Tennessee State University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is a compact text for teachers working with basic writers on grammar, punctuation, and  words that are commonly confused. There are also bits of vocabulary development, spelling, and formal versus informal usage. The text is a genuinely \"functional\" approach in that the lessons cover the main items that carry social stigma and mark a writer, fairly or not, as uneducated. The lessons and materials are simple, systematic, and focused on avoiding or correcting errors with minimal explanation, minimal terminology, and no theory. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The approach is traditional, which is probably best for basic writers. For example, commas are prescribed routinely after introductory phrases and between the last two items of a series (the Oxford comma). There were a few confusing items or errors. For example, the section titled \"Pronouns as Proper Nouns\" focused on capitalizing words such as \"Mom\" when used instead of names, whereas this is simply a case of using a noun as a proper noun/name.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Usage and editorial practice do change over time.  However, I do think the majority of the items are stable","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The prose within the lessons is extremely simple, but topics and terms are suitable for older students working at a basic level.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The book is extremely simple and systematic. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is designed as a series of independent lessons, each with three-part plan--introduction of concepts, a review, and a cumulative quiz. The lessons can be separated, reordered, and selected, as needed.  However, the quizzes are cumulative and so may need revision if reordered.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics, as noted previously, are independent, although the quizzes are cumulative. The table of contents is clear, and the lessons are in logical groupings. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The materials are very simple--text, practice items, and quizzes suitable for projection and/or duplication.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"It's a basic grammar and usage text.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The focus is standard English without explanation and the illustrative items are generally innocuous. A teacher could easily modify items to accommodate cultural or linguistic differences. There is no consideration of linguistic and social contexts, apart from labeling some items as suitable or not suitable for academic contexts. Again, a teacher could add these considerations according to student needs and, given the range of possible needs, may be best handled this way. ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Used alone, this text would make for very dull instruction. Highly motivated students would do well and would appreciate the focus. However, I believe that its main value would be as a basal  or supplementary text that the teacher would expand, elaborate, and intersperse with other content.","created_at":"2018-11-08T15:35:16.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-11-08T15:35:16.000-06:00"},{"id":2469,"first_name":"Linda","last_name":"Burdick-lautrec","position":"Adjunct Lecturer","institution_name":"LAGCC","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The author managed to cover highly specific grammatical problem areas for students taking community college English classes. Her plan of action includes quizzes, methodology, application and instruction. Her recognition of the unique difficulties addresses the precise needs of unprepared learners who did not have the benefit of learning the mechanics of teaching prior to these basic classes.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Her explanations and information are 100% accurate.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"I can't imagine a more relevant book for those of us attempting to teach English to students who do not have  a grasp of the mechanics of the language. It is not enough to \"glean\" meaning from the context when students are unable to accurately write in English. This provides the essential tools for them.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"It is highly specific and clearly explains how to teach the basics to students with repetition. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"This is consistently appropriate and helpful. Again, as I said earlier, the author displays an uncanny awareness of the confusion that students have in their writing and she addresses this throughout the book.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The modules are clear, delineated, specifically outlined as a recipe for English teachers attempting to help our students catch up.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The structure is presented in a straightforward clear fashion that moves from the easiest issues to explaln to the most difficult. Interestingly enough, while we often want to begin with subject-verb agreement, the author has left this to the end. This makes sense!","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"It is clear and straightforward.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"It is objective, clear and nonjudgmental in a way that should appeal to all teachers and students.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I love it! I need it and I will be using it.","created_at":"2018-12-14T17:45:48.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-12-14T17:45:48.000-06:00"},{"id":2587,"first_name":"Jane","last_name":"Garrard","position":"Dr. Jane Garrard, Professor","institution_name":"Chemeketa Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is a great book for teaching conventions to developing writing students.  It covers all the subject matter I teach in my classes and addresses the areas of most concern, the errors I most often see in student papers. The introduction is catchy and easy to read, and the book is organized in a way that is relevant and simple to follow. Each unit contains the key concepts and gives plenty of examples. I really like the discussion about objective assessments, and that the book is about function rather than terminology. It also includes lots of materials for instructors to use.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"All the concepts were accurate and presented in an objective, yet interesting manner.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The textbook is definitely relevant and what I currently teach in the classroom ,","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Very simply written, easy to understand and to follow. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The chapters are well organized and displayed similarly. The terminology is consistent throughout the book.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is divided into concept chapters and the instructor can use either pieces or the entire book.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Very well structured, logical, and very user friendly.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text is professional looking and easy to use.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I could not detect any obvious grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is not offensive in any way and is totally objective.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I love the way I could easily copy the book to my desktop and pick and choose what materials to use.  I want my own copy to use in class! Great book!","created_at":"2019-02-26T14:21:05.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-02-26T14:21:05.000-06:00"},{"id":2648,"first_name":"Sheila","last_name":"Mulligan","position":"Adjunct Professor","institution_name":"Gettysburg College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Chauna Ramsey presents, in lean clarity, an argument as well as a practical plan for teaching grammar conventions (commonly confused words, use of apostrophes, etc.). As the author notes, most professors dealing with college writing and composition never had to focus on the different between \"it's\" and \"its\" for example, or that \"a lot\" is always two words, because oftentimes we are lifelong readers who feel pleasure when diving into novels. The best way to learn how to write is to read. Our students often seem to approach literature, poetry, and writing with vague uneasiness or outright mistrust and avoidance; at the same time, many professors react to grammar slips with sneering moral judgment, as if students make these mistakes because they were raised in a cave. Students were raised in an educational system that, particularly in college, includes professors who do not want to teach basic grammar conventions. This book is certainly comprehensive; a revision might incorporate textspeak errors such as \"ur, u, lol\" and more--which I encounter on a weekly basis with every level of student, from first-year to senior.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"As a professor of remedial English at the community college for fifteen years, all the while teaching college composition and creative writing, intro to literature classes, and intro to women and gender studies classes at a pricey liberal arts college, I feel I can judge the accuracy of the author's premise for writing this book in the first place: And she is beyond accurate. Across the board, my students make these errors, some more than others. It is not uncommon for me to encounter upper-level students at my liberal arts college who make these errors with as much regularity--or more often--than my remedial students at the community college. In no way do such errors undercut the value of the writer's meaning, except that readers will not take such writing seriously. Every student has every reason to need this basic knowledge about conventions. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The topics for each section are exactly what I've been covering for years. As I mentioned, updating the text with \"textspeak\" errors (u, ur, lol, etc.) might prove essential in the next edition.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The clarity is here is intuitive, accessible, and straightforward. The author uses no extra words or presumptive jargon in her forward. There's an elegance in the writing here that speaks to a kind of wisdom in the presentation--in no way does the writer surround herself with footnotes, secondary sources, and boring academic fluff. I definitely appreciate the author's respect for my time, just from reading the introductory pages. And I've already printed her pre- and post-tests to incorporate into my classes.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The internal consistency of the modules here matches up with the book's premise.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The divisible quality of this textbook is implicit. It's organized thoughtfully in a stream-lined style.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"I found the organization to match how I organize teaching basic grammar conventions--I start with commonly confused words and end with apostrophes, parallel structure, and modifier problems.  ","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"At first I was confused looking for the instructor version, but in moments I was able to find my way to the lesson plan sections on how to proceed.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I find it ironic that in all the online textbooks referenced, this is a section reviewers have to rate--yet most reviewers seem to assume that their own students write at a \"5\" level without any support from their professors! Of course this book is grammatically correct--grammar is the whole point of expressing oneself in a way that the reader will take seriously.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"I did not find anything insensitive or offensive, yet I think a section guiding students on oppressive, racist, sexist language would be appropriate.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2019-03-10T12:40:35.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-03-10T12:40:35.000-05:00"},{"id":3551,"first_name":"Sharon","last_name":"Gilbert","position":"Professor","institution_name":"Radford University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"There is no glossary but the table of contents is very helpful. I don't teach English classes at the university level but I do have projects where my students have to write. This book provides a resource for me to pick and choose what units to pull from to teach. ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"On page 7 of the Conventions 1 sheet, I couldn’t figure out what items 9-18 meant. In Convention 2, there’s what might be Spanish in parentheses at the top that is confusing. What’s its purpose? On unit 11, there is PER: Comma review and I believe it should be PDF. Other than these small errors, I found the information in the book to be very helpful.\r\n","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This text would be quite easy to update due to the structure of the units. The introduction hinted at some variance in interpretation in the use of \"affect/effect\". Updating the text might be necessary. For example, while \"data\" is the plural form of \"datum\", it has become more accepted to use a singular noun with it. ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The author writes in the introduction that there won't be a lot of jargon. This makes the materials accessible to instructors who are non-English teachers but still want to help their students with their writing. It also makes it user-friendly for the students. I've already pointed out that there is some confusion within the worksheets. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The author is very consistent. When I first took a look at the material, I wondered why there were directions for each unit since the directions were essentially the same. This is one way the book could be \"tightened up\".","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is already divided into units so it's quite easy to see the divisions and access the material.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book starts with word pairs or triplets that are often confused or used incorrectly and moves into punctuation. ","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"I initially had a difficult time finding the tests on the downloaded digital PDF copy. I had to go to the online copy where I was finally able to see that the words “Conventions Pretest” was a link. It wasn’t showing as such in the Digital PDF I was working from. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There were no grammatical errors that I saw.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I did not observe any cultural insensitivity.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I chose to review this book because I enjoy good writing. As a university professor who teaches students who wish to be teachers themselves, I think it is critical that they be able to use the English language correctly in their writing and speech. Consequently, I try to teach my students about many of these conventions so that their writing for my courses will improve. I hope that these lessons will carry over into their other courses and follow them into their professions. \r\n\r\nThis book was an enjoyable read. The author recognizes that the English language is confusing. The author also points out why teaching this information is important and helpful to students. \r\n\r\nThe worksheets are easy to use in class. They are short enough and easy to teach so that they can be incorporated into another discipline's courses. The book has addressed the most common errors I observe with my students except for pronoun/referent agreement. \r\n\r\nMy suggestion for improving the book would be to provide the answer sheets for those of us who aren’t English teachers but want to help our students with their writing. \r\n\r\n","created_at":"2020-01-29T14:06:38.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-01-29T14:06:38.000-06:00"},{"id":3598,"first_name":"Kathleen","last_name":"Tice","position":"Clinical Assistant Professor","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The author has done a terrific job in providing what the book sets out to do. That is, the author focuses in on prevalent errors in students’ writing and provides a way for other instructors to help their students master important writing conventions. \r\nRather than “covering” topics, the author has set priorities, which makes it possible to provide students the instruction they need to master the conventions selected. The initial units focus upon commonly confused/misspelled words, and subsequent units focus upon types of punctuation and subject-verb agreement. If an instructor has time to teach more about conventions, this book provides an approach that can complement handbooks that provide a larger array of conventions. \r\nWhat is special about this book is the comprehensiveness in regard to teaching. The author makes it possible for anyone who follows the plan of the book to be an effective teacher. Rather than providing content and some exercises or quizzes (which mostly assess), the author provides materials and procedures for sound instruction.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate. The information about coordinating conjunctions includes four, but it leaves out the other three. I have found that students can learn the seven without difficulty, but the author states at the outset of the book that the author has set priorities based upon the author's years of teaching.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This book is needed.  During the past forty years, English teachers have neglected teaching writing conventions. Yes, we need to help students establish content first as they compose, but students also need to know conventions for proofreading final drafts that are shared with others to read. In teaching high-school and community college students, I found that students actually feel more confident about composing when they know conventions.\r\nI currently teach prospective elementary teachers, and I teach writing conventions as part of each class meeting because they need to know these for writing messages to parents and for providing a writing workshop with publishing conferences in their classrooms. I also have seen a need for this type of book when I have talked to English professors who say that even English majors do not know conventions. This book provides a way for instructors to help students learn conventions in a systematic way without having to sacrifice other learning objectives of a course.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is written clearly and explains what to do in working with students. This author knows students and how to reach them. \r\nThe textbook begins with a comprehensive pretest with directions that explain to students that their score on the pretest is not going to affect their grade, but to do their best so that the teacher knows how much time to devote to teaching conventions. These directions also show instructors how they can use the pretest wisely. The overheads and the handouts clearly present content so that modifications are not needed. The author also offers a valuable tip for using the handouts in saying that writing in the blanks helps students retain, but instructors can save time by asking students to select a correct answer.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The author has provided a pre-assessment at the outset that addresses all of the conventions to be taught through the units of the book, as needed. The book ends with a final exam. Unit assessments are cumulative so that students are more apt to retain what they learned in a unit.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The units of study develop in a logical way and topics are clearly designated. The pretest over all of the topics/content could be used to skip content students already know.\r\nThe units can be adapted to the structure of a course. The author suggests a three-class rotation system that provides for introduction of a concept, guided practice as a class, and assignment of worksheets on one day. On the second day, concepts are reviewed and worksheets are corrected, which makes it possible for students to catch up if they were absent. The third day is devoted to taking the cumulative quiz.\r\nThe author points out that because each quiz is cumulative, students could make up for a missed quiz through having a quiz they take count for two.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"\r\nThe units of study focus on topics/concepts in a logical way. Within each unit, materials and procedures are similar in that they provide overheads for introducing information, overheads for whole-class practice, worksheets, and a quiz which includes concepts covered in previous units. The units of study provide for a simple predictable structure, which makes it easier for students to focus on content because they know what to expect. The organization also makes it easy for instructors because they do not have to choreograph for each class meeting.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I did not experience any difficulty in navigating the text. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The author is sensitive to the individual needs of students. The overheads include Spanish when it can help students, such as for \"your\" (\"tu\") as compared to \"you’re\" (\"estas\"). \r\nThe procedures for teaching provide for differentiated instruction through assessments that indicate what needs to be taught/what students have mastered. The cumulative assessments also help ensure students remember content over time. \r\nSimilarly, the procedures for teaching each unit foster students' success, including English learners. The procedures provide for scaffolding/gradual release of responsibility as the students learn about a convention. That is, the author has provided overheads to introduce a convention followed by guided practice. Subsequently, students complete a handout (worksheet). A handout starts with items where students select a correct answer (e.g., \"your\" or \"you’re\") and moves to a higher level of learning where students write to show they can apply concepts. \r\nThe author also provides another way to provide differentiated instruction by sharing that the more skilled students could skip the worksheets and perhaps solely write a few sentences to show mastery of a convention.\r\n\r\n","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I wish every student in high school and/or college had received the teaching this book offers. As the author points out, knowing writing conventions is not the most critical thing to know in life, but students do need to be taught conventions. Students can feel more confident about writing when they know conventions, and most are not going to read widely enough to learn conventions without some systematic instruction. The approach of this book makes it possible to teach students effectively.\r\n","created_at":"2020-02-28T12:49:22.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-02-28T12:49:22.000-06:00"},{"id":3606,"first_name":"Karen","last_name":"Betz","position":"Assistant Professor of Literacy","institution_name":"Marian University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"Conventions 101 is primarily focused on specific words that are often utilized incorrectly and the proper use of punctuation. A glossary is included for easy access to the units. The text also contains a pre and post test as well as assessments for each unit of study. There is no index provided. ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The text is free from errors. Comments in the introduction elude to the fact that if you are an avid reader, you naturally pick up on grammar. For example, the authors states that, \"If you’re reading this book, chances are, you never had to learn how to use a comma. Nobody ever had to teach you\r\nthat “a lot” is two words.\" The author does go on to say that the majority of students need to be taught. It is important to note that grammar should be taught explicitly and systematically for all students. \r\n","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The text will continue to be relevant based on its content. The text is arranged so that if updates were need those could be easily added. The book is user-friendly. It can be picked up and implemented with very little effort. It is a practical tool for middle school, high school and community college teachers in particular. ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The text is written in laymen terms. It utilizes humor and frankness throughout. ","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The terminology and framework are consistent throughout. It includes a description, practice sheets for three days and a cumulative assessment. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is broken into units which makes it an easy text to navigate. If an instructor wanted to skip a module, based on findings from the pre-test that would be a possibility. The assessments are cumulative so a review of the material would still be included. ","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The flow is from part to whole. The focus is from the word level to sentence level. It is logical the way it is arranged, however I think it could have flowed just as well from whole to part. ","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"The bold print and formatting of the daily exercises is a bit confusing. The cumulative assessments are well designed. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contains no grammatical errors. ","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The comment in the introduction, \"The truth is, nobody else is going to do it, and the students who need to learn correct conventions are not going to learn them like you did, through reading,\" eludes to the fact that families are not involved in the education process of their children. ","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2020-03-03T09:29:57.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-03-03T09:29:57.000-06:00"},{"id":3752,"first_name":"Monica","last_name":"Haralson","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"NTCC","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book is an excellent source of basic writing conventions.  It covers a wide range of information including an extensive list of commonly misspelled words and grammar rules.  There is also a glossary used to enhance understanding of words presented in each lesson.   As an educator, I appreciate the pre and post test before delving into a particular topic.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"There were no errors found in this text.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The contents provides relevance, and would be a great supplemental resource to most academic courses.  It provides foundational instruction for learners of all educational levels, particularly, those enrolled in an ABE program.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The information was presented with such simplicity.  The author gave recommendations as to how to utilize the material in a way that is most beneficial to the learners.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The terminology and framework were consistent throughout the book.  Each unit lesson and activity was presented with uniformity.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text was divided into \"chunks\" that are feasible for even the most basic class.  There were recommendations of how the material could be used, as well as the duration of each unit in class.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Conventions 101 was well organized.  It started with the rudiments of grammar and progressed to the more advance concepts.  The book was well planned.  It is evident that author put much thought into the flow.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"There were no interface issues.  However, making a distinction of titles and exercises could be made by using less of the bold print.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text was free of grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text was not culturally insensitive in any way.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I really enjoyed this book.  Many my students are somewhat fearful of grammar.  My plan is to use this book to help them overcome their grammar issues.","created_at":"2020-04-22T17:13:46.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-04-22T17:13:46.000-05:00"},{"id":4469,"first_name":"Katherine","last_name":"Higgs-Coulthard","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Saint Mary's College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text is appropriate for use as a teaching guide, but not necessarily a student textbook. Rather than aiming for comprehensiveness, the text zeroes in on common errors related to high school level concepts such as punctuation, capitalization, usage, and sentence structure. The focus on commonly confused concepts makes the text potentially more impactful on student writing than a wider, less focused review. The text includes teaching materials, such as pdfs and word documents for instructor modelling, student practice, and assessments, along with suggestions for instructional organization.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate and includes many examples that model correct usage at a basic level. Since the text is designed for use in a high school setting wherein students are expected to learn White Mainstream English, the text models and employs that grammatical system.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The text seems to be a bound copy of the materials the author uses in class, and as a result, there are a few handouts that have information specific to the author. While many of the materials are also available as editable word documents, a few such as the final exam and “rejection sheet” are only available as pdfs. Savvy users should still be able to edit using pdf editing software.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"For a textbook on grammar, this text is more accessible than most. The author defines grammatical concepts via usage without the weight of jargon that might bog down users. This is helpful for the intended audience (high school teachers and students), but could pose problems if the user needs to learn that jargon (for instance as part of an educator preparation program).","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text uses a uniform structure that hinges on teacher modeling, teacher supported practice, and individual assessments.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is organized into concept-based units that can be taught individually in ay sequence. One aspect that would be impacted by taking the materials out of sequence is the spiraled nature of assessments that incorporate prior units into subsequent quizzes.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text logically progresses from basic concepts such as commas to more complex concepts such as semi-colons and colons. Concepts are reinforced though integrated practice in subsequent lessons.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"The instructional materials for use in teacher modelling are entirely in boldfaced text. This may be intentional since the materials are designed to be used with a document camera and projector. Some instructors may find it distracting.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text provides many examples of correct basic grammar usage, but does not model advanced usage.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"Grammar is a cultural construct. The text addresses proper use of White Mainstream English, which is traditionally taught in schools. As such, the text supports high school grammar instruction. For use in an educator preparation program, it would be beneficial to supplement with a discussion of non-standardized usage and how to best support students from linguistically diverse backgrounds.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"A major benefit of this text is the on-going, embedded assessment. The text includes cumulative reviews and quizzes, designed to help the user retain the information. These features are beneficial also in terms of providing practice exercises that demonstrate various usage of the grammatical concepts. The pre- and post- tests also include constructed response prompts so that students not only have to identify proper usage, but also employ it in their own written responses.","created_at":"2020-12-17T12:50:43.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-12-17T12:50:43.000-06:00"},{"id":34035,"first_name":"Margaret","last_name":"Turner","position":"Adjunct faculty","institution_name":"Mt. Hood Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"While the conventions are quite extensive, the approach leaves me feeling that the context of writing is lost in the single subject conventions. I would like to see more work with sentence construction and framing grammatical sentences.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"These conventions are very thorough and adhere to the errors I see my students making regularly in my high intermediate level writing classes.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"Scope of the text is very narrow, and leaves little to the imagination of the would-be writer. I believe it is important to have generation of topic, ideas, mind-mapping and brainstorming activities, so that the students don't get too tied to the conventions and lose topic relevancy or sentence generation.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Very clear and specific examples for each convention. Wording is appropriate for mid-high intermediate level writers.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"Topics chosen are very consistent with patterns of writing I've seen in my intermediate writing level classes.","modularity_rating":3,"modularity_review":"I might be interested in using some of these conventions to add to my writing classes as homework activities. If this could be used as partitioned excerpts, it could be a great grammar workbook series for my students.","organization_rating":3,"organization_review":"Content flow is very detailed and seems to flow in a logical fashion. I would like to see more hands-on activities and examples from student work included for relevancy and relatability.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"What content was visible was clear and easy to navigate, however, the bulk of the material is not accessible for viewing with each content item. The heading for the chapters are all that is visible without any user content information, structure or materials.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There's a strong emphasis on grammatical form and content.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"This seems like it might be focusing more on the \"correct white English Grammar\" form of writing that doesn't leave room for cultural perspectives or management within cultural point-of-view.","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"More examples of student work, a rubric for writing assignments guidelines, and an opportunity to see genuine work generated by the students would add greatly to the cultural relevance of this book.","created_at":"2022-09-07T17:23:35.000-05:00","updated_at":"2022-09-07T17:23:35.000-05:00"},{"id":35270,"first_name":"Michael","last_name":"Raines","position":"Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The table of contents allows teachers to skip to whatever concept they may be covering; however, the haphazard structure or order of presentations is unhelpful to my pedogeological aims.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Ironically, the author confesses to be less than 100% accurate because she has, at times, oversimplified concepts.  Nevertheless, this admission only adds credibility to her book rather than diminishing it.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"Unfortunately, many of the opening lessons seem quite trivial, if not arbitrary, compared to later sections dealing with subject-verb agreement or concepts of clause division.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Actually, many of the \"chapters\" of this advice to writing teachers book (this isn't really a textbook to be given to students) are exactly the same text: \r\n\"This is the tenth/eleventh/twelfth.... unit of conventions, with overheads for introducing information, overheads for whole-class practice, worksheets, and a quiz which includes concepts covered in previous units.\r\n\r\nAgain, I recommend following a three-class-session structure, with the first day being an introduction of concepts, the second day a review, and the cumulative quiz on the third day.\"\r\n\r\nThe writing is minimal beyond the first few days of instruction.  I feel certain her method works for her, but it is a bit antiquated.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Yes, it's consistently boring.","modularity_rating":1,"modularity_review":"Yes, I can use sections of this book to teach, but this IS NOT a TEXTBOOK in any conventional sense of the matter.  I hate to fault it for what it is not, but I was looking for (and this prompt is asking for) \"sections that can be assigned at different points\" to the students.  I wouldn't assign anything other than some of the quiz questions to my students.  The useful information needs transferring to a PowerPoint document, in all likelihood.","organization_rating":2,"organization_review":"Here's where I'm utterly befuddled by this text.  Why begin with individual word issues and then broaden into concepts much more pervasive?  It almost feels like the author has pet peeves about certain writing tendencies that are decidedly non-standard.  That's cool.  I get the idea of \"that mistake bugs the heck out of me,\" but don't we say that to ourselves to try to understand what should be the appropriate weight of such a mistake?  How important is that non-standard usage to the student's development and larger academic needs?  Honestly, I don't like the idiom \"a lot\" in most of my student writings, but why begin there?","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"None of the .pdf links work.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"While the Word documents look off-putting with over-crowded pages and rampant boldface use, they seem accurate.  Let's hope so for a grammar book.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This text seems inoffensive in a cursory reading.","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"When I began Chauna Ramsey’s _Conventions 101: A Functional Approach to Teaching (And Assessing!) Grammar and Punctuation_, I found her initial letter to the readers to be exceptionally personable.  She identifies her audience, English teachers, quite accurately as she reminds us that we, English teachers, have frequently never learned some of these concepts formally.  As she begins, she invites us into “the wonderful world of teaching things you never had to learn” because many of us come from reading communities.  These conventions of grammar, syntax and punctuation are more subconsciously ingrained in readers than in our students, many of whom are not readers or do not read actively.\r\n\r\nThese points remind us that teaching English writing conventions must be stressed in foundational courses to empower students to express their best ideas in their most exacting language.  So, we’re all on board with Ms. Ramsey’s 24 years of experience and the need to teach grammar concepts, right?  Well, I’m not.  Not really.  After a powerful start, the organization of concepts seems trivial: to begin with “a lot” vs. “alot” offers little inspiration for students wishing to find practical help for college writing.  Yes, the standard expression of this idiom is “a lot” with a space between the two words, but that she wouldn’t concern herself with offering stronger, more precise vocabulary disturbs me.  Moreover, I, as a teacher, can bring in this advice to my classroom coverage of the book’s content, but the organization of these little tips about word confusions seems neither to flow nor to feel segmented to develop concepts in any particular way.  \r\n\r\nWhile I can certainly use little worksheets to help with my coverage of different individual word problems, these worksheets look quite underdeveloped or basic.  Furthermore, the links to the .pdf documents do not work. [https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/conventions101/front-matter/introduction-why-should-i/] The Word documents have useful quiz questions, but, generally, they seem far less engaging than Ms. Ramsey’s initial introduction.  Possibly, I am asking too much of a simple text designed to help, but I feel that in writing my own _Intro to English Grammar_ for my classes, I will want to branch out from major concepts into easy examples that become more and more complicated.  This textbook—as beatific as it intends to be—could be a huge bore that turns students off to English just as easily as it could interest them and motivate them to use the language in conscientious ways.  There must be a more engaging, less haphazard way to approach a systematic understanding of helpful grammar concepts that will translate into better writing practices for my students.","created_at":"2024-10-11T14:37:16.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-10-11T14:37:16.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/conventions-101-a-functional-approach-to-teaching-and-assessing-grammar-and-punctuation","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:12.000-05:00"},{"id":310,"title":"WAC and Second-Language Writers: Research Towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Practices","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2014,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":"9781602355057","license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"In WAC and Second-Language Writers, the editors and contributors pursue the ambitious goal of including within WAC theory, research, and practice the differing perspectives, educational experiences, and voices of second-language writers. The chapters within this collection not only report new research but also share a wealth of pedagogical, curricular, and programmatic practices relevant to second-language writers. Representing a range of institutional perspectives—including those of students and faculty at public universities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and English-language schools—and a diverse set of geographical and cultural contexts, the editors and contributors report on work taking place in the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.","contributors":[{"id":3536,"contribution":"Editor","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Terry","middle_name":"Myers","last_name":"Zawacki","location":"George Mason University","background_text":"Terry Myers Zawacki is associate professor emerita of English at George Mason University. She has published on writing in the disciplines, writing assessment, WAC and L2 writing, writing centers, and writing fellows. She serves on the editorial boards of Across the Disciplines, The WAC Journal, and the WAC Clearinghouse. She also is lead editor of the WAC Clearinghouse International Exchanges on the Study of Writing series."},{"id":3537,"contribution":"Editor","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Michelle","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Cox","location":"Dartmouth College","background_text":"Michelle Cox is a Multilingual Specialist at Dartmouth College and former director of Bridgewater State University's WAC program, which she launched in 2007. She has published on WAC and second-language writing as well as on composition pedagogy, identity theory, and faculty development. She serves on the editorial boards of Across the Disciplines and the WAC Clearinghouse, where she edits the pages on WAC and second-language writing."}],"subjects":[{"id":24,"name":"Curriculum \u0026 Instruction","parent_subject_id":5,"call_number":"LC980","visible_textbooks_count":44,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/curriculum-instruction"},{"id":5,"name":"Education","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"L7","visible_textbooks_count":144,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/education"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"},{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/humanities"},{"id":33,"name":"Literature, Rhetoric, and Poetry","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"PE1408","visible_textbooks_count":124,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/literature-rhetoric-and-poetry"}],"publishers":[{"id":494,"url":"http://wac.colostate.edu/books/l2/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:40.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:40.000-05:00","name":"WAC Clearinghouse"}],"formats":[{"id":833,"type":"PDF","url":"https://wacclearinghouse.org/books/perspectives/l2/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":834,"type":"eBook","url":"https://wacclearinghouse.org/books/perspectives/l2/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":6,"reviews":[{"id":810,"first_name":"Tatiana ","last_name":"Nekrasova-Beker","position":"Assistant Professor ","institution_name":"Colorado State University ","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This edited collection provides a good coverage of topics within WAC, with chapters being grouped in three larger sections. The first section focuses on the learners and their experiences in WAC courses; the second section addresses the points of concern of the faculty who work with L2 students, and the last section includes descriptions of several collaborative initiatives which incorporate WAC. Although the volume does not have a glossary/ index, it does include three additional sections – Foreword and Introduction at the beginning and Afterword at the end that help the reader navigate this collection of case studies. While the former two sections help to contextualize the volume in terms of the main theoretical and methodological advances that have been already made in the field introducing the types of questions that warrant additional discussion and how the present volume contributes to that discussion, the final section provides a comprehensive synthesis of the works included in the volume. All important concepts and terms are introduced at the beginning of the volume, so the reader is prepared to read individual essays from different sections of the books.  ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate. But my concern is that this text provides very little specific information on how to address L2 students’ real needs and challenges in WAC when their proficiency is too low to be able to “negotiate” any meaning. What type of feedback would be culturally and linguistically appropriate for different groups of learners? I am thinking about the target audience of this volume. If it is mostly intended for WAC/ composition/ L2 writing instructors, they will probably have some answers to those questions based on their previous experiences, training, and scholarship. If this collection is hoping to reach more of the content instructors (professors in specific disciplines), these practical concerns will not be addressed beyond the very general statements of the “need to be aware of…” and “should take into considerations…” nature. In this respect, chapters written by Ives et al. (chapter 8), Lancaster (chapter 12), Fredericksen \u0026amp; Mangelsdorf (chapter 14) and a few other chapters in this collection will be most appreciated by the readers as they offer specific recommendations that can be adapted in other pedagogical contexts.          ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date and the volume covers the most urgent issues that are relevant for and currently being discussed across several disciplines/ areas of study – WAC, second language (L2) writing and writers, and composition-rhetoric studies. Because the volume is a collection of individual case studies conducted in/ featuring various pedagogical contexts, I do not think it would be possible to implement any changes/ updates, nor that this collection would require any updates in general.  ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The language is very accessible and the terminology used in each chapter is explained and contextualized. The content in each chapter is easily accessible to individuals with limited knowledge of WAC/ L2 writing practices.  ","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is consistent in terms of the terminology and the main approach to understanding the complex relationship between WAC and L2 writing practices. The majority of authors refer to the same body of research in their introductory/ literature review sections, which makes it easy to understand the individual position articulated in each chapter as well as to establish connections across chapters. In addition, the editors included multiple cross-references in each chapter to identify those connections more explicitly and to emphasize the overlapping themes across the volume. Personally, I found those cross-references a bit distracting, as they were too excessive in several chapters and interrupted the overall flow of the ideas in the text. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"It is easy to read this text in smaller sections (as individual chapters) that can be assigned at different points in a course. The content of each chapter is also organized in manageable units that are clearly marked to guide the reader through the text. The three-fold focus of this volume on students’ and faculty experiences, as well as on curriculum development issues makes it a good secondary resource to supplement course readings in a number of applied linguistics and TEFL/TESL courses, including those on L2 pedagogy (and, specifically, L2 writing development), intercultural rhetoric, and L2 course design and curriculum development.   ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Each chapter is organized into sections. For case studies (those mainly included in sections 1 and 2), the authors follow a typical format for presenting empirical research by providing the background for the study, discussing the methodology employed to collect data, reviewing the results, and discussing the implications of those results for teaching/ learning to write across disciplines. Chapters that feature descriptions of programs and practices are also organized in a logical, clear fashion by discussing the background literature, presenting the problem, describing the implemented steps, and then discussing the results/ challenges/ implications. ","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"I did not experience any navigation problems when reading this volume. I read both the e-version as well as several chapters that were printed out. The text is not interactive, so there is virtually no difference in using e-version over the hard copy. The tables were not formatted consistently, and this is obvious in both versions of the text. Also, the text in a few chapters (in sections 1 and 2) would include a random numeral following a sentence. I initially thought that was supposed to be a reference to an end note, but the numbers were not consistent.  ","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"The text has a few syntactic errors. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is culturally sensitive and includes references to examples that feature a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Several authors in this volume explicitly advocate for the need to consider L2 students’ native cultural practices and patterns when working with them in WAC courses.  ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"In my opinion, the second and third sections of this volume are the strongest in terms of presenting detailed accounts of the methodology employed to collect data and the discussion of the results and implications, often supplemented with specific suggestions and “lessons to learn.” Several case studies included in the first section either lack methodological rigor or the authors chose to not include important information about how the data were elicited and coded, which made it difficult for me to evaluate some of the conclusions the authors made based on the data.      ","created_at":"2016-12-05T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2016-12-05T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":812,"first_name":"Hannah","last_name":"Caballero Bonilla","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Colorado State University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text covers the subject of WAC with L2 English student writers comprehensively. One of its greatest strengths is the range of contexts and methodologies the chapters include: undergraduate and graduate students from multiple countries; international and immigrant students; universities in the U.S. and abroad, as well as community colleges and for-profit colleges; WAC and WID; writing and reading courses; perspectives from faculty and WAC directors in addition to L2 English students; and a mix of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods methodologies. The other great strength of the text is that it provides pragmatic recommendations to instructors and administrators to support inclusiveness and instruction of L2 English students. The text does not include an index or glossary, but I suspect that students would find what they need well enough from the table of contents. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is extensively researched and makes reasonable conclusions from the data. It does include bias but in a positive manner: it advocates for WAC pedagogy and inclusivity at the course and institutional levels, as the title indicates. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"All of the studies have been conducted since 2009, though most were more recent. The research, conclusions, and recommendations are not likely to be obsolete in the near future. Many studies draw on similar framework which indicate the relevance of certain foundational principles for WAC, and while new chapters would need to be inserted to update content, updates will probably not be necessary for some time. It would be relevant for graduate students in a TESL/TEFL or Rhetoric and Composition program, as well as current composition instructors looking for professional development.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is clear and professional, defining relevant terms as necessary for the audience. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is consistent in the terms and framework that it employs. The editors note in the opening that they would use the term “L2” when referring to non-native speakers of English, but also point out that they didn’t require this from contributing authors who did, in fact, also use the terms MLL, ELL, and NNES. Many of the chapters are also consistent in their framework, referencing much of Leki's work in the field as their foundation.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This text has clear chapters which each have headings and subheadings. The editors added references in each chapter to other book chapters, which is very useful for drawing connections without being overly self-referential. The text is also divided into units about 1) research on L2 writers, 2) faculty concerns \u0026amp; expectations, and 3) WAC approaches, which is an effective way to read about various perspectives. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The progression of chapters is logical, first covering research on student perspectives, then on faculty perspectives from a range of disciplines, and finally on WAC directors and programmatic approaches. This works to provide context on the successes and challenges of students before moving into teacher practices and concerns. Ending with WAC programmatic concerns and recommendations moves to the larger picture and concludes with successful models to consider.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"All interface features are clear and don’t distract or confuse the reader. ","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"While the text is free from grammatical errors, it did have several typos, though they did not interfere with meaning. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text’s goal is to make universities more inclusive of L2 English speakers, and so it is not culturally insensitive or offensive. It highlights a common faculty and student view of “difference-as-deficit” and advocates instead for a “difference-as-accommodation” or “difference-as-resource” model. It also includes chapters which provide models and recommendations for adapting curriculum to be more inclusive of its increasingly global population. The studies are also conducted with students and instructors from around the world. These models and suggestions are useful for a range of audiences: language instructors, writing instructors, instructors of writing-intensive courses, WC directors, and teachers-in-training.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2016-12-05T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2016-12-05T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1116,"first_name":"Laurel","last_name":"Stvan","position":"Associate Professor and Chair","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This anthology is distributed by a clearinghouse who produce materials for college teachers in any discipline who incorporate Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC). The book is a wide-ranging resource for teachers of second languages learners who emphasize writing in their courses. Topics include case studies of individual L2 writers; demonstrations of lessons highlighting particular skills such as summarization or choices in stance taking; surveys of the types of reading L2 students do and of the types of programs used in home countries of international students; studies of successful syllabi in writing intensive ESL courses; and examination of issues specific to community college writers, graduate student workshops, and ESL students in various embedded as well as for-profit programs. The volume presents a varied and well rounded set of concerns. But because it includes so many chapters, it would be strengthened by the addition of a index.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The chapters present accurate coverage of the current concerns in WAC. It addresses obstacles that the researchers encountered in their studies, and fairly represents each set of findings--which are most often qualitative--with no discernable error or bias in the presentation.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"WAC is a movement that began in the 1970s, with its application to second language learners having developed in the 1990s. So while this book is a snapshot of current practices, it also covers a topic that will only become more relevant over time, due to the increase in globalization of post-secondary students. Whether the L2 is English, Spanish, or Chinese, the need to assist second language writers in mastering writing skills in their intended disciplines is likely to persist. This volume provides good background on the motivation and challenges for WAC/WID programs, and when used in graduate teacher-training courses would provide a good basis to complement more hands-on books of L2 writing tasks (e.g., Swales and Feak’s Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills: A Course for Nonnative Speakers of English or Dana Ferris’s Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice.)","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The language is clear throughout, but scholarly in style. While the copious technical terminology is necessary and well defined, the book is best aimed at graduate courses.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Terminology that is introduced, defined, and re-used throughout the chapters includes WAC, WID, ESOL, L2, “difference as deficit”, “difference as resource”, correction of errors vs. framing assignments as “writing to learn.” Considering the range of authors included, the work is well focused, and edited to present a thematic unity.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"As an anthology, the book’s four front and back-matter essays and 18 chapters offer a good variety of topics. The chapters are divided into sections covering 1) the strengths and coping strategies of L2 students, 2) faculty concerns and expectations of L2 writers, and 3) suggestions for incorporating WAC practices and pedagogies. So depending on the type of institution (community college, university department, or intensive English program) and the type of student (grad, undergrad, or preservice teacher), chapters can easily be assigned independently or in different orders to meet the goals of the instructors and the students involved.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The sections are clearly separated into studies focusing on learners and studies examining faculty expectations. But despite the clearly labeled sections, the size of the portions is uneven, and there is no built-in transitional prose between readings. So while the forward and introduction make the thematic connections of the volume clear, these points are not as obvious to readers of individual chapters--not to mention readers who may work with only a subset of the readings.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"The chapters consist of research articles with un-numbered subsections, which gives less information to readers about their progress through the text than may be desired. The handful of charts and figures are clear and appropriate to the chapters that they illustrate, though not all tables are consistently formatted.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"The volume is well copy edited and free of grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The chapters cover contributions that deal overtly with instructor expectations of default writing styles, which might be assumptions influenced by class, race, and privilege. There is also coverage of how best to teach students from Generation 1.5, those “multilingual, immigrant learners who were born and educated outside the United States and who enter the US educational system while in the process of learning English” (p. 130)—typically Spanish speakers in the U.S. Also under consideration are the ways that foreign language pedagogy can differ when taught outside the home country of native speakers (illustrated here with English in China, Beirut, and Sweden) as well as aspects of “native speakerism” (p. 356) whereby some learners express a preference for feedback from native L1 speakers. In short, the book successfully addresses and avoids incorporating cultural bias in its presentation.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"This would be a helpful text for graduate TESOL writing courses, as well as a great faculty resource for writing courses and curriculum development sessions in any number of departments.","created_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2290,"first_name":"Karla","last_name":"Krause","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Winona State University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book contains a variety of subtexts suitable for a diverse group of audiences. The book is an edited version of a compilation of authored chapters. All chapters address writing with the second-language learner in mind.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Considering the topic of writing across the curriculum as a trending topic, one which will last for some time, and one which has subtly had much significance for a while -- it can be said that accuracy is both upheld in the book and in the process of being formed and developed and the same time.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content of the text is relevant to the current university setting. It has been relevant long before we were aware of the relevance and will be relevant for as long as there are second language learners and writing expectations at the university. Writing is and ought to be the essence of performance at the university level. Assisting second language learners in coping with this expectation in another language is among the most lasting educational principles.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Regarding the clarity, detail, and explanation of a complex subject – the text was clearly written for a wide audience and range of disciplines. The authors did an exceptional job in the consideration of the audience and in keeping the lingo understandable and contextual for all readers.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent throughout with the topic of writing across the curriculum with second language learners as the target student group, especially considering the edited version and various backgrounds of the contributing authors.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"While there is a progressive nature to the order of the sections and the chapters, it goes without saying that prior knowledge on the writing practices of second-language learners and tenets of writing across the curriculum may not require a reader to process the book in the way presented. In fact, some chapters may be eliminated altogether. Though, I appreciated the explicit and comprehensive demonstration for students of education or TESOL.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"There exists a logical organization to the book. The cohesiveness among the chapters and furthermore, among the sections, progresses in a natural and scaffolding-like order.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text is free of interface errors.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is free of grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is culturally relevant by the simple reason for writing the book. The purpose of the text recognizes and acknowledges the current university environment and population of non-native English speakers.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-08-02T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-08-02T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":3768,"first_name":"Rachel","last_name":"Hawley","position":"Affiliate Professor","institution_name":"Metropolitan State University of Denver","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is very comprehensive in that it represents multiple types of universities, including state schools, small liberal arts schools, community colleges, for-profit universities, and even TESL classes taught abroad.\r\nIt is mostly focused on helping students whose first language is a foreign language, rather than culturally and linguistically diverse students whose first language is a different English from Mainstream U.S. English (MUSE), but it does mention this aspect and the same principals can apply.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is definitely accurate - written by experts in the field and backed up with incredibly important research, including discussions of the methodology. The goal of this piece is to create a bias-free environment, and it does not stray from that.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"This books is copyrighted in 2014 and the articles do reference rather older research (including all the way back to the 1990s), but it is still pretty up-to-date. Since it is a collection of articles by experts, much of what they argue is still foundational. A professor would also want to supplement this text with other, more current research, as well.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The text is definitely written for a more advanced class. I wouldn't assign this to first year college students, but those already steeped in a Rhet/Comp or Educational program would find it fairly easy to read.  The ideas build together so that as the textbook evolves, it uses the previous terminology.  There is some use of jargon, but the students of a higher-level course such as this textbook is designed for should already be familiar with the jargon used. Still, there is enough of it that I felt the need to create a glossary for the acronyms.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is very consistent in terms of framework, and mostly consistent in terms of terminology. However, these are all separate research papers, so a variety of terminology is to be expected.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This text doesn't have a lot of subheadings and such, but for an advanced class, it is definitely able to be reorganized and realigned. This text is really a collection of academic essays around the topic of multilingual writers. It is divided into three sections, which could easily be reorganized or even cherry-picked from, but there is also consistency within those sections. For example, I am using this for a class on teaching multilingual writers that is aimed at English and Education majors, so while the third section on administration is great, I don't really need my students to read it.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization is very logical. The texts build on one another, but are not dependent on one another, so it's easy to pick and choose what specific essays you want to assign, without needing to read other essays first.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The navigation is easy and intuitive. There were no issues with the interface and really very few images/charts to worry about.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is grammatically sound.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The goal of this text is to be culturally sensitive and it meets that goal well. There are no offensive statements and there are a plethora of cultures represented by the examples used.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This book is very impressive in its scope and had a lot of really strong articles to help understand this topic. As I mentioned above, this is really meant for an upper-level course. But as such, it is really inspiring for class discussions.","created_at":"2020-04-28T14:57:16.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-04-28T14:57:16.000-05:00"},{"id":35854,"first_name":"Jacob","last_name":"Burke","position":"Adjunct Faculty","institution_name":"Massachusetts Bay Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book offers strategies for both pedagogues and students for participating in curricula that opens up learning to underrepresented populations.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"These are practices that, in part, I have seen work successfully in my own teaching experience.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Outside of some changes in ed tech or communication tech, the ideas will remain relevant","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The book proposes clear solutions without being too proscriptive about what's needed in an ever-evolving classroom","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent insofar as it tackles a diverse set of topics.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The medium-size chapter length is appropriate.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization and flow of the book makes sense from a teacher's point of view, but I wonder if more student-centered chapters should be separated from more theoretical ones.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface is consistent with other books in the field.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I didn't catch any grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"There is no time more relevant than now for this book.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2026-04-09T12:04:51.000-05:00","updated_at":"2026-04-09T12:04:51.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/wac-and-second-language-writers-research-towards-linguistically-and-culturally-inclusive-programs-and-practices","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:06:13.000-05:00"},{"id":922,"title":"Languages and Worldview","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2020,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"Asking and answering questions about what culture entails and examines the fundamental properties and intertwining nature of language and culture. This text explores linguistic relativity, lexical differences among languages and intercultural communication, including high and low contexts. Changes to a variety of OER works were made by Manon Allard-Kropp in the Department of Language and Cultural Studies to tailor the text to fit the needs of the Languages and World View course at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Materials from the original sources have been combined, reorganized, and added to by the current author, and any conceptual or typographical errors are the responsibility of the current author.","contributors":[{"id":5295,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Manon","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Allard-Kropp","location":"University of Missouri–St. Louis","background_text":"Manon Allard-Kropp, University of Missouri–St. Louis"}],"subjects":[{"id":40,"name":"Anthropology","parent_subject_id":9,"call_number":"GN25","visible_textbooks_count":9,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/anthropology"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"},{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/humanities"},{"id":9,"name":"Social Sciences","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"H1","visible_textbooks_count":285,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/social-sciences"}],"publishers":[{"id":901,"url":"http://www.umsl.edu/library/","year":null,"created_at":"2020-10-18T20:10:38.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-10-18T20:10:38.000-05:00","name":"University of Missouri - St. Louis"}],"formats":[{"id":1822,"type":"PDF","url":"https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/17/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":3,"reviews":[{"id":33677,"first_name":"Olubukola","last_name":"Salako","position":"Professorial Lecturer","institution_name":"American University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book is a gem for those who are not well versed in the field of linguistic. It uses terminology that is understandable and easy to follow. It is organized in a manner that allows the reader to relate to the examples mentioned in the book. Definitions are clear and concise. It makes use of videos, which is an asset for the reader.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Examples are given from previous studies, which substantiates the points made in the book. Additionally, examples are supported with videos. This gives the reader a better sense of comprehension that is not always clear by wordy definitions.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The contents in the book are currently relevant to this time frame. It makes use of common trends popular with language use in this era. The book also connects videos by a simple click. However, a problem may arise five years from now when new technologies are developed and the links to the videos are no longer available. Overall, using videos in a textbook is very creative and makes learning about languages enjoyable.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"One major advantage about this book is the concise, simple, and organized definitions. One is able to read without any major difficulties. The language is simple and relatable for a novice learning about language, linguistics, and communication. The book is not complex and thus makes reading it easy to finish.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Throughout the book, there is considerable amount of consistency in how the book is arranged. The questions are posed at the end of each unit to help the reader retain knowledge about the points discussed in each section. The videos are also placed properly after definitions are discussed. The format is consistent with the design of the book.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"A strong suit for this book is its organization. The reader can skip around and focus on one unit and return to another unit for clarification. The units allow the reader to focus his or her attention on particular parts for an in-depth study. This is especially useful for the reader if he or she wants to focus his or her attention on different units without reading the whole book.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is organized creatively. The organization of the book with videos makes the reading of the text interesting. The reader will not be bored reading this book. This book will work well for readers who are technology savvy and love the world of eBooks.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface for this book is fascinating. It has videos, graphs, bolded definitions, and pictures. Although the topic can be quite difficult to understand in traditional books, in this case, this book is well organized in a way that makes reading it easy.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contains no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"In essence, the book explains and makes use of examples of cultural themes, motifs, and languages that influence the field of linguistics, communication, and language study. There are examples for the reader to use as a point of reference. This book will be a great asset for anyone who is interested in language learning.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I enjoyed reading this book. I especially enjoyed watching the videos in each unit of the book. This format is creative and innovative.","created_at":"2022-01-31T16:20:05.000-06:00","updated_at":"2022-01-31T16:20:05.000-06:00"},{"id":33946,"first_name":"Sharon","last_name":"Methvin","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Mt. Hood Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Text includes cross-cultural examples and verbal as well as nonverbal communication.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Sources are well documented and content is backed by credible anthropological sources.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This is the gem of the text. most Linguistic Anthropology texts are dry and not very useful for undergraduates. It is difficult to find a Linguistic Anthropology text that is meaningful, understandable, and interesting to undergraduate students, but this text has nailed it! .","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Keeps the readers interest with day to day examples that students can relate to. Also, incorporates support from videos for our students now living in a visually stimulating environment.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"One issue with some OER resources is the lack of consistency due to multiple authors. This text is consistent in style and content.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Easily broken into bite size modules and perfect for a quarter term.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"I love the cross-cultural approach that ties each module into our discipline.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Videos play easily. I would like to have seen more references to online websites and a greater use of graphs and images.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not see any errors that popped out for me.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This is a gem on incorporating a cross-cultural approach in a respectful manner.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"It is difficult to find a Linguistic Anthropology text that is meaningful, understandable, and interesting to undergraduate students, but this text has nailed it! It is readable and practical, incorporating relevant cross-cultural examples and a discussion on non-human communication. A stellar discussion on nonverbal and digital forms of communication, along with video snippets to enhance student learning in today’s visually stimulated environment, rounds out an adoptable OER resource for undergraduate students.","created_at":"2022-07-07T10:12:24.000-05:00","updated_at":"2022-07-07T10:12:24.000-05:00"},{"id":34596,"first_name":"Victor","last_name":"Valdivia","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"The George Washington University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book introduces several topics of the subject in a clear and concise manner. Although it would be useful to have an index, users can look for specific terms with the \"find\" option of Adobe Reader. A glossary would be useful since it would give students a central place to review the terms presented thorough the book.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"In general, the content is accurate and unbiased. Nevertheless, not making any reference to Ferdinand de Saussure when discussing the arbitrariness of symbols (section 2.2.2 Defining Verbal Communication) is not understandable. \nAnother issue that could affect students' reception of the textbook is the use of masculine nouns for generic referents. For instance, in section 2.1.2 (pages 16-17) when defining polychronic cultures, the author changes from the plural to singular from one sentence to the next one, and uses masculine pronouns. There is no apparent reason why this change which result on moving from an inclusive noun to one that may be perceived as exclusive: \"Although polychrons can meet deadlines, they need to do so in their own way. A polychron does not want detailed plans imposed upon him, nor does he want to make his own detailed plans. Polychrons prefer “...‘\" (page 17).\nIn section 2.1.5. (gesture) the author discusses a gesture used in \"Spain and Latin America\" to express a particular emotion. Stating \"Latin America\" rather than \"in some countries of Latin America\" conveys that the region is a monolith; thus perpetuating stereotypes.\nAnother mistake occurs in section 2.1.8 (Sign languages) when the author seem to suggest that the American Sign Language is used in Mexico when, in reality, the predominant language of the deaf community in Mexico is the Mexican Sign Language (Lengua Mexicana de Señas), which, according to Wikipedia,  \"is closely related to French Sign Language (LSF) and American Sign Language (ASL), although it is mutually unintelligible.\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Sign_Language)\nFinally, in section 2.2.5, the author states that descriptive linguistics is the study of the structures of language, when in reality descriptive and prescriptive approaches to language study such structures. Descriptive linguistics refers to an approach of linguistics analysis.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Being an introductory text which doesn't need to focus on specific theories addressing areas such as language acquisition, the content can present relevant content that will not be obsolete in the near future. If anything, the book could be updated in the future by adding sections related to new phenomena.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The content is presented in a clear and concise way with enough context and examples to understand complex terminology (e.g. diglossia).","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is consistent in terms of terminology, but there is not an explicit indication, explanation or discussion of which framework is being used. Even though it can be inferred by terms as \"descriptive linguistics\" or \"linguistic relativity\" it may not be clear to students what are the premises of this framework nor what distinguishes from other ones.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"In general, the organization of the chapters allows for a natural progression of the content, and for its presentation in smaller, yet comprehensible chunks.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Some topics (e.g pragmatics) are presented in different parts of a chapter or even in different parts of the books without a clear reason of why they were not presented as a whole in just one section or chapter. That is to say, there second time the concept is discussed does not really build upon the first time it was introduced, but it seems to present a different definition.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"All links included in the text worked well. There were no problems either using different tools to find specific pages or even words.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors were found in the text.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The text uses examples from different languages and cultures.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The book would benefit from more activities (comprehension, discussion, research) for students.","created_at":"2023-06-06T15:27:04.000-05:00","updated_at":"2023-06-06T15:27:04.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/languages-and-worldview","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:07:03.000-05:00"},{"id":1050,"title":"Oral Communication for Non-Native Speakers of English","edition_statement":"2nd Edition","volume":null,"copyright_year":2025,"isbn10":null,"isbn13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":["unknown"],"description":"This book is an essential instructional tool for developing oral communication skills in academic settings, specifically designed for international graduate students, teaching assistants, postdoctoral researchers, and those preparing to enter academia. The second edition introduces dedicated chapters on developing listening, speaking, and pronunciation. Through its wide array of interactive online activities, suitable for both classroom teaching and individual practice, learners can actively develop the skills needed for success in English-speaking academic environments.","contributors":[{"id":5494,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Agata","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Guskaroska","location":"Iowa State University","background_text":"Dr. Agata Guskaroska holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Technology from Iowa State University (ISU). She has taught EFL/ESL, composition, and online courses, including a MOOC on technology in language teaching. She is the author of the book Teaching Pronunciation with Confidence, the assistant editor of Exploring AI in Applied Linguistics, and co-editor of the 12th PSLLT Proceedings. Currently, Agata is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at ISU, working on the development and institutional implementation of a new English Language Proficiency Advisory Program. Her research focuses on computer-assisted language learning, pronunciation teaching, and technology acceptance."},{"id":5495,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Erik","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Goodale","location":"Iowa State University","background_text":"Dr. Erik Goodale has his Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Technology from Iowa State University. He has worked as an English Speaking Consultant and Interpersonal Communication Consultant at the Center for Communication Excellence for over five years, holding individual consultations, facilitating peer speaking practice groups, and developing and presenting workshops on presentations and professional communication. He has also taught English speaking courses for international teaching assistants for two years. His research interests include pronunciation, speaking consultations, and oral communication."},{"id":5496,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Timothy","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Kochem","location":"Iowa State University","background_text":"Dr. Tim Kochem received his Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Technology from Iowa State University, and now he works as a Lecturer in the English Department there. He has presented his work at applied linguistics, general education, and distance education conferences, such as CALICO, AAAL, AILA, the Asian Conference on Education (ACE), and the World Conference on e-Learning (e-Learn). He has published his work in journals such as the TESOL Quarterly, Language Assessment Quarterly, and CALICO, and co-authored the open-access book, Oral Communication for Non-Native Speakers of English. He was also a recipient of The International Research Foundation (TIRF) Dissertation Grant, which he used to develop a massive open online course, English Pronunciation Pedagogy. Today, the course has enrolled over 2,200 language professionals from 67 countries."},{"id":5497,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Monica","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Ghosh","location":"Iowa State University","background_text":"Dr. Monica G. Ghosh, formerly Monica Richards, received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Technology from Iowa State University, where her research focused on predicting the differential intelligibility and comprehensibility effects of L2 English word stress errors for L1 and L2 listeners. As postdoc, she helped set up the English Speaking Consultation program of Iowa State University’s Center for Communication Excellence and authored its “English Speaking Consultant Training Manual.” She currently serves as lecturer for the ESL Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she has taught multiple international teaching assistant (ITA) courses, leads the program’s “ITA/Pronunciation Rubrics \u0026 Objectives Committee,” and regularly contributes to the ITA curriculum."},{"id":7407,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Lily","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Compton","location":"Iowa State University","background_text":"Dr. Lily Compton is the Assistant Director for Programming at the Iowa State University’s Center for Communication Excellence, Graduate College. She developed and taught oral communication courses focusing on English for Teaching Purposes. Additionally, she oversees the institutional test, the Oral English Certification Test (OECT), and language support for international teaching assistants (ITAs). She supervises the instructors of the English for Teaching Purposes courses. She also develops programming for other oral communicative skills for all graduate students and postdoctoral scholars including interpersonal, academic, and professional communication, and training curriculum for English Speaking and Interpersonal Communication consultants."},{"id":7408,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Elena","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Cotos","location":"Iowa State University","background_text":"Dr. Elena Cotos is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English at Iowa State University. She also holds appointments as the Director of the Center for Communication Excellence and the Associate Dean for Professional Development in the Graduate College. Her research in the field of Language for Specific Purposes bridges corpus-based analysis of academic discourse, genre-based automated evaluation of scientific writing, and computer-assisted language learning. She has led design, research, and evaluation projects focused on intelligent writing technology. Her most recent projects include the design and worldwide delivery of massive open online courses related to writing pedagogy, which are sponsored by the US Department of State."}],"subjects":[{"id":24,"name":"Curriculum \u0026 Instruction","parent_subject_id":5,"call_number":"LC980","visible_textbooks_count":44,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/curriculum-instruction"},{"id":32,"name":"Linguistics","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"P123","visible_textbooks_count":12,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics"}],"publishers":[{"id":1028,"url":"https://www.iastatedigitalpress.com/plugins/books/","year":null,"created_at":"2021-08-30T02:51:22.000-05:00","updated_at":"2025-03-12T09:42:26.000-05:00","name":"Iowa State University"}],"formats":[{"id":2586,"type":"Online","url":"https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oralcommunication2e/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2584,"type":"eBook","url":"https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oralcommunication2e/open/download?type=epub","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2585,"type":"XML","url":"https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oralcommunication/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":4611,"type":"PDF","url":"https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oralcommunication2e/open/download?type=pdf","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4","textbook_reviews_count":4,"reviews":[{"id":33540,"first_name":"William","last_name":"Denny","position":"Adjunct Instructor","institution_name":"Kirkwood Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is very comprehensive, and covers all the relevant information about English phonetics at an advanced level. If students follow this text, they will understand important details about English pronunciation that most English programs abroad don't teach.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate and in line with modern approaches to L2 phonetic acquisition. They use IPA when talking about vowels and consonants, where it is necessary for disambiguation. They use more accessible transcription for stress and intonation.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"By the nature of the content, it is not likely to become irrelevant. Languages change, but not that quickly, and this text focuses on the core pronunciation features of English.","clarity_rating":2,"clarity_review":"The text is clear to advanced readers, but will be quite challenging for many English language learners. I could see using this text with graduate students but not undergraduate or non-academic students. That said, they do support their technical writing with context, examples, and a wide variety of external resources for exploration and practice.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The framework used is consistent with modern approaches to phonetic acquisition. Most of the contributors are professors or PhD candidates in Applied Linguistics.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is very easy to divide into smaller sections which can be used independently in any course. The text is minimal and focuses on the knowledge points to be covered. \r\n\r\nSubsequent chapters do not refer much, if at all, to earlier chapters, making it easy to use chapters independently or in a different order.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text presents topics in an appropriate order which is consistent with most textbooks and syllabi. While there is debate on whether or not pronunciation teaching should start with segmentals or supra-segmental features, this text presents each topic in its own independent module. It starts with segmentals, but an instructor could easily start from the last chapter and go backwards through the text without any issue.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The text is primarily available as a website, with the option to download the book in two formats that I've never heard of or know how to use. The reason for this is their use of HTML5 elements for the interactive quizzes-- a useful feature. I'd like to see a text-only option in PDF or EPUB available as well, though.\r\n\r\nThe HTML5 elements are made using the tool *H5P* which is open source, hosted on their publishing site, and not likely to change or break for as long as browsers continue to support current standards. I did not notice any issues with these elements, but there is potential for them to malfunction if students use nonstandard browsers to read the text.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contains no grammatical errors. It is written in a fairly advanced academic style. There are a few minor typographical errors throughout the text.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The text is not insensitive or offensive. It does mention briefly dialectal differences among North American and British English speakers, but could offer more details. In particular, it fails to mention varieties of English spoken in India and Africa.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Overall, this is a comprehensive text that teaches the critical concepts of English pronunciation. I would most recommend it for English learners with highly advanced reading skills; mainly graduate students. It can also be useful for teachers to review if their experience teaching pronunciation is limited. The interactive elements add interest and engagement with the text, but I would prefer a more traditional text option, perhaps with QR codes to link to the online activities.","created_at":"2021-12-15T10:50:36.000-06:00","updated_at":"2021-12-15T10:50:36.000-06:00"},{"id":33778,"first_name":"Karen","last_name":"Allen","position":"ESL Lecturer","institution_name":"West Virginia University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook serves as a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of English pronunciation for ESL learners. It can serve as a basic resource for upper-level English students for improving their pronunciation. If used in a classroom, the textbook would need to be supplemented by delving deeper into the websites referenced or by the instructor adding guided classroom activities. Each unit has links to helpful websites which can serve as practice and potential assessment tools.\r\nA glossary of terms is imbedded within the text, which is useful, as students can immediately reference specific technical vocabulary as they read along or as a review. There is an index which easily links each of the topics and chapters.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"At least one of the pronunciation videos is somewhat inaccurate and confusing for showing the difference between two closely related vowel sounds. Otherwise, the content is accurate and unbiased.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Because the text focuses on the basic linguistics of the English language, it will only change slowly over time. Perhaps some focus on local dialects might be a useful addition.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The text is clear, but mostly written in descriptive style and not very engaging. The language and grammar are advanced so would be difficult to navigate by an undergrad or student in a noncredit ESL class. The text could be used for GTAs who still need pronunciation practice and skill.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The units are basically laid out all the same with a description of the skill area, problem areas to watch out for and practice exercises. In addition, each until has a section with some additional activities for extension and teacher aids.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The units are self-contained and focuses the reader on the content of that specific topic.  The units are done in such a way that they can be accessed in different order according to class or student needs, as one unit does not necessarily build on the other.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text takes the reader from the basic segmentals of the English sound system to suprasegmental in a progressive and clear order. The instructor or learner can pick the order in which the skills are practiced, as some may want to work on the suprasegmental first or in-between other skills.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"There are a few links that don't work or go to the wrong page. The audio and listening exercises functioned easily without having to download extra technology. This may not be the case of all users, but the e-book worked well. Saying this, it is not a very interesting looking text, as it is mostly descriptions and some imbedded activities. There are no pictures to add visual pleasure, but there are a few charts to help explain the concepts.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors were observed.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This text is more technical in nature and does not contain any real cultural ideas. Any references comparing English to other languages is done in a non-offensive way.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"In conclusion, this could be an excellent reference text to the various aspects that make up clear English pronunciation. This would serve as a useful text for an ESL instructor to grasp these main elements and for accessing supplemental online activities. \r\nAlthough, one of the stated purposes is for student to work through the text at their own pace, this might be a challenge because of the technical nature of the material and limited feedback tools. A student would need to be at an advanced English level and highly motived to use this on their own. Even then, they would benefit from at least some instructor guidance and feedback.","created_at":"2022-04-07T16:59:15.000-05:00","updated_at":"2022-04-07T16:59:15.000-05:00"},{"id":34007,"first_name":"Aylin","last_name":"Bunk","position":"ESL Instructor","institution_name":"Mt. Hood Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is a comprehensive book that provides an overview of essential parts of English pronunciation. The topics covered are clearly chosen to reflect the problem areas that most language learners experience, such as consonant vowels, word stress and intonation. The book provides a thorough explanation of the topics and provides exercises for students with immediate feedback. It also provides useful resources in the form of web links in the Additional Activities and Teacher's Corner sections.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate and unbiased. The authors use IPA, which is widely used in English learning.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to date and relevant.  The content will not go outdated.  I found one YouTube video on shadowing too long and somewhat old, from 2013. There are more interesting and shorter videos out there.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The text is clear and has a nice layout. It gets too long and dry at times. It is easy to understand for a teacher, but it may pose challenges for an English language learner because of the inclusion of some linguistic terms. For example, if I were to use this book in class, I would not expect my students to understand the words as such  bilabial, labiodental, diphthongs etc.  Authors included explanations of these terms with a hover text, but I don't think students need to know these terms. I would think it would be more beneficial  for a TESOL student who is learning how to teach a pronunciation course. This book would help make the connection between technical terms and application of  them in class.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book has a consistent layout. Each chapter follows the same structure.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Each chapter is contained in itself.  They can all be divided into smaller reading sections. There are no references to the previous or subsequent chapters, which eliminates the need to use the chapters in a specific order.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Chapters have been organized nicely. They don't have to be followed in the same order. Depending on student needs, instructors can choose to mix the order of the chapters or select what is relevant.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"There are no navigation problems. Some links do not work.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammar errors. Some minor typos can be fixed.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive. There are examples of mistakes Japanese speakers make and a reference to Chinese intonation. It would be more interesting and inclusive if examples from other nations were included.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"All in all, I found the book useful, almost like a refresher course in teaching pronunciation for myself as an ESL instructor. It seems to be more suitable for advanced level students who have interest in learning technical aspects of English pronunciation or graduate students in TESOL.  It would also be useful for undergraduate ELT students outside of the U.S.","created_at":"2022-08-31T15:59:15.000-05:00","updated_at":"2022-08-31T15:59:15.000-05:00"},{"id":35097,"first_name":"Sarah","last_name":"Mannix","position":"English Language Instructor","institution_name":"Old Dominion University","comprehensiveness_rating":1,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text minimally covers many of the major areas of English language pronunciation including: segmentals, thought groups, word stress, prominence (i.e. focus), and intonation.  Each area is only touched on minimally with few examples.  Most examples are given as text with few audio examples.  There are no diagrams or videos showing the position of jaw, tongue, or lips in the mouth in order to correctly produce English language sounds.  Additionally, some significant areas that affect both learners’ comprehensibility and ability to understand native-speakers are missing such as reductions in speech, linking, and rhythm.","accuracy_rating":2,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate, but lacks connection of ideas or complete explanations of differences.  It fails to address variation and the effect on meaning or lack of effect on meaning.  The text briefly mentions the cot/caught merger but it does not explain its relevance clearly.  Also, it does not give many examples of where vowel differences do or do not affect meaning.  Considering variation in regional dialects, this is important to address clearly.  Prominence (often called ‘focus’) is addressed but its relationship to stressed words and thought groups is not.  It is also not mentioned how focus often changes in conversation and how that affects meaning.  Intonation is only briefly addressed despite its importance to meaning.  Intonation is not only important to the focus, but can change the overall interpretation of a sentence (e.g. sarcasm vs saying what you mean).","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"Content is relevant to standard North American English.  However, it does not really address variation in regional pronunciation or pronunciation of different Englishes (e.g. British English, Australian English).  In general, the content is true for current pronunciation principles and so should not become obsolete anytime soon.","clarity_rating":1,"clarity_review":"The introduction to the text states that it is meant for “both learners and teachers in the field of pronunciation”; however, much of the language of the text is specific to the domain of linguistics and generally uses more advanced grammar and vocabulary.  There are very few audio examples and no diagrams modeling pronunciation.  Learners are expected to understand linguistic terms referring to how sounds are pronounced with few to no examples of how to produce those sounds themselves.  At one point, the text recommends improving pronunciation by 1)reading aloud, 2)pronouncing the words, 3) using it in a sentence, and then 4)pronouncing it again.  One wonders how the learner is supposed to deduce the pronunciation in the first place.  Overall, the text would be inaccessible to most English language learners, except for those at the very highest level with a specific interest in linguistics.  \nThe text would be more appropriate for teachers of English as an introduction to basic pronunciation principles.  It does have some useful extension activities and suggestions of common learner errors.  However, examples and models should be added, as well as sections on reductions and other missing content areas.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.  Although it fails to use some phrases that are more common in teaching pronunciation, and prefers linguistic terms (e.g. ‘prominence’ rather than ‘focus’).","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is divided into smaller sections that could easily be assigned at different points.  It could be easily reorganized depending on the needs of the course.","organization_rating":2,"organization_review":"The organization of material is not clear or necessarily logical.  It begins discussing segmentals (or individual sounds), which some consider to be a logical place to begin.  However, it mentions consonants before vowels, despite saying that vowels “can be the most damaging to a person’s intelligibility”.  The next logical area to address would be syllable stress.  However, the text addresses thought groups next.  Thought grouping is separated from focus and intonation by word stress, although these are key ideas in understanding the importance of and how to form thought groups.  Overall, it is not clear how sections of the text relate and build to overall ‘oral communication’.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I didn’t have any trouble with the interface.  The text included links, pop-ups with definitions, and interactive activities.  All seemed to work without issue.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contained no noticeable grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The text doesn’t have any clearly offensive or insensitive material.  However, it only takes into consideration a specific dialect of North American English when referring to pronunciation.  This would be confusing to both teachers and students who reside in areas that have other dialect differences (e.g. Brooklyn or Texas).  It would be even less useful for those outside of the US that have more significant dialect differences (e.g. British English, Australian English).","overall_rating":6,"overall_review":"In conclusion, this book would be inappropriate for most English language learners.  There are too few examples, very little audio, no explanation of how to form the sounds.  The overall language of the book uses highly advanced language (CEFR Levels C1 \u0026 C2) with domain specific terminology.  \n\tThe book might be useful for native English speakers interested in teaching English.  It gives a brief overview of important ideas in English pronunciation.  Since students would already know how to pronounce the examples given, they would be able to more easily grasp concepts that are being focused on in each unit.  In this case, instructors would need to add examples and instruction on how to communicate these ideas with a learner in an accessible way.","created_at":"2024-06-04T11:27:47.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-06-04T11:27:47.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/textbooks/oral-communication-for-non-native-speakers-of-english","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:38.000-05:00"}],"links":{"self":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics.json?page=1","total_pages":2,"total_count":14,"next":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/%20/subjects/linguistics.json?page=2"}}