Anatomy and Physiology
Reviewed by Cindy Adams, Instructor/Advisor, Nutritional Sciences, Penn State University on 2/1/18
Comprehensiveness
This open Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) textbook is just as comprehensive as one of the most widely-used standard textbooks in this field written by Marieb & Hoehn. This one is organized a bit differently, but all of the important concepts from the standard one are present with a different, more student-centered focus.
This textbook even goes beyond the standard texts in this field with an innovative, highly career-relevant chapter entitled "The Neurological Exam." This chapter engages the student in scenarios that allow them to apply what they are learning to real-world problems or cases.
Content Accuracy
While the book reads well, it was troubling to find some obvious mistakes in the random sections I chose to review. It may need to be proof-read in its entirety to ensure overall accuracy.
The most troubling mistakes that I found were:
Figure 23.3 on page 1088 is labelled "Accessory Organ Section" but instead shows the histology of the GI tract and should be labelled as such. This is a huge mistake since accessory digestive organs are called Accessory because they are NOT part of the GI tract at all.
pg. 1198 - "Vitamins are not stored in the body, so they must be obtained from the diet or synthesized from precursors available in the diet." This sentence is wrong in two ways. First, the liver stores a 1-2 year supply of Vitamin A and 1-4 month's supply of Vitamins D & B12. Secondly, vitamins cannot be synthesized by our bodies at all which makes them essential parts of our diets.
Typos found:
Exp from table on page 1153:
(Insulin) "causes cells in muscle, adipose tissue, and liver to take up glucose from the blood
and store it in the liver and muscle as glucagon; its effect is the opposite of glucagon;" - It should have said that glucose is stored as glycogen, not glucagon. This sort of typo could obviously be confusing for students, especially those learning this material for the first time.
I will be sending these and any other problems I note to the authors as they request in the Preface.
Relevance/Longevity
This text goes out of its way to reference current research that may impact various aspects of the material. The fact that the authors are themselves teachers makes me feel like they will be making changes as they recognize the need for them in their students' reactions to the material.
The Neurological Exam chapter seems to be the most vulnerable to changes in the short term as medical norms evolve more quickly than physiological research.
The only figures/photos that jumped out at me as easily dated were the one related to tatoos and piercings of the skin.
Clarity
The sections I read, for the most part were clear and in some cases much more understandable than the comparable paper textbook to which I was comparing this online text.
Good Examples of Clarity within this book:
1) Redox Reaction section (p. 1154) provides a brief (2 paragraph) but very clear summary of how redox reactions create energy
2) The OpenStax videos that I viewed clearly demonstrated the process or topic at hand.
Examples of Possible Clarity problems:
Last paragraph on page 44 says "the most common form of carbon's mass number is 12." is a bit misleading. It should instead say that "the most common form of carbon found in our world has a mass number of 12." It is important to know that there are variations of each element in the world (called isotopes). However the mass number is used simply to label and track the isotopes while this section makes it sound like that is the most important aspect. Could confuse students new to basic chemistry.
In this sentence: "Polysaccharides serve as energy storage (e.g., starch and glycogen) and as structural
components (e.g., chitin in insects and cellulose in plants)" it would have been more clear to say (e.g. starch in plants and glycogen in animals). This addition would also make it more consistent with the structural uses of CHOs listed in the same sentence.
Figure 24.5 on page 1158 mentions the terms "exergonic" and "endergonic" reactions without any further explanation or link to what these terms mean.
Khan video chosen for Glycolysis (Interactive link at top of pg. 1163) was a bit fast and potentially confusing to students because of it's lack of clarity. The text version explanation below this link was much better at clarifying this central process.
In general, I felt that the "Interactive Links" (i.e. outside videos) were not as clearly illustrative of the topic at hand as were the OpenStax ones. There seems to be a need to create more OpenStax videos that more clearly integrate with the text.
Consistency
The authors state that they designed this textbook to promote scientific literacy and they have succeeded. I especially liked the "Everyday Connection," "Homeostatic Imbalances" and "Career Connections" sections. However, all of the features were not consistently included in every chapter. Perhaps this text is still a work in progress?
Modularity
Each unit and the chapters within each unit can stand alone without phrases like "in the last chapter..." This makes it easier for instructors to pick and choose the body systems they want to cover and then present them to their students in the order that makes the most sense to them without confusing the students.
Organization/Structure/Flow
The book chapters are organized into units by the overall functions necessary to support life. It helps students create a general schema of the overall purpose of each body system and how they work together to maintain homeostasis and growth.
Interface
Figures not sized to be on same page as associated text within the PDF. The figures themselves are legible, but the excessive white space is a bit distracting and adds to the overall length of the document.
The online version flows well without this type of distraction.
Grammatical Errors
I did not find any grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance
Photos included a variety of races and I particularly liked Figure 5.8 Skin Pigmentation in the Integumentary System Chapter. It nicely illustrated what I have long had to explain to my students about the mechanisms of skin color.
CommentsThe overall conversational style of the book is exemplified by the following phrase:
"An important part of this course is to understand the nervous system. This can be especially challenging because you need to learn about the nervous system using your own nervous system."
Each chapter opens with a quote to challenge the students. My favorite one is “If the human brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would be too simple to understand it.”
Overall, I found it much more engaging than most A&P textbooks.