Chemistry
Reviewed by Julian Tyson, Professor of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Amherst on 1/7/16
Comprehensiveness
Within the confines of the two-semester, general chemistry sequence, the text is comprehensive. Index is a mess. Glossary of key terms at the end of every chapter is good.
Content Accuracy
The content is accurate and almost error-free.
Relevance/Longevity
The basic science doesn't change all that much. Modern texts try to make the subject relevant to the everyday experiences of students. Periodic updates will be needed.
Clarity
All chemistry texts are written in a rather impersonal style. This text is just fine with regard to voice and word choice.
Consistency
Excellent. The "editors" have been vigilant and done a good job.
Modularity
The book is very fine grained in terms of modularity.
Organization/Structure/Flow
Topics are presented in a clear, logical fashion.
Interface
Interface is no problem. In the pdf verison, worked example boxes are sometimes split between two pages. Just a little harder to work with than wehn all on one page.
Grammatical Errors
The text is well over 1000 pages. I am not convinced that it is free from grammar errors, but there are so few that they are not a distraction.
Cultural Relevance
Not so good here. The writers are aware of some gender problems, but a broader interpretation of diversity is lacking.
CommentsI teach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I have held a full professor’s position since 1989. Prior to that I was, for 13 years, a faculty member at Loughborough University in the UK. Umass Amherst offers a two-semester, general chemistry sequence for non-chemistry STEM majors, and a two-semester general chemistry sequence for chemistry majors. Students in STEM majors, who are also members of the Honors College, also take these courses. I have taught only the first semester of the non-chemistry general chemistry course, which I have done on 10 occasions (summer 95, 96, 2015; fall 2001-4, 2010, 2014 and 2015). Until the fall of 2014, we have used various editions of “Chemistry and Chemical Reactivity” by Petrucci and Harwood, and “General Chemistry: Principles and Modern Applications,” by Kotz and Treichel. From 2014 onwards, we have been using “General Chemistry OWL” by Vining, Young, Day and Botch. Full disclosure: Bill Vining used to work at Umass Amherst, but is now at SUNY Oneonta; Roberta Day and Beatrice Botch are retired Umass Amherst faculty. Our decision to adopt was taken by the instructors of both the first and second semesters courses.
This OpenStax College text is comparable is all respects to the other texts with which I am familiar. The order of the chapters is exactly in line with current thinking (the alternate “atoms first” approach is also described), the depth of coverage is the same (the book is 1393 pages long when viewed as a pdf file), and the ancillary material is, if anything, broader in scope (there are links to simulations and videos, boxes featuring famous chemists—both living and dead, and boxes showing connections to (a) everyday life and (b) other sciences).
The book is visually appealing with plenty of photographs, colorful line drawings, worked examples on a blue background, and plenty of white space. The authors use the full width of the page and so there are no wide margins in which material might be placed in parallel with the text; everything is presented serially. The text is inelegant in places, particularly in the writing of chemical equations: fractions (such as ½) are given with full size numerals and there are no spaces between stoichiometric coefficients and the associated formula.
Although some 16 individuals have contributed to the text (including three senior authors), there is excellent consistency between the chapters. This has been helped, no doubt, by the input of some 54 reviewers (two of whom are my colleagues at UMass Amherst). There are also very few typos or word processing errors (the substitution of “special” for “spatial” by well-meaning spellcheck software, will I fear, cause some confusion; others, such as the missing final “l” of “final” are less problematical). The authors have decided to distinguish between “weight” and “mass,” and there are almost no instances where a writer has not done so correctly. They have also decided to use the IUPAC numbering of the groups in the periodic table.
The writers have, I think, tried to be sensitive to gendered stereotypes and several examples of the activities of scientists refer to “she.” Of the 12 “Portrait of a Chemist” entries, 4 feature women, and for the two living ones, there are pictures. Of the male chemists featured, only two do not have pictures. Why not take this one step further and include some racial diversity in the picture? The text needs a close read (and some editing) from a diversity viewpoint. It is clear, for example, that the writers of the very first sentences in the book think that all chemistry students own fancy electronic alarm clocks, cells phones, and a car (in which they drive to campus to attend their chemistry classes).
The first chapter, the hardest in many ways to compose, is perhaps not as good as those is some other texts. The authors do not indicate whether prior knowledge of chemistry is assumed and start as though the reader knows little or nothing, but the chapter soon strays into territory where prior knowledge is definitely needed. One of the problems at the end of the chapter requires a knowledge of “amu.”
Each chapter starts with a statement of the learning goals and concludes with a list of key terms, key equations, a summary of each section, and a large number of exercises and problems (nearly 100, for example, at the end of Chapter 1). In the pdf version, there are answers to the odd-numbered problems; in the web version there is a link to “show solution” for some of the problems, but for those that I followed, only the answers were given. The OpenStax website indicates that an instructor’s solution manual is available (as well as PowerPoint material). I have not looked at either of these. The web version of the text features an “ask us” tab that tracks the reader. When I clicked on this, I was presented with a dialogue box asking for my question, some details, and my name and email address. On providing these, I received an email message to the effect that I would get a response within one business day (as I submitted my request on a Saturday morning and am writing this on Sunday morning, I am still waiting).
I am not competent to provide detailed commentary on the treatment of the “second-semester” topics (chapters 10 – 21), and so I have confined my examination of text to the treatment of the first-semester material, which is covered in Chapters 1 through 9. The balance between the coverage of the two semesters is appropriate: the first-semester material occupies 532 pages, leaving 715 pages for the second-semester material. There are 13 appendices (61 pages), answers to the odd-numbered problems (77 pages) and index (8 pages). The index must have been machine generated and is badly in need of attention: initial capitalization produces a separate entry (for example Alkane and alkane), as does the addition of “s” to make the plural (as in alkene and alkenes), as does the insertion of a hyphen (such as base-ionization constant and base ionization constant). But what’s the point? A pdf text can be searched electronically with the “find” feature, ditto the web version of the book.
The results of my, admittedly small, sampling of the “interactives that engage” simulations and videos, of which there are 50 for the first 9 chapters (out of 97 in total), were mixed. A simulation of experiments related to density was excellent, but a video about “plasma” was not. This latter was embedded in a website where in inadvertent click of the mouse presented me with many images of scantily clad, grossly overweight, former celebrities from which I could escape only with some difficulty. I applaud the inclusion of plasma as the fourth state of matter and was delighted to see that it was mentioned as a component of “specialized analytical instruments used to detect trace amounts of metals.” However, as is always the case with general chemistry texts, the widespread application of atomic emission (and absorption) spectroscopy in chemical analysis was not mentioned at all in the later relevant chapter. Now that I have shown my analytical chemistry hand, I can report that this text is not really any better than others in the treatment of analytical topics. The topics of precision and accuracy are dealt with competently when first introduced (though an archery target with what looks like bullet holes may baffle some students), but the terms are not deftly handled at some later points of the text. There is also lax use of the terms “analysis” and “determination.”
However, more important topics at the early stages of student’s introduction to chemistry, such as the mole concept, are handled entirely satisfactorily. I have no negative critical comments to make about such topics; the book does an excellent job once we are passed the rather clunky first chapter.
There are 42 “Chemistry in Everyday Life” features that supposedly tie chemistry concepts to everyday issues and real-world application