Review: Statistics (12th Edition)
By: James T. McClave and Terry T Sinich
ISBN-13:978-0321755933
ISBN-10:0321755936
Worst Textbook I’ve Ever Been Subjected To
Grade = F-
That colleges and universities are using this book as the course textbook is borderline criminal. I couldn’t write anywhere near as poorly as this book is written if I tried.
The run-on sentences and overall poor choice of wording ensure that the only people who can comprehend book are mathetiticians. Mathemeticians shouldn’t be writing books.
People who can actually write who also understand probability and statistics should be writing text books for core curriculum classes that every Student must take.
This author appears to have written this book primarily to impress his peers with lots of completely unnecessary words, sentences, data sets, etc. This book wasn’t written for business, marketing or public relations students only enrolled because they have be.
Perhaps the worst part of the book and maybe the entire topic is that after the first few chapters, the remainder of the book is filled with run-on sentence word problems in which a majority of the information provided isn’t even relevant. The reader must make his or her way through a massive wall of text just to extract the data, half of which isn’t even relevant to the problem. So… for each practice question, the student loses two minutes of his/her life he/she will never get back again because some airhead wrote a book for his own ego instead of for the students the book was intended to teach.
To pile it on top of that, after the first few chapters there is nothing that could be put to any practical or useful purpose. These are just equations and formulae that are assembled because somebody found a new way to use w calculator. There is no use, purpose or practical application for 65%-70% of the material in this book.
Universities and professors should value writing quality when deciding upon which texts to associate with their courses. Ten minutes of trying to read this disaster of a text book would be more than enough to discern that its rambling, words and symbols are introduced from the start with no reference or definition provided; and when terms are defined the language is ambiguous so the student is constantly guessing or assuming due poor structure and an even more disgraceful butchering of the English language.
My advice to any student in need of a math class to find one that does not use this book. Better yet, find an algebra class instead. At least algebra is practical and improves your thinking process. It is the mathematical version of logic and deductive reasoning (critical thinking).
The book is only marginally more valuable than being totally worthless. I say marginally better because there is some, limited and poorly-explained information that could theoretically be of use outside of a classroom setting. Such information is the minority of the content, and even what useful information is present is poorly explained.
Overall, I have no choice but to give “Statistics” (12th Edition) by James T. McCabe and Terry T Sinich a grade of F-.
Overall Grade = F-
