Biology Demystified

December 1, 2003
The new "Self-Teaching Guide" series from McGraw-Hill targets home-schooled students and career changers needing to brush up on science. Following earlier entries on physics, astronomy, and various mathematical topics, these latest are relatively readable but leave much to desired. Layman (biology, Joliet Junior Coll.) skimps on evolution, botany, and heredity and leans heavily toward etymology; one could score well on his tests by studying Latin and Greek instead of reading the text. Williams, a former technical writer, does not spend enough time on physical chemistry and electrochemistry. She exhibits a marked fondness for chemical history and foreign-language chemical terms-topics not generally given much weight in introductory chemistry courses. A glossary and additional practice problems would have been useful additions here. Both books offer idiosyncratic tests for self-assessment; both also lack thorough proofreading. Biology, for example, states that "modern land plants are the ancestors of primitive green algae," while Chemistry promises but omits an inside cover periodic table and describes bleach as a sodium hydroxide solution when it is a sodium hypochlorite solution. Biology's index is atrocious-incorrect page references and poor cross references abound-and Chemistry's needs improvement, too. Public and school libraries should instead consider other readable guides such as Donna Rae Siegfried's Biology for DummiesR or Ian Guch's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry, but they should also be checked for errors and gaps in coverage. Note also that John T. Moore's Chemistry for DummiesR lacks practice problems, and none of these titles includes tests. Academic libraries should purchase the companion study guides published for many introductory textbooks. Not recommended.-Nancy R. Curtis, Univ. of Maine Lib., Orono

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