Source
r/math•
FinitelyGenerated

Do expensive calculus textbooks still have their place?

The standard textbooks (e.g. James Stewart) marketed to first year students cost over $200 (CAD, your currency may vary). With the wealth of free online resources on the subject I question where these expensive textbooks fit into the picture. Even if students want a physical text, there are plenty of used books which are far less expensive. Also, I seriously doubt that even a quarter of classes are buying these books if they don't have to for assignments. Thoughts? How much are these textbooks actually worth?

Posted Jan 31, 2015, 4:09 AM UTC

524
kcnrd•

No offense to Stewart, who recently passed away, but I hope his publishers will end the ridiculous frequency with which they bring out new editions since the subject matter is really not changing.

I taught with that book using online homework based on exercises from Stewart, and I thought their pricing policy was cruel: the cost of buying only the online homework access code was greater than getting the access code and the textbook. I know from class surveys that a large proportion of my students never read the book, and the fact that homework is online means they do not even need to crack it open to see their homework problems. I strongly suspect Stewart's publisher knows students largely do not read the book, and they are using the online homework system to force continued purchases of it anyway.

On a positive note, Stewart's book has lots of worked examples and nice explanations, but many students do not get to experience this since they simply do not want to study the material by reading the book.

11
FinitelyGeneratedOP•

The pricing is downright greedy (not Stewart's fault). Unfortunately it seems that rather than make their product more appealing (cheaper, selected chapters, e-book, etc.) they've decided to try to force people to buy the book. Certainly this does no favours towards peoples opinions of math.

Personally, I was supposed to buy the book. I did not, I didn't even take it out from the library or look at online "copies." This worked ok for me but I don't think it's something you'd want to recommend.

3
GnomeyGustav•

The pricing is downright greedy (not Stewart's fault).

Yeah...he may have gotten slightly carried away with making money from those calculus books.

6
fuccgirl1•

but I hope his publishers will end the ridiculous frequency with which they bring out new editions since the subject matter is really not changing.

they are going to follow the money

3
Mayer-VietorisGroup Theory•

Wildly not what is being asked for. It's somewhat complicated in that it's difficult to find a book for a class which is reasonably cheap, and still being printed. That last part is important since you cannot assign a book if students can't get it (or at least you shouldn't) and if you're teaching a course with 500+ students (a reasonable estimate for a large university with several sections on calculus) you need a lot of physical books available.

The thing about Stewart's books is that they aren't terrible. They cover the material in a reasonable order, they are decently readable, and there is always an edition in print that the school book store can get there hands on. He has thoughtful problems (though there are some major missing parts in some of the versions) and it's rather modular, so you can add or delete material as you wish. You wanna cover epsilon delta definitions? He's got an appendix on that. You want to do and intro to ode's? He's got that. They are easy books to assign and know that you can use them as you need. They are outrageously expensive though a new one was running for $270-$290 USD at my university's book store.

I've been looking at a cheaper alternative for my department to switch to recently and I just haven't found one yet that works for us.

6
Banach-TarskiDifferential Geometry•

Maybe go with a Dover text? Some are only around $10 brand new. Even if one book doesn't have everything you need, you could buy like 15-20 Dover texts for the price of Stewart.

3
Mayer-VietorisGroup Theory•

This is something I have considered. But honestly patching together several books probably wont fly for my department. I have to find a book that they are willing to work with, not just one that I think I could use.

1
[deleted]•

It seems like this market niche is ripe to be undercut with a serviceable, affordable, and widely available calculus text. Sure, it would be a lot of overhead, but if a viable book was 1/3rd the cost of Stewart, students would protest in the streets to get their universities to switch to it; I don't believe that's an exaggeration.

1
Mayer-VietorisGroup Theory•

I understand the sentiment, but the fact of the matter is that that is simply untrue. I know of a few calc text books that are in the range of $50. The main problem? I hate the way they cover the material, I hate their order, or I just don't think they explain things very well.

If students were demanding cheaper books it would be easier to convince the department to do so, but I'm not going to work hard to switch out an expensive ok book for a cheap crappy one. Serviceable is the key word. If I found a cheap book that worked? I would riot on the street till the department adopted it. A riot of one.

2
FinitelyGeneratedOP•

Follow up question: is there a better way of dealing with how texts are assigned? Many of the questions regarding the assigned textbooks are dealt with on the first day of classes but there are going to be some students that buy the textbook before going to the first class. There are also two meanings of "required text":

  • It is expected that you have the book but nobody will force you to buy it
  • You need the book/code for assignments; there may be other options but they're more work for everyone involved

For a course targeted at non-majors there will obviously need to be more hand-holding as to which book/version the students should get. Even so, many students still won't read the book.

What if instead of assigning a specific textbook some are recommended (pick one to send to the book store if necessary) and there are online resources listed?

2
Mayer-VietorisGroup Theory•

Your suggestion is something that I would like to eventually transition to. There are so many online textbooks and resources that it's absurd that we need to have a $200 book just to set assignments, but that is essentially the paradigm at the moment. Maybe one day in the relatively near future that will no longer be the case. But for now I'm stuck looking for a cheaper book that will still work.

1
UniversalSnip•

I'd be interested in seeing research on how many students actually need physical copies of their textbooks.

1
Mayer-VietorisGroup Theory•

That would be interesting, but even making a few students incapable of taking a class because they need/want a physical copy, but can't afford it, would be a grave injustice.

1
mathemorpheus•

if i were a student today there is no way i would buy a new calculus textbook, especially if all the homework is assigned online (through e.g. webassign or webwork). if online resources aren't enough, just go buy a used copy of a previous edition, or poke around your department (they often have stacks of them gathering dust). calculus really hasn't changed that much since Whittaker and Watson.

1
kcnrd•

You missed the point I made in my own answer: the game is rigged so that the access code allowing you to get to the online homework for Stewart can only be bought with the Stewart book (they're bundled together in shrink-wrapped plastic). So they force students to buy the book even if the student intends not to use the book. Yes, students can make a separate purchase of the access code alone on the publisher's website, but they charge more for the access code alone then they do for the access code plus the book.

This is as evil as ETS offering the GRE math subject test twice in the fall semester but not telling students their score from the first administration of the test until after the deadline for signing up for the second administration of the test has passed, and the interval between those is only a few days. Surely ETS could adjust things a little to let students know their GRE score from the first test before the deadline of the second test, but they have no financial incentive to do so. Of course they won't just admit "we do this to make money from you," but it is the only reason I can think of for ETS to act the way they do.

1
mathemorpheus•

indeed i didn't read your answer, and also didn't consider this issue you raise. i replied blindly to the question "Is it worth it to buy a $200 calculus textbook to get the most recent edition?" i suppose if one has to fork over the money because of the evil practices of Cengage, then i guess that's all there is to it. on the other hand, if one is lucky enough that the online HW system doesn't force this (like if it's WebWork ... but not really sure how many places are using WebWork for calc I), then i still believe there is absolutely no reason to get the latest version of the textbook. in fact the older (pre-webassign) editions are often better, since they actually include problems that can be used for studying.

the whole textbook market is insane.

1
[deleted]•

Stewart is probably great for people not going into math. It holds your hand throughout the course and has tons of exercises for practicing in rote. That being said, I don't see why any prospective mathematician would waste their time with the text, let alone pay $200 for a textbook destined to a used book store.

0
kcnrd•

The number of prospective future mathematicians in a university's calculus sequence (at least in the US) is far smaller than all the other students in the class, so their presence is not going to be a factor in deciding what book to use in such a course not aimed at math majors anyway.

For a future mathematician that book is not a waste since future mathematicians usually teach calculus at some point, in which case the book can be a useful reference when preparing lectures (there is no guarantee Stewart will be the dominant book forever). I have a few calculus books on my shelf, and I have consulted them when teaching a calculus class.

3
[deleted]•

Neither of your comments are really relevant to what I said.

If a student is serious about math, they shouldn't be learning calculus out of Stewart. It's not a textbook aimed for mathematicians, as you hinted. That was my point.

Calculus for non-mathematicians isn't a difficult subject. I don't see why anyone would need Stewart to prepare for lectures. But, can it be used? Sure. This doesn't necessitate the need for a prospective mathematician to waste $200, especially since textbooks like these can be easily obtained by professors, if I'm not mistaken.

-2
kcnrd•

Ah, I left something out that I implicitly had in mind: I was thinking of the students who decide to become math majors, and then later go on to graduate school in math, only after they start off college in a mainstream calculus sequence that uses Stewart. (The math department may not have a hotshot freshman calculus/analysis class, or even if they do not all students realize it is a course for them upon arrival). Such students are then "stuck" with Stewart's book after the fact, so to speak. What I was trying to say is that, having purchased the book before they knew how far they'd go with math, they might as well keep it rather than sell it back to the publisher so it's available later when they teach the stuff themselves. When I was preparing lectures from a course using Stewart I sometimes looked in my decades old calculus book by Leithold to see how he presented some topics, either for inspiration or some alternate worked examples

You're correct that faculty teaching calculus can get a desk copy of the course textbook from the publisher without paying for it, although in my case I just borrowed the department's copies of the official text since I don't need another calculus book beyond what I already have. :)

1
[deleted]•

Right. I think I can agree with what you have said. If for only the purposes of making life a little easier in the future of teaching calculus, then sure, a text like Stewart may be good to have. I don't know anyone who would lug that behemoth around grad school and post docs, though LOL

1
DanielMcLaury•

Any one of us could sit down and write up a textbook just as good as / better than Stewart's, and provide it for free to students as a PDF, or a $5 printout at the local copy shop. Generally the reason people end up using the famous, big-name texts is because there's some logistical issue with standardization across a zillion sections and some university-wide deal with a textbook publisher and access to MyMathLab and whatever.

-1
ilmmad•

Yeah sorry, but knowing math and knowing how to teach math are vastly different things.

2
DanielMcLaury•

You say that as though Stewart's book was particularly good for teaching calculus. If anything, it's the opposite: it's designed to make it easy to run classes and test people, not to help anyone actually learn calculus. People who come out of Stewart-type calculus classes, even the ones with straight A's, generally know little to no calculus; you just end up with this charade where everyone can confidently tell you that the integral of sin(x) is - cos(x) + C, but can't actually tell you what sine and cosine are.

I should know; I was one of them. It seems like everyone who actually learned calculus either picked it up in physics courses or had to go back after taking many more advanced math classes and finally learn what was going on.

It would be far, far better to use something like Sylvanus Thompson's book, maybe filling in the notion of limits, than to use a book like Stewart that emphasizes memorizing formulas and procedures for solving specific problems by rote.

1