I have just reviewed an interesting paper by someone I respect (so much for
blind review!) that compares textbooks and technical writing in the same
field. The paper comes down rather heavily against the textbooks on a
particular important syndrome, and I recommended the author/s consider why
textbooks are as they are and not just how they differ from professional
writing for experts. I thought one should consider the possible positive
functions of their deviance. On the other hand I agree that deviance is in
itself a problem; I do not think that reading a textbook in many fields
really does introduce students to the actual disciplinary discourse, only
to a discourse-type that exists only in textbooks.
But textbooks may do some good anyway. As Tim says, they try to bring order
out of chaos, they offer a simple way in to complex worlds. I am not sure
the order they offer is not itself a fundamental distortion, or that the
impulse to tidy up disciplines does not a modernist and masculinist fantasy
of control on the part of writers and many readers, one that I would not
really want to encourage.
On the other hand, I am going to argue in a paper in Tucson next month, as
I have I think here in times gone by, that in some fields apprenticeship is
not enough, that specialized gateway institutions are needed to get to the
point where the experiences of peripheral participation will in fact move
one toward competent membership in a community. Textbooks in fields like
science and mathematics are good candidates for such institutions (or their
artifacts).
Simplified entry steps, sometimes yes. Coherent visions of a field, most
times no. Seems to be about where I stand on this at the moment. JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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