The Basic Parts of a Hardback Textbook

Previewing your textbook before reading it is simply one of the smartest

things you can do. You may be surprised by the helpful efforts made by the
author of your textbook. Nowadays, smart writers want the text, and
especially its content, to meet your learning style. If you only turned to the
assigned readings, you are likely to miss the bonuses installed in the book to
make the readings more manageable. First, and foremost, you need to know
the basic parts of your textbook.
Book Types

There are three types of books used in academia:
Browsing books which are designed to first "catch the reader's eye," then
allow for sporadic, disconnected readings. The reader "browses" the subject
for purposes of intellectual curiosity.
Continuous reading books are typical of traditional textbooks. They are
designed to inform in a systematic manner and generally begin by introducing
concepts and continue on to more involved or complex discussions.
Reference books must be designed for easy retrieval of particular
information.
The following lists the general contents of college textbooks. Sometimes
the order of the listed areas will vary. Your job is to know where and what it is
in your specific books.

Fly Page Introduction Credits Bibliography
Title/Author
Page
Acknowledgements Glossary
Copyright
Page
Table of Contents Appendix
Preface Index References
Fly leaf (fly page)
This page faces the endsheet (which is glued to the book cover). This page is
thicker and far more durable than the other pages in your book. Usually
blank, this page is excellent for writing down basic formulas or fundamental
notes which you will need again and again as you study from the book.
Title/Author page
The information on this page is fairly consistent. It contains the full title of the
book, the edition, the name of the author, the author's academic affiliation
(where the author was teacher when the book was written), and the book's
publisher. If there is more than one author, all their names will appear on this
page.
Copyright page
The book's copyright information is located prominently on this
page. Copyright indicates the intellectual ownership of the book's
content. There is often a paragraph explain who has the legal right to copy
pages from the book. You will also find the Library of Congress call number,
the International Standard Book Number (ISBN).
Preface
The preface is an introductory statement written by the author or authors
specifically to the reader. The preface gives the author's reason and purpose
for writing the book, and may include a summary of problems encountered
while writing the book. The preface also attempts to describe the reader; for
whom the book is meant. This should not be confused with
the foreward. The foreward (sometimes spelled forward) contains remarks
about the book, usually written by someone other than the author.
Introduction
The introduction, like the preface, is by the author. However, here the author
tells the reader what the book is about and how it should or might be used.
For example, the author might indicate that experienced readers should begin
with section two or that it is better to read the work through before attempting
the exercises. If this is a second or subsequent edition, this where the author
explains the changes and improvements.
Acknowledgements
This page, when it is included, is meant for the friends, family and colleagues
of the author(s). This section is usually comprised of a paragraph thanking
various people for their assistance, contribution and time in helping with the
writing and publishing of the book.
Table of Contents
Basically an outline of the book, the table of contents lists the book's
organization. This section demonstrates if the book is written in chapters,
sections or units. Nowadays there may be two tables of contents; a brief and
an expanded. The expanded is comprehensive and may breakdown the
organization of the chapters. Essentially, the table of contents lists all the
content focused text of the book.
Index
The index is a thoughtful list of words and topics taken from the text of the
book. Written in alphabetical order, and organized so that it also reflects sub-
topics, the index gives you an idea of the book's subject matter. Each word is
followed by the page or multiple page numbers of every instance the word (or
topic) appears in a meaningful context.
Credits
Textbooks often contain photographs, illustrations, visual aids (graphs, charts,
tables, etc.) and other specifically designed non text material. These images
were all created by someone, probably other than the author(s). The credits
page lists the artists, photographers, designers and creators of the book's
visuals. The visuals are considered intellectual property and ownership must
be documented; that is the purpose of the credits page... a documentation of
intellectual property rights for the book's non-text media.
Glossary
The glossary is a small dictionary designed specifically from the words or key
terms used in the textbook. The definitions are only for the specialized usage
in the book. Listed in alphabetical order, each entry is called a gloss. There
is no set standard for how thorough the definition should be so some
glossaries include pronunciation and the pages where the gloss is found in the
text. Other glossaries only give the definition.
Appendix
Some textbooks have more than one appendix (plural appendixes or
appendices) depending on the book's discipline. An appendix is a page or
pages that contain a variety of information that is related to the book's topic,
but not relegated to one specific chapter. For example, history books will
often have maps and copies of important charters or treaties in
appendixes. Math books will have a table of logarithms, and chemistry books
contain the periodic table and other material.
References
Even though one, two or more authors write a textbook, the author does not
make up the text. The information comes from many other places... called
sources. A textbook author must list all of the books, articles, recordings, and
other printed sources, that were used in the writing of the textbook. Whenever
the author repeats or borrows from a source, and writes that information in the
textbook, the original title and author of the source is listed in a section called
references.
Bibliography
Authors read tremendous amounts of material when writing textbooks. The
bibliography is a list of all the material read, that the author learned from, or
contributed to his own ideas that are written in the book. Unlike the
references, the bibliography does list works that were cited directly by the
author.