12 February 2009

Education is Dead

At least higher education is.

At least higher education in America is.

Just don't tell the marketing department, they'll see it as some new sort of gimmick.

The names have been changed, well, obliterated, to protect the guilty.

Hi,

I'm the editor for __________'s text, and __________ has been forwarding your emails to me. Thanks for contacting him with your question about references in __________'s book. The answer is that we do not include a bibliography with __________'s text, either in the printed or online versions. We only include citations where necessary, which includes the __________ boxes and other examples. We consciously decided against including citations from research as this is an introductory book for undergraduate, non-majors, and we wanted the material to be as immediate and appealing to them as possible.

One of our other introductory texts, __________, has an extensive bibliography for every chapter. This book is designed for a more advanced student, and we thought it appropriate to include references. We can send you a copy of the latest edition of __________ if you'd like to consider using it.

If I'm missing something or did not answer your question fully, I'd like to continue the conversation. Don't hesitate to contact me directly with any additional questions or concerns.

If you don't understand why I'm appalled, you probably don't want to be anywhere near me right now.

Since they have stopped talking to me, I am not sure if they have gotten sick of me, or just figured out it wasn't a research bibliography I was complaining about the absence of.

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