Thursday, January 15, 2009
Breaking My Back
Each semester as I journey over to the bookstore to pick up my new books, I feel disheartened as I remember the pain I still suffer from the heavy books carried from semester's past. After talking with other students around me, and noticing how large the backpacks are that everyone is carrying, I can't help but think that by the time we are 50 we will all look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame (no offense to him). You would think that with all the current technology our world thrives on today that there would be a better way in which we could download our books for a fee, instead of having to cart them around with us everywhere. Although I realize that there would be complications to this process, and books are necessary for our learning, I strongly feel that something needs to be done. Throughout the continuation of this paper I will present my ideas and observations as to why I think buying books for classes is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Hopefully a resolution to this problem can be obtained that will allow us the benefit of utilizing such valuable material, but prevent future health problems for our students.
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8 comments:
Not to mention, e-books are cheaper! You'd pay a one-time fee for something read it with. With what I had to pay for books this semester alone, I could pay for a half-decent laptop!
The books weigh too much, are overpriced, and in some classes are barely used. E-books would be a huge step forward. Pretty much everyone has a computer or access to one so it is definitely possible.
Great idea. It is definitely worth arguing for. The purpose of an opinion editorial is to present ideas and observations; you do not need to state that in your paper.
I agree books are a ton of money nowadays and it seems like we aren't given any sympathy for having to pay a month's worth of paychecks to do well in school. I look forward to seeing how you build upon this idea.
This is a good topic. You definitely have a lot of good reasons to switch over to online books. Some counter arguments to think about and address in your editorial are: not everyone has a laptop/computer, it might be harmful to your eyes to read large amount of text book reading on a computer screen, and some find it beneficial to hi-lite and take notes in the margins of books. A good way to go about these arguments is to offer both textbooks for those who like learning from a physical book but also offering online books for the people that that works for.
This topic definately relates to every student. You could definately provide good argument in favor of e-books.
I think you have an interesting proposal. I would just caution you to make sure that you are ready to argue against the benefits of having actual textbooks (i.e. being able to highlight and annotate them as well as having quick reference points). Personally, every time I have had an "e-book" I have not found them to be as helpful to me.
Good topic. I think everyone's comments are really good, and if you're proposing digital books you'll definitely have to take time to address your opposition--everything from old-fashioned professors attached to paper, to access to books that are used during class time (does everyone need a laptop or an ebook reader?), to the difficulty that many books are not yet available as ebooks.
As you write, make sure you think about your audience, about the people who can make change...is it administrators? professors? students who should force the bookstore out of business by boycotting? You want to try to convince the people who are going to realistically be able to make a change.
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