Skip to main content

College Textbooks

The first rule is don’t panic! You don’t need to rush around and buy textbooks before you get to campus. The college book store has what you need, and many courses use online texts which are delivered automatically to your Internet Blackboard account.

The world of college textbooks is tricky, so it is easy to order the wrong thing from Amazon (especially if you try to save money by getting an older edition at a discount). That’s one good reason to wait until you get here to buy your books. Another good reason is that each teacher has a unique textbook list: You cannot assume that the book list for one section of a course will work in another section.

Pro tip:

When you buy books at our bookstore, save your receipt and don’t mark in them until you are really sure you bought the right things. The bookstore will give you full credit for unmarked books you bought by mistake if you have a receipt.

Books for our course

The good news is that our English course doesn’t have any textbooks. Everything is online and free. We have sample essays and readings and we have grammar handbook items, all available through the internet. You can get to them three ways:

  • After you get access to your Blackboard account (usually on the first official day of class), you will find that the course is arranged by weeks, and the readings which are assigned each week are in the folder for that week.
  • Also in Blackboard, there’s a menu item called “Course Content” where you will find all the readings (plus links to other grammar and usage items).
  • At the top of this blog page, you will see a thing with three little lines which look like this: ☰. Click that and a sidebar will open which also has the “Course Content” item.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Your Computer Ready for School

Back when I was a student, everyone packed up their portable typewriter for the move to campus. Lots of people got a new typewriter as a graduation gift, but I didn’t. I ended up using one we bought when I was in high school. The story is probably the same for you, except that it’s a computer, not a mechanical typewriter. Whether you just bought a new one or kept your old faithful companion with all of its stickers, you need to do a few things to get the machine ready for college. Getting Old Faithful ready for college Is Old Faithful sick? If the machine crashes a lot, has trouble (and takes a long time) doing things, or pops up weird ads to play poker or look at porn, you probably have a virus. (You just had to download that fancy screensaver, didn’t you?) Take a deep breath—bite the bullet—pay the computer repair shop to clean it up for you. Now that Old Faithful is feeling better … Back u...

The Writing Teacher in Summer

It has been a long time since I had the self-discipline to simply stop for the summer. There were always summer courses to teach, curricula to rewrite, etc. I promised myself, however, that this summer would be different. Yes, I’m spending a lot of effort on this blog, and I’ll put in big time preparing for fall classes, but this will be a more relaxed summer than most, time to do some other things: I started the summer running sound effects for Mid-Ohio Opera. When the phone rang on stage, I was pushing the button. When lightning flashed and thunder rolled, I was pushing the button. I spent a week at Disney in Florida with grandkids, my first trip there. I get the idea that I’m one of the last people in Ohio to get there for the first time (probably not true). The highlight of July will be a bike trip on the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, about 45 miles of riding a day. Fun stuff! ...

Adulting

Business people talk about “hard skills” and “soft skills.” Hard skills can be taught with books of instructions—things such as driving a standard shift, using Microsoft Word, or analyzing a blood sample. Soft skills are such things as showing up on time for work, giving the boss the proper respect, wearing appropriate clothing for the task, and keeping your work area tidy. Many college students figure that the hard skills are all they need, but the hard skills are relatively easy to teach; if you lack soft skills, you will struggle in college and have a lot of trouble finding and keeping a job. Somewhere in the middle area between these are the adulting skills. People who lack these skills might be able to pass courses, but their time in college will be very difficult. Here are a few you will need—and now is a good time to begin working on them. Doing laundry. Surprised that I put it first? The ...