Molecular Biology

Rating:
Summary: They USE this text
Review: I am a faculty member at a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania and will be using this textbook for the third year in a row. While the style of the text IS difficult for students at the beginning, as they become comfortable with it, they use it more and more as a resource. Every year I have the students evaluate the textbook and this book has received high marks both years I have used it. An instructor using this textbook needs to spend more time discussing the details with the students in the beginning, which decrease the total amount of material you can cover during the semester. However, after using this textbook, students can pick up the primary literature and are quite conversant with it. My class consists of students ranging from second semester sophomores through second semester seniors. If you just want to lecture to students, this may not be the textbook for you to use, but if you want to engage your students in the ways that molecular biologists solve problems, this textbook is an excellent choice.

Rating:
Summary: A good study supplement, but poor primary resource
Review: I am currently taking an upper division molecular biochemistry course. The professor recommended the Weaver text as additional reading. I have found the book useful in working through the theory and the methodology presented in the course. As some of the reviews have stated, the book rushes through some concepts and does not make good use of conceptual models; however as a supplement to the primary text-Molecular Biology of the Gene, Watson et al-the text is quite useful in understanding and applying the material. I would not recommend any professor using the text as a primary resource in an introductory course. A solid background in biochemistry is useful in fully understanding the text.

Rating:
Summary: Great for upperclassmen and graduate students
Review: I had the good fortune of taking Gene Expression from Professor Weaver himself and have to say that this is a fantastic book used in a fantastic class. I'm halfway through Medical School headed toward a residency in Medical Genetics and I still pull this book out from time to time to clarify salient points that I have forgotten through time. This is a great book for students with a strong background in molecular biology.

I might also add that Professor Weaver is a really nice guy, so it's good karma to buy his book. :)

Rating:
Summary: Not for me!
Review: I have not had the luck of being taught by dr. weaver and maybe due to this reason i had trouble with the book. as soon as i read about 15 pages, i realized that i could not...summarize what i just read! the book does it for you, but even after reading the book summary, i still had the feeling 'I DONT KNOW WHAT I JUST READ!' I had used a histology book that gave me a similar feeling. All my problems were solved simply by getting a different histology book.

This book does, at times, go into greater level of detail than alberts, but if you are like me, you will be no smarter after reading the book than you were before.

A preview of this book may not be enough to know whether this book is made for you or not, so make sure you have a couple of days on your return policy in case it doesnt work for you.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Text, But Not For Beginners
Review: I have used this text as an undergrad and now as a grad student (in the interest of full disclosure, I am currently taking a class with Dr. Weaver and we are using this text; surprise, surprise). I found the use of experimental data to be extremely helpful, especially since molecular biology is an experimental field. It really gives one a feel for how we arrived at what we know and what was the thinking that led to it. That said, this is probably not an ideal text for an introduction to molecular biology. Students using this text should have some familiarity with genetics and cell biology. When I used this text as an undergrad (at a liberal arts college in Kansas) I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of experimental information at first, but I grew to appreciate it greatly. It allowed me to better develop analytical skills that are important for the field. On the whole, this has been probably one of the best books I have seen in this field.

Rating:
Summary: Good textbook but not for lower level undergrad students
Review: I strongly agree the opinion of a reader in Indiana, as you can see the following. I think this may not a good choice for undergraduate students who don't have a strong background of molecular biology. However, it would be good source for any new coming grad students. Because this book would give the grad students an opportunity how well to interpret the data and results in research papers. Sometimes when I read this book, I feel I'm doing a crtical reading on research papers. I've corresponded Dr. Weaver (he's a prof. in Dept. of Biochem and Mol Biology, Univ of Kansas now) for twice to give my comments and he said he's prepapring and revising for new edition which would be appeared next summer(2001). If you're a grad student who is looking for other styled book unlike "Genes VII", "Molecular Cell Biology" etc., I would recommend this one.

Rating:
Summary: Experimental Approach Difficult for Most Undergraduates
Review: I teach molecular biology at a respected liberal arts college in Indiana. As a first year molecular instructor I went looking for advice on textbooks. Under recommendations from the previous instructor of this course I chose Weaver's book as an alternative to the now aging Albert Text. Frankly, the text has been a flop.

Why? Because it assumes a certain level of understanding of molecular coming into the course. A highly motivated student who has a strong background in research will enjoy this book, but as a general text it just doesn't work well. I find my students are just lost in the chapters. They are getting bogged down trying to work through all the gels and are missing the concepts being presented. I find that I must use figures from Albert's or Stryer (Biochem) to make the concepts clear. Perhaps it would be a good grad textbook with a student population that has an excellent understanding of 'gel science'.

Mostly I find it is just missing in general concepts. They summarize sections up in little orange boxes at the end which seems to be all the class seems to understand from the readings. I think they need to put more effort into making the general text more understandable to students by working on the model end and less on the experimental end.

I am not alone in my poor evaluation of this text. A prof who has been teaching the class for 15 years finally made the switch to this book this year to replace Albert. She gave up on Weaver two weeks into the class because of her class' fustration.

I would recommend this book ONLY to those who have first read it and feel it is going to be PERSONALLY useful.

Rating:
Summary: A must for experimental scientists in training
Review: Most classes I have taken at the undergraduate level have only presented the facts and theories of molecular and cell biology. Dr. Weaver's text, and the two classes I have taken from him, have given me insight into how those facts were obtained. His text presents the questions of scientists, why they were asked, and how they were answered, including interpretation of the data. This is very important to someone training to be a research scientist.

Yes, it may be understandable only to upper level students, but that is for whom the book is meant. The first two or three years of college should give a student enough background. This book will help elaborate on that information, and more importantly, answer the why and how.

Rating:
Summary: Great for the GRE and introductory graduate courses
Review: The approach of this book is based on experimental data rather than the deduced facts. I have tride many books to prepare me for the GRE subject text in Biochem/cell/Molecular biology. However, many of the books were concentrating on plain facts rather than on experimental data. Some of the GRE question especially the longer and difficult ones are not concerened with memorized facts. Rather, they present to you experimental data in the form of graphs and charts and ask you questions based on them. Of all the books that I sampled this is the only one that provided the necessary levels of understanding for me to tackle such questions. This is also true in a life of a beginning graduate student who is required to make sense out of graphs, numbers and charts in per reviewed journal articles. This book is most useful for such individuals. For lower level undergraduates this book is best when used with in conjunction with another introductory text book such as Molecular Cells biology by by lodish.