Ecology: Theories and Applications (4th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: insular academic chatter
Review: I was assigned this as a text for a college class, which I subsequently dropped after reading the book. What I had wanted was a basic introduction to the concepts of the science of ecology. What I got instead was unnecessary academic references and page after page of statistical methodology. These might be important in a graduate class or a professional journal, but they are woefully out of place in an introductory textbook. This book is a perfect example of what is wrong with the modern technocratic university: overspecialized PhDs, preoccupied with methodology, writing for each other, and unable to communicate with anyone outside their disciplines. It is a lousy tool for teaching and learning. If I were you I'd run screaming.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book, Easy to Read but Lacking in through explanation
Review: This was my text book when taking Ecology and Peter Stiling the author of the book was my instructor. It is written EXACTLY word for word as he lectures. I understood everything in the book and in class but I'm afraid some of the topics aren't explained as completely as they could be. I was left not understanding certain things, from being to end that is and much of the text needs to be explained in more depth by an instructor. It is probably because most of the text involves statistics. Great INTRODUCTORY Text but definitely requires an instructor.

Rating:
Summary: One of those over-educated types responds
Review: What you have in the previous review is a perfect example of the type of students prevalent in the US higher education system today.... crying, "Give us Science Lite!" Heaven forfend that you should have to apply a formula in what is perhaps the most QUANTITATIVE of all the biological sciences, ecology!! Now having vented, let me say that Stiling's book is certainly not the perfect introductory text- in fact I find it LACKING in detail in some respects- but it isn't a bad choice at all for the introduction of interested students to the study of life on the planet we inhabit.