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A local community college professor decided to fight back. “The price of
books for our students is just getting higher and higher and, combined with the
rising cost of tuition, it’s killing these kids,” said Peter Jason, Ph.D.
“Remember, students are one of the poorest groups of people in America. Almost
half of them have at least one part-time job. In fact, one of my students has
three jobs. She is a part-time sales clerk at a clothing store three days a
week, then works three evenings a week as a pizza cook, and on weekends she does
manicures at a beauty salon. And she still manages to have a high GPA and go to
school full-time.”
Textbook prices are traditionally high. Adding to that problem, many
college instructors change textbooks year after year; they either upgrade to a
new edition or switch to an entirely different textbook. This further hurts
students because if an instructor no longer uses a particular textbook, that
book has no resale value.
Dr. Jason decided to make life a little easier and a lot cheaper for his
students by writing his own book on public speaking. “Many books have an
increased price because of bells and whistles: CD-ROMs, lots of color
photographs, and lots of graphics. I talked to my students, and many of them,
like me, prefer to keep things simple. So, during a sabbatical a few years ago,
I wrote my own textbook. I made sure that it wasn’t long-winded. I called it
Successful Public Speaking: How To Be Brief, Concise, and to the Point.
“Compared to most other public speaking primers, mine is half the number of
pages, and one-third the price. That is, $30 instead of $90. Plus, it is
published in a three-ring binder format. So, when I wrote a second edition last
year, students only had to buy the 35 new pages and delete 35 of the original
pages. For only $7.00, they had upgraded to the new edition. I’ve had great
feedback from my students about this loose-leaf concept. Maybe the word will get
out, and more writers and publishers will try it.” |
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发表于 2016-7-10 09:21:32