Open Textbook Library

Plain-spoken and convivial, this casebook makes a deliberate effort to explain the law, rather than to provide a mere compilation of readings and questions. Simple concepts are presented simply. Complex concepts are broken down and accompanied by examples and problems. By being clear and straightforward, the casebook aims to quickly get students to the point where they can navigate regions of gray and build nuanced arguments. The book is written from...

Literature, the Humanities, and Humanity attempts to make the study of literature more than simply another school subject that students have to take. At a time when all subjects seem to be valued only for their testability, this book tries to show the value of reading and studying literature, even earlier literature. It shows students, some of whom will themselves become teachers, that literature actually has something to say to them. Furthermore,...

This is a textbook in modern philosophy. It combines readings from primary sources with two pedagogical tools. Paragraphs in italics introduce figures and texts. Numbered study questions (also in italics) ask students to reconstruct an argument or position from the text, or draw connections among the readings. And I have added an introductory chapter (Chapter 0 - Minilogic and Glossary), designed to present the basic tools of philosophy and sketch...

This is the first in a series of Contracts casebooks. It was originally titled "Collaborative Teaching Materials for Contracts." The first semester of law school is mostly about learning to speak a new legal language (but emphatically not "legalese"), to formulate and evaluate legal arguments, to become comfortable with the distinctive style of legal analysis. We could teach these skills using almost any legal topic. But we begin the first-year curriculum...

forall x is an introduction to sentential logic and first-order predicate logic with identity, logical systems that significantly influenced twentieth-century analytic philosophy. After working through the material in this book, a student should be able to understand most quantified expressions that arise in their philosophical reading. This books treats symbolization, formal semantics, and proof theory for each language. The discussion of formal...

"A Byte of Python" is a free book on programming using the Python language. It serves as a tutorial or guide to the Python language for a beginner audience. If all you know about computers is how to save text files, then this is the book for you.

This book is intended for a two-semester course in Economics taught out of the social sciences or business school. Principles of Economics aims to teach considerable range and depth of Economic concepts through an approachable style and methodology. The authors take a three-pronged approach to every chapter: The concept is covered with a "Heads Up" to ward off confusion, a real-world application for that concept, and a "You Try It" section to make...

Enterprise Pharo is the third volume of the series, following Pharo by Example and Deep into Pharo. It covers enterprise libraries and frameworks, and in particular those useful for doing web development. The book is structured in five parts. The first part talks about simple web applications, starting with a minimal web application in chapter 1 on Teapot and then a tutorial on building a more complete web application in chapter 2. Part two deals...

I never seemed to find the perfect data-oriented Python book for my course, so I set out to write just such a book. Luckily at a faculty meeting three weeks before I was about to start my new book from scratch over the holiday break, Dr. Atul Prakash showed me the Think Python book which he had used to teach his Python course that semester. It is a well-written Computer Science text with a focus on short, direct explanations and ease of learning.The...

How to Learn Like a Pro! features the "big six" effective learning/study skills topics: learning styles and preferences, time and materials management, critical thinking and reading, note-taking, memory principles, and test-taking techniques. Each of the six units featuring a total of twenty-three lessons and accompanying exercises (with a dash of humor here and there) were developed with the diverse student body of the community college in mind as...