I will agree that reading is much more pleasant when it’s telling a story rather than trying to enforce knowledge. Regardless of WHAT you’re trying to teach someone, pure prose is not effective. Even for something like computer code, where it’s all text anyways, you need diagrams to show what properly formatted code should look like.
When I was taking a programming course in college, we used the book “C++ How to Program” by Deitel & Deitel. It was a pretty dull book.
Soon after, the Deitel & Deitel authors updated their programming books to include cute little “bug” cartoon characters (sound familiar?) that give helpful hints. In my opinion, this improved their programming books tremendously.
A quick look on Amazon, and I can see that “C++ How to Program” is now in its tenth edition, and still includes those cute, helpful bugs.
I once was reading a book on taphonomy (how dead things become fossils) for work and repeatedly started laughing. Trying to explain to my wife why “rotting animal in a stream bed” and “running for your life from a guy defending an illegal gold claim” combined, much less how they resulted in me giggling at 11 pm, proved to be a futile effort.
That said, pictures help. Scientists are visual people. Tell us something, we get bored. Write an equation, and we’re interested. Show us a picture? We will spend the next three days trying to figure out what the hell is going on, how it can be useful, and whether we can weasel a publication out of it. Despite what the media tells you, scientists are mostly just little kids that never grew up. We play with toys all day, we love to color with crayons and colored pencils, and the first thing we do (by inclination and training) is look at the pretty pictures.
I will agree that reading is much more pleasant when it’s telling a story rather than trying to enforce knowledge. Regardless of WHAT you’re trying to teach someone, pure prose is not effective. Even for something like computer code, where it’s all text anyways, you need diagrams to show what properly formatted code should look like.
No no… the universe is like a tostada, not an enchilada. Flatish, roundish…
I mean, really…
Yes! Neil DeGrasse Tyson could read practically anything and I’d be enthralled.
Adam, you’re more correct than you realize!
When I was taking a programming course in college, we used the book “C++ How to Program” by Deitel & Deitel. It was a pretty dull book.
Soon after, the Deitel & Deitel authors updated their programming books to include cute little “bug” cartoon characters (sound familiar?) that give helpful hints. In my opinion, this improved their programming books tremendously.
A quick look on Amazon, and I can see that “C++ How to Program” is now in its tenth edition, and still includes those cute, helpful bugs.
I once was reading a book on taphonomy (how dead things become fossils) for work and repeatedly started laughing. Trying to explain to my wife why “rotting animal in a stream bed” and “running for your life from a guy defending an illegal gold claim” combined, much less how they resulted in me giggling at 11 pm, proved to be a futile effort.
That said, pictures help. Scientists are visual people. Tell us something, we get bored. Write an equation, and we’re interested. Show us a picture? We will spend the next three days trying to figure out what the hell is going on, how it can be useful, and whether we can weasel a publication out of it. Despite what the media tells you, scientists are mostly just little kids that never grew up. We play with toys all day, we love to color with crayons and colored pencils, and the first thing we do (by inclination and training) is look at the pretty pictures.