how many steps of cone of experience in this book are tell in this book ? And what steps are refer?

Very few books are this specific to help those of us with such variable, indecisive & unpredictable weather! Many photos and illustrations to help identify plants, pests and best practices. Wide range of topics from start (garden planning) to finish (harvesting). Book helps not only new gardeners, but those still learning - as well as new Houstonians. Large, glossy pages makes for easy and interesting reading. Even if you don't live in Houston, but in a Southern (just a tad north of a coastal) area, you won't want to miss out on this book!

I am a specialist in producing plain language texts. I was interested in the research backing up the formulas for readability. A lot of the books on this subject are old and out of print. I was lucky to find this book, first published in 1995 and republished last year.

This book covers the 80-year history of readability research and has a fine bibliography of five pages.

In 1921, in response to the influx of "first generation" secondary school students and the new desire for scientific schools for educational problems, E.L. Thorndike published "The Teachers' Word Book." It provided researchers with their first tool for assessing the difficulty of texts. Edgar Dale published his first work on this subject in 1929.

There has been an enormous amount of research since then and over 200 readability formulas created. This book discusses the older "classic" readability formulas, which focus on vocabulary and sentence length, and the new formulas, which focus on cognitive and organizational factors.

The best chapter is on the special importance of vocabulary in assessing the readability of a document. While the authors recognize the validity of the new formulas and the issues they raise, they point out that the new formulas are very difficult to use. Research has consistently shown that the difficulty of the vocabulary and the length of sentences are the strongest indicators of readability. This makes sense when you consider that growth and learning bring the ability to master more difficult words and longer sentences.

The book has a good chapter on the uses and misuses of readability formulas. We should not have to be reminded that there are many other factors that contribute to readability such as organization, cohesion, graphic design, etc.

Dale and Chall first published their readability formula in 1948 and for a long time was the most popular formula in educational circles. It uses not only number of syllables and sentence length, but also a vocabulary list of 3000 "simple" words (which 80% of 4th graders can understand). Words not on that list are considered "difficult."

The book sadly has two unforgivable flaws. The publisher neglected to re-index the revised book, and none of the cross references are accurate. Chapter 10, practical suggestions for creating readable materials, is completely missing! If I did not value the rest of the book so much (it was exactly what I was looking for), I would demand my money back!

To be fair to this book, I must admit I have not read the entire book in detail...though the reason is that I found the book unreadable. I borrowed the book from the library, as I was reading a number of texts dealing with the philisophical implications of quantum physics, but was dismayed to find this book is a hodge-podge of 19th century physics and 20th century 'new-age-rhetoric'. Perhaps an exerpt from the section dealing with colours will give a clue to the writing style: Red is the male force. This color is represented by C and C#. The male force is expansive, energetic, doing, building, expressive. Red is the color given Adam, the first materialized Man. This is the beginning point of material manifestation. Energy always manifests in a triangular fashion, i.e., a single source manifesting in a dual nature or way. Hence from this position the next color to be manifest is Blue or the female color. This has been eternally symbolized as Eve taken from the twelfth rib of Adam.