Style Versus Content: Forces Shaping the Evolution of Textbooks

Summary

To focus on matters of content to the exclusion of matters of style and execution in proposing new curricula is to lose sight of the essentially evolutionary nature of the development of courses and course materials. Strong selective pressures work against large-scale changes in large courses. These constraints are partly the result of inertia and of existing requirements outside of the mathematics curriculum, and they are partly economic in nature, affecting what will and what will not be economic to publish. This is a review of these limitations on curricular reform and the conclusion is that the success of such changes is more dependent on the style and execution of the materials produced than on the exact content of those materials.