: Re: Can a textbook contain heavy reference to other materials? I find that nearly all college textbooks are self-contained. All of the readings, exercises, and multimedia (e.g. videos on a provided

@Si5022468

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As a workbook I can see this methodology working.

Since you do not plagiarize the original works, you cite them, and refer the reader to them, I am not aware of any laws which would be in conflict (note: I am a US citizen and laws in other countries are something I know absolutely nothing about).

If this were a textbook, as a student I would question whether it was appropriate. A textbook in my view is one which teaches/instructs. It does not present a potentially-biased summary, ask for a pre-judgement on the unknown, request the intake of that item, and then ask for my own judgement... how does such a process teach or instruct? It is impossible to know what every student will think beforehand and afterwards and then educate them based on their analysis, so how does one continue the segment afterwards? While exceptional cases may facilitate such a method, to do an entire textbook via such a method is likely to not achieve the goal a textbook is designed to achieve and could easily be replaced by a list of items to be read/viewed.

Take, for example, John Gardner's "The Art Of Fiction". It cites many writings by numerous authors and very often includes excerpts. I am not sure if this is a textbook by raw definition (I bought it for non-formal education purposes). In each of the citings, though, an analysis is included as to how that particular passage establishes a point being made. Sometimes a contrast is made between two different passages in order to demonstrate the point. Such a demonstration serves a fundamental purpose in that it allows the author of the work to choose the examples and then specifically address areas of excellence or areas where improvement can be made.

If we leave, as I gather from your question, the analysis up to the reader, we are asking only for self-reflection and providing little guidance.

Now, perhaps you have found the key dmm has referred to in the answer's closing section, but it seems to me that the reason you do not see a plethora of such works at this time has nothing to do with legalty and is because highly-effective, proven methods of instruction are what authors lean toward (not that anyone is necessarily biased towards other methods such as you have suggested).

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