You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist

The book itself was assigned to me as a textbook in 2018 for a class I was taking, and it served its purpose well. The readings themselves were interesting, but the one issue I noticed pretty quick was the durability. After about 1-2 weeks of use, the front cover begam to rip apart because of what I believe was the thickness of the book. The book is about 1 1/2 inches thick, and typically books at this size should be hardcover. Both back and front cover were nearly ripped off, but luckily some tape to reinforce it was enough to prevent it from being ripped off. The pages inside were fine, with no issue at all in terms of quality/durability.I would recommend a digital/e-book if available, but other than that, this product gets a 4/5 stars from me.

You May Ask Yourself, will this book help me through college? Will this help me be a better Sociologist? Well... with or without this book, I still got an A from my professor whose quiz questions had nothing to do with this paper weight that's so called a book! Thanks to Google and people putting quiz answers in quizlets! #NotAllHeroesWearCapes. Although with this amazing 15lbs weight I was able to build a bigger bicep, forearm and calves!! You are only limited by your imagination on what gainz you can make and how. As my middle school teacher once said, "a big brain is important! But bigger biceps is more importanter and gets the babes!" So rent this book and load it in your bag and make your way into Gainesville! You will not regret the gains in your calves that it will add. Don't forget to purchase lube from Amazon, even if you won't need it cuz girls will be moist AF for you after they see your new and solid calves!

This is a horrible textbook. The author already gets multiple concepts wrong in the opening 5 chapters. I've been very disappointed. Having done graduate work in a related field for 4 years, and field research, I was extremely disappointed.The sexuality and gender discussion has so many issues. The author loves to talk about work by sociologists... but sociologists haven't don't the best work on multiple concepts that he discusses. He had a tendency to pick and choose sociology studies to discuss, and not give an overall perspective. Picking studies is always a problem in writing, but picking poor studies is not the answer. Giving a broader discussion, in my opinion, is far more appropriate.The intro course I'm doing utilizes the materials with the book, including an extremely obviously provided set of powerpoints and test bank questions. Some of these questions are terrible. They're just poorly done. Most educators will says that you need to be extremely careful with multiple choice questions, but as might be expected, most college professors have no training in teaching or writing exams. You can have a "best answer," but when you have multiple answers that can be argued, you have not written a good question. The powerpoints are also not impressive... almost as if the creator has not ever had feedback on his/her presentations. They are less impressive than many I've seen from middle schoolers, and these are for wide-distribution.The author opens the book with incredible generalizations about why college is "worth it," although acknowledging that there are issues with this data, but leaving out the biggest issues. It was like reading an argument from someone who has never taken a methods course or a statistics course. This is from a sociologist... he ignores class completely in his argument, and this is about formal education. This is often considered the most important variable when discussing college being "worth it." This is his tendency throughout discussions... to focus on what he considers important, at the cost of considering what is generally considered important by academics.The author tries to make the book readable, by attempting to relate to the reader, attempting to engage the reader in thought exercises or asking questions, but this is an introductory text. Choosing to do this while knowing that students will not be at a high enough level to engage in discussion, while also not giving further detail on the discussion is just a bad idea. I understand what he was attempting to do, but it appears that he does not know his audience. Giving introductory students free reign to discuss a topic, without any background information, knowing you doing read a textbook in a classroom... just save that for the instructor's edition. The instructor may choose what to discuss with students.Additionally, the interjections from the author about his personal experiences/opinions are unneeded. Do I need to know how he wants to experiment on naming children? No, I do not, nor do I need to know his children's names. The discussion was about African American naming conventions (and the broader discourse within academia has been about impacts on careers/jobs), but instead the author wants to tell about his children. This is not the only incidence with unnecessary self-injection into the text, but just a single example of many.I would never choose this text for an introduction to sociology. Perhaps this would be appropriate in a high school classroom that still reads in class, but definitely not at the college level for at-home reading.

I loved this book. I read literally every page and I enjoyed doing so. My professor recommended reading each chapter before class, which I did. The book uses excellent examples to explain concepts and ideas and does so in an entertaining way. There are also online resources available through the book's website with links on the pages throughout the chapter. The book certainly helped me understand the course material very well and I didn't have to do anything during class. I had to purchase the book as I needed web access. The book is slightly smaller than the typical textbook size so reading it felt like reading a novel, which made getting through the chapters feel quicker as well.

My daughter used this book for her college class. She was recomended by a friend