Reflections and recommendations on writing textbooks

in the course of a career in academia

Jerry H. Ginsberga)
G. W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta,
Georgia 30332-0405

(Received 4 January 2011; accepted 8 March 2011)

The genesis of this paper was notification to the author that he would receive the 2010 Rossing
Prize in Acoustics Education, which carried the responsibility of giving a lecture at a meeting of the
Acoustical Society of America. He decided to draw on his remembrances of writing several textbooks during a 40 year career as a professor to discuss the facets of writing that a faculty member
might encounter. This paper is an expanded version of that lecture [J. H. Ginsberg, J. Acoust. Soc.
Am. 128, 2389 (2010)]. An opening section elucidating the authors experiences as an author is followed by a discussion intended to motivate and encourage those who are undecided about taking on
this activity. Suggestions are offered as to how to organize and proceed through a writing project as
well as what elements should be included. An explanation of the authors role in the process of producing a printed textbook is provided. Guidance is offered as to how one can focus on writing a
book in the face of teaching, research, and personal responsibilities. The closure discusses current
trends that endanger the ongoing flow of high quality textbooks.
C 2012 Acoustical Society of America. [DOI: 10.1121/1.3676729]
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PACS number(s): 43.10.Sv, 43.10.Gi [TDR]

Pages: 23562366

I. BACKGROUND

Shortly after the Spring 2010 ASA meeting in Baltimore, I was notified that I would be awarded the 2010 Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education. Although I was delighted,
as well as extremely flattered, to be its recipient, I also was
puzzled. Our Society has many outstanding educators, and I
could not identify the unique things that I had done that warranted my selection. There is an aphorism that states No
pain, no gain, which is exemplified by the requirement that
recipients of the Rossing Prize give a lecture on education at
the meeting where they receive the Prize. Thus it was imperative that I identify the aspect of my career that caused me to
be selected. Self-deliberation did not lead to the answer, so I
decided to call a good friend to gain his insight. An exchange
of updates on our current status was followed by my explanation of the dilemma I was attempting to address. A 10-s
pause was followed by a twist of a political phase from the
1992 Presidential election. He replied Its your books! He
omitted the stupid part, probably out of consideration for
our friendship. Upon reflection, he should have added it.
While our conversation continued, Fig. 1 came to mind.
There the reader will find the covers of the textbooks I have
written. The first four are first and second editions of undergraduate textbooks in statics and dynamics,14 which are
core courses in the curriculum for many engineering disciplines. I began to write the first editions of these books when
I was an assistant professor at Purdue University. My coauthor was Dr. Joseph Genin, who shared with me the duty of
coordinating all course sections in these subjects as well as
a)

Author to whom correspondence should be addresed. Electronic mail:

jerry.ginsberg@me.gatech.edu

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J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131 (3), Pt. 2, March 2012

teaching one or two sections. We decided to write these

books out of a sense of frustration with the offerings at that
time which we felt did not pay adequate attention to threedimensional phenomena and did not sufficiently support our
effort to impart general problem solving skills to students.
The second editions followed my departure from Purdue to
join the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology and
Joes departure to become Dean of Engineering at New
Mexico State University. Second editions have become an
economic necessity for publishers whose profits have been
eroded for reasons discussed later. However, I had other
motives in writing the second editions in that I had gained
further experience and insight into what students needed and
how to better meet those needs. These books were second
editions only in the sense that they retained the organization
of the first editions; they essentially were new works.
At this juncture, one might wonder how books in basic
mechanics are related to acoustics, but to do so would be to
ignore Lindsays annular diagram,5 which highlights the
catholic nature of acoustics. This aspect will be evident as
this exposition proceeds. My instructional activities at Georgia Tech were focused on graduate courses in classical dynamics and vibrations. Here too, I became discontented with
the treatments to be found in the available textbooks. In the
case of classical dynamics, I was unsatisfied with the treatment of real problems in engineering as opposed to the simpler types of systems encountered in the study of physics. I
also found that the standard treatments for three-dimensional
rigid body motion were difficult for students because they
lacked a consistent and logical approach. In the case of
vibration theory, my primary complaint was that books
failed to exploit the advent of mathematical software,
which made it possible to address system complexity and

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FIG. 1. (Color online) Covers of textbooks written by J. H. Ginsberg.

real-world vibration issues. This too will be a theme the

reader will find discussed herein, specifically, that you
should write a textbook when you believe you can remedy
shortcomings in the available literature.
A textbook on advanced dynamics6 was the first result
of my teaching activities at Georgia Tech. My experience
using it, coupled with student feedback, both offered and
perceived, led to another on the same subject.7 Although it
was titled as a second edition, it was treated as such by the
publisher to assure continuity. For me, it was a new book,
completely rewritten, but with the outline of the first edition
retained.
I had contemplated writing a vibrations book for several
years but did not do so. It might seem strange for me to say
that the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta drove me to begin
that effort, but it is so. The Georgia Tech campus served as
the Olympic Village. As a result, the period available for
instruction following the Games was shortened, but I did not
wish to sacrifice course coverage. As the vibrations course
proceeded, I realized that I could formulate a way of teaching a general approach to continuum vibrations that avoided
solving partial differential equations, yet was much briefer
and easier to apply to unusual configurations. Once I began
to write notes for distribution to my class, whatever impediments had held me back from writing another book were
J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 131, No. 3, Pt. 2, March 2012

removed. This highlights another theme that the reader will

find explicitly mentioned herein. An important reason to
write a book is that you have developed unique insights and
approaches that should be shared with students outside your
class.
My most recent textbook is another one in classical dynamics.8 In addition to improvements gained from my experience as a user of the previous version, and a desire to
expand its coverage, I had gained a sense that I was a servant
of the great masters, particularly Euler and Lagrange.
I believed that it was my responsibility to help students
understand the elegant philosophy that underlay their contributions, as well as to modernize those contributions to
address current engineering applications. These objectives
might sound grandiose, if not somewhat pompous, but I am
quite satisfied with the result. This too exemplifies a reason
to write a textbookdoing so helps one to follow in the footsteps of the giants of our past.
At the time that I was notified that I would receive the
2010 Rossing Prize, I happened to be in the midst of reading
Dickens David Copperfield9 in a Sisyphusian attempt to
remedy my neglect of classical literature while I added to
the technical literature in the course of my career. It is a
delightful book, and quite relevant to issues pertaining to
writing, in that young Copperfield rose to become a popular
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2357

writer. One passage I found to be particularly relevant. Close

to the conclusion, David Copperfield has achieved success as
a writer. He is in conversation with his aunt, who rescued
him as a young boy. He tells us that my aunt, glancing at
the papers on my table [said] Ah, child, you pass a good
many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books,
what work it was to write them. To which he replied Its
work enough to read them, sometimes. As to the writing, it
has its own charms. It is that last statement that is the most
compelling reason to write a textbook. I have found that this
activity yields rewards that are unlike those derived from
other activities.
In the following, I share what I know about why and
how to write books without sacrificing other aspects of your
professional career and personal life. There is only one caveat: The insights I provide are based on a retrospective
view I took while I prepared my presentation.10 I never
actually contemplated the process while I wrote, so my comments reflect what I believe I did. Hopefully, the adage Do
as I say, not as I do does not apply here.

II. MOTIVATION

I cannot provide you with the drive and focus that will
be required to see your project to fruition. However, I can
provide several compelling reasons why you should embark
on a writing expedition that will preoccupy you for an
extended period. Before I tell you why you should write a
book, let me tell you why you should not. Financial reward
does come to a few who write successful lower-level undergraduate textbooks in subjects that have large enrollments.
For the rest of us, there are few activities that pay less per
hour than writing a textbook. This is especially so if one
adds the hours required to organize your efforts, to review,
revise, and rewrite several times, to monitor all aspects of
the production process, and to prepare a solutions manual.
There usually will be financial compensation in the form of
royalties, and it certainly is nice to receive that compensation
well after your project is finished. However, if the amount of
compensation is important, you probably would earn more
if, instead of writing a book, you clerked at a supermarket.
It might surprise you to learn that a reason to write a
textbook is that it will make you famous. Not with the universality of a political figure or a movie star, only to those
who you touch through your role in their education. I have
not found any professional activity that makes me feel as
good as meeting a person at a university or a professional
meeting or even in an airport who pauses to tell me how
much they enjoyed and benefited from one of my books.
Such rewards are greatly enhanced when the individual who
pays you such compliments has achieved a high level of success. This is not merely a stroking of ones ego, for it bears
on a key aspect of authorship of textbooks as part of our legacy. The research we do, if it is any good, will be a stepping
stone for further progress by others. Even if you are teaching
very large classes, the number of people you affect through
your teaching will be relatively small. But a good textbook
has a wide reach and great longevity, and it might even
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affect how the subject is taught in the future. I know of no

other activity that can claim comparable influence.
If you find that the textbook you currently use often
causes you to seek different and better ways to explain topics
or that it omits important aspects or the commonly accepted
approach is not the way you see the subject matter, then you
have identified a primary reason to improve the available literature. It is these contributions that distinguish the truly talented teachers. As you write, you will find that your
discontent with what was previously available will increase.
I have already quoted some well-worn adages, so I shall
mention another: Those who can, do. Those who cannot,
teach. Nothing could be farther from reality. For one, it
leaves me to wonder how anyone can do without first
learning what they should do? In fact, we all know that a
good way to become extremely well versed in a subject is to
teach it. However, if you truly want to master a subject, write
a textbook after you have taught it for several years. There is
nothing like the perspective that writing provides. It will expose the gaps in your knowledge, the profundities that you
took for granted, and the areas that you never adequately
explored despite their importance. A beneficial byproduct of
the enhanced familiarity and capability you will gain is that
it will prove to be a vital asset to your research, for it will
help you to recognize similarities and connections that are
an essential aspect of the pursuit of innovative research. We
perform research with a bag of tools that are assembled from
all of our experiences. Some aspect of a seemingly unrelated
topic that came up when you wrote a book might prove to be
the odd-shaped wrench you pull out of your bag to fix a
seemingly insurmountable obstacle to your research.
A rewarding aspect of writing textbooks that I have
come to recognize is that the activity is akin to solving a puzzle. When you embark on your project, you know there is an
end, but you do not yet know the path. To this extent, it
might seem that your project is like solving an intricate
maze, but I have found that writing a textbook is more like a
grand jigsaw puzzle. You begin with all of the pieces
arranged more or less randomly in your mind. Gradually,
you fit them together, first by grouping similar pieces in an
outline, then assembling them as you write sections that
merge into chapters. One crucial operation is the overview.
It is not sufficient that each chapter fits well with those adjacent to it. Rather, a well done textbook should be consistent
in its approach and methodology from beginning to end.
This might require that you make alterations to a nearly
completed effort, which is akin to finding as you complete a
jigsaw puzzle that some pieces you already placed do not fit
as well as some that remain. I have found little that matches
the sense of accomplishment when I conclude that I have
assembled a well organized treatise that has met my objectives and is ready for publication.
One of the greatest motivations for writing books is the
opportunity it affords to pursue self-guided scholarship. In
the days before externally funded research became academic
big business, faculty commonly explored, and became expert
in, topics that were of intrinsic interest to them. One delved
into the subject matter and pursued knowledge for its own
sake. For many of us, research directions are often set by
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funding opportunities offered by sponsors. There is nothing

wrong with this because it allows us to provide great benefits
to society. At the same time, we do lose something valuable,
something that evolved over a long periodthe scholar who
works alone or with a colleague to expand knowledge for its
own sake. For the most part, when you write a textbook, you
will not add to the basic store of knowledge. However, the
insights and explanations, as well as the general approach,
you bring to your project are your unique contributions. The
activity is the closest I have felt to being one of the pioneers
of centuries ago, who performed important research, published it, then assembled it in textbooks. None of us is likely
to gain the stature of Rayleigh, but if you want to feel what it
is like to walk in his shoes, write a book.
III. PREPARATION

Of the several aspects that precede writing a textbook,

the one that I can help you with the least is your technical
training. Clearly, you must have studied the subject, but that
is not sufficient. If you are to provide a fresh perspective to
your project, you need a level of familiarity that comes from
teaching it, preferably on several occasions. Here a substantial interval between the first and last times you taught the
subject is beneficial because in that time you will recognize
the aspects that are essential and the weakness of your initial
efforts. In essence, this evolution is a revision that you make
before you start writing.
It might seem paradoxical that at the same time that I
am advising that you should gain extreme familiarity with
the subject matter of your book, I also suggest that there be
elements with which you are not well versed. The idea here
is that exploring these topics adds to the adventure of your
project in that you are exploring the unknown. Furthermore,
the expansion of your knowledge will enhance your recognition of the intrinsic value of your effort, and it will return
many rewards through the connections you will make
between your writing and your research. Even if no prior
textbook covered certain topics, if you are interested in them
and believe them to be relevant, include them.
Another aspect of preparation is assembling the supporting components. Collect the books and papers to which you
might wish to refer. Be extremely inclusive in the works you
collect. Otherwise, you will find that one of Murphys laws
comes into play in that a search for a reference will interrupt
your most productive writing period.
Software selection is an important aspect of your preparatory activities. I began my career in the era when cut and
paste was a literal description, but I have come to be totally
dependent on computer tools. In fact, on the few occasions
when I tried to write by hand, I could not do so. If this is descriptive of you, the selection of software will be crucial.
Word processing software is, to some extent, a matter of taste,
but I believe it is safe to say that the popular software suites
are the least suitable for scientific work. You need to be aware
that writing a book will place enormous demands on your
software in the form of creating equations, sequentially numbering elements such as chapters, sections, equations, figures,
and tables, and cross-referencing those numbers. Searching
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for an equation to cross-reference somewhere earlier in the

project is an interruption that must be avoided. The magnitude
of these tasks is likely to surpass what you previously encountered in writing research papers. Some available software has
been created with the technical writer in mind, and you would
be wise to adopt such a package if you have any doubts about
your current selection.
Graphics is an important feature of most textbooks.
Workflow issues pertaining to line drawings will be discussed later. A key recommendation is that figures should be
inserted into the manuscript as you write, but doing so places
additional demands on your software. If you choose to begin
with handsketched line drawings, then simple scanning capabilities will suffice. In contrast, you might decide to produce
some or all of the line drawings. If that is the case, then you
need to be familiar with software for illustration or
computer-aided design. This might seem to be an intimidating task, but strong reasons why you should create your own
artwork will be presented. Some software for this purpose is
reasonably user friendly, so you can quickly gain a usable
level of expertise in its use. If you choose this route, you
should learn the program prior to beginning to write. Otherwise, you will consider the effort diversionary and therefore
not devote the required effort.
Assembly of your reference material and selection of
your software are actions to be taken, but there also are personal issues to address. You are about to embark on a longterm effort that will require much dedication. You surely
will encounter many impediments and diversions that will
require perseverance to overcome. It will be much easier to
sustain your effort if at the outset you feel a sense of urgency
to disseminate the knowledge you have accumulated and
would rather write than do any other professional activity. If
this attribute is not present, wait until it is.
Obviously, as an acoustician, you will not work in a vacuum. The understanding, cooperation, and assistance of
others will be needed. Involve your family in the project by
seeking in advance their forgiveness for the inattentiveness
and forgetfulness you are sure to display, especially in those
intervals where you are at your writing peak. Your department chair will be a key factor. That individual can facilitate
your work greatly through the assignments you do, or do
not, receive. Bring her into your circle and make sure she
recognizes that your work will bring rewards to the academic
program. On the other hand, there were one or two occasions
in my own early efforts in which departmental politics were
sufficiently vitriolic that this recommendation could not be
fulfilled. I found that writing helped me to stay above the
fray by giving me a long-term focus that lessened the personal impact of these troubles.
Your colleagues will be extremely important. Working
with a coauthor can be a great aid, but it also can be quite
demanding and stressful. In all likelihood, you both have a
reasonable sense of certitude in all that you do and have
some trouble handling negative criticism. If you bring these
attributes to your project, it is likely to be doomed. It is necessary to be willing to exchange ideas and to make major
modifications to what has been written already regardless
of who wrote it. You must be able to recognize when your
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2359

coauthors contribution is superior to what your had written

or planned to write.
If you are the sole author, your work will be greatly
aided if you have a cooperative colleague, an individual who
is willing and able to discuss your innovative and unconventional ideas and will not perceive your exchanges as an activity that is to be avoided. Concurrently, it is best that this
individual be a good friend, so that they will not resent it
when you ignore their advice and insights because you find
them to be counter to your own perceptions.
One preparatory step that I advise against is dealing
with potential publishers. I have gradually evolved to this
view for one primary reason. Writing a book is your personal
project, carried out on your schedule. Once you sign a contract, you will start thinking about the schedule the publisher
wants even though most publishers will tell you that they
merely need a date for delivery of the manuscript as an aid
to planning their work. Many individuals have told me that
they are surprised at this recommendation. They worry that
it will be difficult to find a suitable publisher. It is important
to recognize that textbook publishers require manuscripts to
survive. If yours has been completed to your own satisfaction, it has strong merit. This, and the fact that there is no
question regarding if and when it will be available, will
enhance your books value to publishers.
IV. RULES TO WRITE BY

I could not, nor would I, endeavor to tell you how to

write, but I can give you some idea of how to approach the
effort. At the same time, these recommendations are drawn
from personal recollections over a long period and therefore
are subject to gaps and disorganization of memories. Disregard
any or all as you wish, but they do make sense to me now.
You never should perceive writing as a chore. Write
when you are inspired, with a level of focus that is proportional to the degree to which you cannot remove your book
from your thoughts. Conversely, do not try to create new
content when you do not feel some level of inspiration, for
you will find later that what you write in such circumstances
is not what you actually wanted to say. These intervals of inspiration are precious, and not to be lost. Hence, you need to
be prepared to write at any time, even on a cruise. (If Rayleigh could write the first volume of the Theory of Sound
while cruising the Nile,11 so can you!)
This is not to say that you should ignore your project
entirely when you cannot get the words to flow to your own
satisfaction. Even writers block, which is the ultimate
lack of inspiration, need not detract from your overall progress. It is Natures way of telling you to do something else,
but that alternative activity can be supportive. At any stage
in your project, there will be tasks that do not directly add to
the number of pages in your book but are nevertheless essential. If you use this downtime to examine references, check
solutions of examples, verify the solvability of homework
exercises, work on figures, or edit and proofread the manuscript, you will move your project closer to completion.
Sometimes you will find that rather than being totally
blocked, you are at an impasse regarding how to handle a
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specific topic. You might be having difficulty selecting alternative approaches or you might have some idea of the scope
but cannot decide on the specific content or you might have
tried many phrasings of a difficult passage without liking
any. In such cases, you need an interruption, such as that
afforded by a pet. Dogs and cats are very handy because you
can talk to them without people thinking you are crazy. For
my most recent book, I had a very large Alaskan Malamute
named Tundra (she is the subject of several examples and
homework problems therein) who was always ready for a
long walk, regardless of the time of day or weather. There
were many occasions when we embarked on an excursion at
2 AM, with her acting as my sounding board. I doubt that
her woos and wolf-like howls as she heard me talk about
some topic had much technical content, but they provided
the break that I needed to resume writing. Children also
work for this purpose, but they seem to object to waking up
in the middle of the night to go for a walk.
If you infer from the preceding that I work late at night,
you would be correct. Doing so fits my biological clock. All
of us have a time of the day or night at which we are most
creative and work at peak efficiency. That interval is precious and should be devoted to the greatest extent possible to
your book. As I grew older, it became increasingly difficult
for me to recover from any interruption; working late had
the extra benefit of minimizing interruptions. For the same
reason, I never allowed my E-mail program to check automatically for new messages; I never subscribed to Twitter or
Facebook or other interactive messaging services, and I
occasionally turned off all telephones if things were flowing
especially well.
Of course, we have other responsibilities that cannot be
avoided. I recommend that you not resume work on your
book if you know that something requiring your attention is
coming up soon. Doing so will help you sustain a positive
aspect in your interaction with others, and it will help you
write at a later time because your ideas will not be dissipated
by the interruption.
I suppose that every author has a personal approach for
attacking their project. I have realized that I did not proceed
linearly. Rather, the strategy I followed tended to maximize
my quantitative output at the early stages, perhaps as a way
of avoiding discouragement before I was fully committed to
the project. It appears that I established a specific sequence
by which I proceeded through the subject matter. First were
those topics for which I had class notes. (This tended to be a
small component because I usually only prepared notes if
the assigned text did not adequately cover a topic.) Then I
addressed the topics for which I had innovative ideas. I had
been contemplating these ideas for some time before deciding to begin the project, so describing them tended to be relatively straightforward. The next group of topics to be
attacked was those that I considered to have been inadequately presented in other texts. A corollary of having identified what I did not like is that I had made some decisions
about what should be presented. The last topics I addressed
were those with which I was the least familiar, concurrently
with those whose treatment is standard and common to
many texts. Progress through the unfamiliar topics was the
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slowest, especially because writing about them required

background work. Balancing this effort with treatment of
straightforward material helped sustain the quantitative
advance of the project while I spent more time on ancillary
activities associated with writing about those topics that
were less familiar.
What you write is at your discretion, but I have learned
that there are some general guidelines as to how the material
should be presented. Overall, it is advisable to assume that your
book will be the primary instruction for a student in order that
the students success not be completely reliant on the capabilities of the instructor. Indeed, some of my most interesting
correspondence has come from individuals who were working
independently, without an instructor. I recall in particular a
U. S. Navy pilot stationed on an aircraft carrier operating in the
Arabian Sea who wanted to prepare to return to school, and a
student in Iraq during the period of insurgency who wished to
prepare for the university exams. Writing a book that is reasonably self-contained might require going into more detail in certain topics, but the alternative leaves the possibility of gaps in
the knowledge that is imparted.
The best textbooks reflect the way the author thinks and
teaches. Use your own voice to decide how to describe
topics. Indeed, if you cannot decide on a passage, speak it to
yourself, either in thought or orally. Do not be concerned
that your approach and presentation are different from what
has been written previously. Presumably, the differences
between your viewpoint and what preceded it are some of
the reasons you decided to begin to write. It is for this reason
that you should limit examination of other textbooks. Reading such works to finalize organizational issues, such as the
overall outline or the presentation of a chapter, has two
likely outcomes, neither of which is positive. You might
decide to alter your approach to match a favored textbook,
or you might be intimidated by the quality of that work and
therefore question your own attempts. There will be plenty
of opportunity to do a self-assessment, but that should come
after you have completed a first draft.
Regardless of your subject, an element of vital importance is the examples you select. Few students are able to
bridge the gap between learning basic principles and applying them without seeing it done by someone else. Many
books have tended to use examples that are very simple, for
example, by only requiring simple substitutions into derived
formulas. Another oversimplification is to use examples
whose scope is limited to the topic just covered.
Good examples have elements that integrate previous
developments. Another desirable attribute of an example is
that it attracts students attention, possibly because the result
is physically interesting or because the exercise is illustrative
of tasks that arise in practice. On the other hand, it is important that the examples not be overly complex in order that
they not intimidate the student and obscure the basic concepts you are endeavoring to illustrate. The examples in my
two most recent books have begun with an explicit statement
of its objectives, which I have found assists me as much as
the student because it helps me remain on a direct path to the
solution. As you proceed through the solution, be sure to
explain at critical junctures why you are following a specific
J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 131, No. 3, Pt. 2, March 2012

procedure. If some aspect of the solution requires special

steps or insight, describe how a person at the students level
can recognize how to proceed. I also have found that occasionally using the discussion of an example as a launching
point for an exploration of an interesting phenomenon is an
effective method to capture a students attention.
Figures are an integral part of a technical book. Properly
displaying data has the same imperatives for a book as for
journal articles except that color is seldom an option. (Some
undergraduate texts are printed with more than black ink, but
that format usually is selected as a design element to
improve the books appearance.) Line drawings are likely to
place unfamiliar demands on your efforts. I have found that
it is best to insert graphs and line drawings in the manuscript
as contemporaneously as possible with writing the associated
text. This allows me to modify what I have written based on
what the reader will actually see. This practice also will suggest alterations in the figure to convey the desired information in a better way. How one creates the figures, and their
quality, is not important at this stage. If you do not wish to
create the final figures yourself, then you can create bitmapped images by scanning hand drawn sketches and
printed computer output. I have become reasonably proficient with graphics software, so I create my own line drawings (550 in the case of my most recent book). The
advantage of creating your own artwork is that it will be
exactly what you want, and not the interpretation of an artist
who is not conversant with your subject. Obviously, the
down side of this self-reliance is the extra effort it entails,
which might be compensated by using it as a bargaining
point when you negotiate with publishers.
Most faculty seem to require that the textbook they
adopt include sets of homework exercises, and I think it is
wise to accommodate that wish. The primary topics should
be covered by several problems having ascending degree of
difficulty, ranging from what appears to you to be almost
trivial to problems that are challenging but accessible to all
students except the most befuddled. To the greatest extent
possible, these problems should display the relevance of the
subject matter. However, excessive realism usually is not desirable because the associated complications will obscure the
points you want the students to study. Inclusion of a large
number of homework exercises will make your book very
attractive to prospective adopters and extend the time before
your publisher requests another edition. However, you
should realize that each problem might require another line
drawing, and it will require that you provide another solution
in an auxiliary solutions manual. Students expect that the
answers to at least some of the homework exercises will be
available. If an answer list for homework problems will be
included in the published volume, rather than on a web site,
then each additional homework exercise will need to be
solved before you submit the manuscript to the publisher.
Of late, there has been an unfortunate tendency for
many authors to be less attentive to language usage. Proper
grammar and punctuation enhance readability, but there is
no harm in using constructions that are more familiar to students. In any event, clarity is essential. Do not forget that
your objective is to educate students, not to impress your
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2361

colleagues. It is likely that the academic style you have

become accustomed to using for your research papers will
need to be toned down.
If these imperatives seem to be problematic it might be
worthwhile to seek the help of a professional editor, but I
have found that there is an alternative. I do not know if it has
a scientific name, but I have observed that we have a
memory half-life. I define it to be the time interval in
which I forget half of what I precisely remember about some
topic that is not of vital importance. The key adjective in the
preceding is precisely. I will use an example to illustrate
what I mean. T. E. Lawrence, who is popularly known as
Lawrence of Arabia, lost most of the manuscript of his autobiography Seven Pillars of Wisdom12 when he transferred
between passenger trains. He was able to reproduce it in
three months to his own satisfaction. Thus, his memory halflife was much longer than three months. Few of us could
match this feat. In my case, if I accidentally delete a passage,
I seldom can recreate it to my own satisfaction, even if I
attempt to do so 10 s after I hit the delete key. It follows that
you should back up your work frequently on spare hard
disks, removable memory keys, and computers and be sure
that some of them are not collocated with your present work
location.
Loss of memory does have some beneficial aspects.
Suppose T is your memory half-life. Wait until an interval of
4T has elapsed before you review anything you have created.
Doing so will make you a much more effective editor.
Because your specific memories regarding the material have
eroded, you will be able to view your work as would any
other individual who sees it for the first time. This is the
time to place yourself in the position of a student who must
learn from your textbook, rather than a trained professional
who is reading an advanced monograph. These considerations will help you to decide the level of detail that is
required, especially for mathematical derivations. My own
approach is to begin by describing every step. When I later
decide what can be removed, I ask myself if a student at the
intended level could reproduce each step without outside
assistance.
Divorcing yourself from what you wrote by delaying
your incremental review is quite useful, but it is not sufficient because you always will retain a degree of favorable
bias. This is where your colleagues at your own and other
institutions and your students are especially valuable. Most
faculty will be too busy to participate continuously as you
write, but they might have interest in specific chapters or
sections that are relevant to their instructional activities.
Provide them with as much as they wish to see and beg
them to be brutally honest in their assessment. Remember
that early negative criticism from a friend is intended to
help you improve the final version, whereas there is little
you can do to remedy negative remarks after the book is
published. Students can be involved similarly, especially if
they are enrolled in a course that is covered by your book.
Distribute chapters or sections for them to use as notes.
Reward them when they give you feedback. I have found an
effective incentive is to acknowledge these students in the
preface.
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V. THE LAST PHASE

Completion of your manuscript is an occasion to celebrate, but your work is far from done. Your first, and most
important, task following completion is to attempt to edit it
as a single entity. Presumably, you reviewed your work as
you wrote, but now you must take an overview. One of the
issues to consider is whether your approach is consistent. Do
you see coverage gaps, topics that you failed to address suitably or that you needlessly included? Did you fail to follow
through when you wrote in an early chapter that something
would be covered later? Did you switch notation without explanation? This editorial review must also identify errors.
Typographical and minor mathematical errors are unavoidable, but it is possible that significant technical errors have
entered. This situation is most commonly encountered in the
solutions of examples, so it is advisable to solve each example once again, independently of your prior effort.
Regardless of how conscientious you are, you will fail
to identify all errors. Presumably, you have furnished some
or all of your work to others when you were writing. Now
students can assist you. Give a copy of your near-final draft
manuscript to your current and former students. Exhort them
to examine your work and give you corrections and critical
remarks, especially the negative ones. Set up an anonymous
drop, but reward any one who identifies themself. Some welcome an acknowledgement in the book. I tried a modest
monetary award for each error that was identified, but very
few accepted it.
If you have not already done so, completion of a near
final draft is the time to seek the help of your colleagues.
Offer it to any who are willing. Most will be too busy to give
your work more than a cursory review, but any one who is
actively involved in teaching your subject is likely to find it
very useful. They might not be comfortable in giving you
negative remarks, but you must do your best to assuage their
concerns, for this is your last chance to make alterations.
While you are finalizing your manuscript, it is time to
select a publisher. Most will require sample chapters. Give
them any that you believe will be most attractive to other
faculty. Some of the issues that might arise in your negotiations are royalty percentage rate, publication format (hardcover, softcover, electronic), creation of artwork or
compensation for having done it yourself, editorial and
proofreading assistance, overall design, indexing, promotion,
and number of complementary copies. There might be some
variability in royalty rates proffered by different companies.
Given that you are not likely to retire on the income from
your book, these differences are not extremely important. I
am ambivalent about advances against future royalties,
which are not always proffered in the negotiations. An
advance does have the attribute of financially obligating the
company to follow through on the project, but that commitment is always present because production entails considerable outlays on the part of the publisher. My negative
sentiment regarding an advance originates from my first
books, wherein the amount advanced was sufficiently large
that my first royalties were used to repay it. I missed not having a check as a reward for completing the project.
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You should be aware that the actual production of your

book probably will not directly involve the employees of the
company you select. Art and layout design are often done by
freelancers, and typesetting and printing typically are done
by commercial enterprises in a remote nation. These participants will require close monitoring because they seldom
have any awareness of the subject matter, and they tend to
repeat the style of books they have done previously. It often
is not treated as such, but a good index is an extremely valuable asset. If you agree, then you must prepare the index
yourself. I used to believe that promotion through advertising and a sales force was a major contribution the publisher
would make. That might have been true prior to the advent
of the Internet. Now we have our own E-mail lists and web
sites, and search engines can identify the availability of your
book. However, commercial publishers are more capable of
getting your book listed with the large on-line booksellers,
and they provide a certification that your book has intrinsic
merit.
The most important aspect of your dealing with potential publishers is your rapport with the editor and their longevity in the position. Publishing is notorious for its
turnover, and there is little in the process of getting your
book into print that will distress you more than an editor
departing for another company. (This happened to me three
times.) Ultimately, the publisher you select should be the
one that best convinces you that they share your enthusiasm
and that they will make every effort to ensure that your book
has the highest possible quality and is given the largest exposure to the public.
The most demanding work begins after you have transmitted the manuscript to the publisher. A major cause for
this burden lies in the fact that your creative contributions,
and the associated psychological stimulation, are essentially
over. What you must do now is necessary and urgent but not
exciting. Monitoring production is a major endeavor. The
first stage is conversion of the text to the computer format
used for typesetting. New errors are likely to enter at this
stage to a degree that is proportional to the difference
between the format you transmit and the format the printer
uses. At the same time that typesetting is under way, your
figures will be converted into a printable format. If you
transmitted hand drawn figures, either on paper or as bit
graphic files, the artist will probably convert them to a vector
graphic format. Each figure must be examined carefully.
This is so even if you provided vector graphic files because
errors can arise in the likely event that the files are translated
to a different software package. Artists do not know your
intent, they might incorrectly interpret your vision, or you
simply might not be satisfied with their work. I also have
observed that they tend to make the fonts too small relative
to the artwork, which causes difficulty in displaying figures.
Make as many corrections and alterations as necessary and
be prepared to do so several times.
While the text is being set into type, the designer will
create a tentative style for the book. This should be submitted for your approval. Here too, you should rely on your experience and esthetic sense. Some elements, like trim size,
font size, and line spacing might not be crucial, but equation
J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 131, No. 3, Pt. 2, March 2012

formatting, header and footer styles, and sequential numbering styles need to be carefully considered. The designer or
publishing company will also send you a design for the
cover. This is another item that requires your critical input,
for a well designed cover will draw the attention of a prospective adopter. Do not fear altering or rejecting any element of the design. In all matters requiring your approval,
remember that you have used textbooks far more than the
people involved in producing your book.
At this stage, everything will become a blur. On any
day, you might receive some illustrations from the artist,
some typeset pages from the compositor, or some pages laid
out with figures. All will require your approval, accompanied with the request that you return the material quickly.
You will consider the date requested for return to be unreasonable because the material will arrive when you have an
urgent deadline on a research project or a major commitment
in teaching or your personal life. It is imperative that you not
rush reviewing and correcting the material you receive. This
is your last chance to make sure that it is the best product
possible, and you can be sure it will not be if you rush your
participation in the production.
Concurrently with monitoring production, there are
major tasks that you will need to carry out. You will need to
prepare a list of some or all of the answers to the homework
exercises. Traditionally this list has been inserted into the
back of a textbook, but lately there has been some movement
toward providing it via the Internet. You also will be
expected to provide a solutions manual. Some individuals
use computer software for this purpose, which requires considerable effort. I have always created such material by scanning handwritten pages, but that requires extra effort to
prepare the material in a presentable manner. In addition, the
book cannot be printed until you submit the index. All these
chores are very important. Above all, make sure that every
aspect of the final product is correct and of the best possible
quality, regardless of how long it takes.
VI. YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE

A perception commonly held by the general public is

that the life of a professor is boring, with little time required
to teach, even less devoted to contact with students, and the
rest devoted to sitting in an office in an ivory tower contemplating grand, but irrelevant, thoughts. Each of these perceptions could not be more incorrect. Meeting the numerous
demands and expectations placed on you is difficult in ordinary circumstances. Attempting to do so while you are writing a book will magnify the difficulty. The commodity that
is least available to most of us is time and freedom to pursue
our objectives without constraint. Thus it is imperative that
you become an expert in time management. Now, more than
ever, you must be aware of your commitments, and be very
selective in the activities you pursue.
One of the hardest things for a conscientious faculty
member to learn is to follow the urging of the former First
Lady Nancy Reagan to just say no! However, one responsibility that should not be neglected is teaching because that is
a primary tool for honing your ability to communicate with
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2363

students. Make sure that every semester you teach a course

relevant to your book and avoid teaching unfamiliar courses,
at least until your book is in print. Most academic committees exist for their own sake and deal with matters that are
standard and ongoing. Unless you have a special interest in a
particular issue, or your experience and expertise make you
uniquely qualified, avoid committee work. If you have trouble following this mandate, remember that not everyone on a
committee is equally conscientious and actively involved.
Let those individuals serve as your role models.
Your relationship with your department chair is important for your professional advancement as well as to assure
that your workload leaves you time to work on your book.
At all times, that individual should be apprised of your commitment to your book and the importance of its completion.
However, you should recognize that many administrators
have a view of the role and duties of faculty that does not
exactly coincide with yours. If you believe that something
they request will be deleterious to your project, you need to
make this an issue proportionally to its impact on your work.
In other words, your relationship with your department chair
entails an informal optimization process in which you
attempt to satisfy to the minimum extent possible your
chairs expectations and requests.
Among your multitudinous responsibilities, the most
difficult to handle adequately is your research. It and your
writing are open-ended tasks that do not follow a set schedule, and each has a hold on your interest at all times. The
essential aspect here is that time is not an unlimited resource.
I recommend that you avoid leading the preparation of
research proposals that require much preparation time but
have little chance for funding. (Some might say that this
applies to all areas in the current economic downturn, but
you must sustain some effort in this activity in order to not
be left behind when the situation improves.) Fortunately,
there are ways to synergistically fulfill both interests. Propose research in areas that are related to some aspect of the
subject matter in your book, even if it is merely an area that
is peripherally related. You will be surprised how many
good ideas will come to you as a result of pathways that you
initiated with what you write. If you wish to branch off into
areas that you have not thoroughly explored, let your graduate assistants lead the way. Give them your initial ideas, then
launch them into their individual and group efforts. Let them
carry the burden of advancing the work, while you closely
monitor what they are doing, not just from an overall perspective, but with detailed study at critical junctures. In this
way, you will be able to reintegrate yourself as the research
leader when you have finished your book. In the same vein,
be receptive to research issues that arise because you are
working on your book. You will find that attendance at professional meetings is especially helpful to sustaining your
research activity and to your writing. The presentations you
hear and your discussions will keep you posted about current
interests and also lead you to decide where you wish to go
when you have finished your book.
A personal experience illustrates the synergy that can
result from integrating writing and research. While I was
writing the chapter in my vibrations book that describes
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J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 131, No. 3, Pt. 2, March 2012

state-space modal analysis, which is a concept absent from

the older textbooks on vibrations, I began to think of using it
as the basis for performing experimental modal analysis in
which modal properties are identified from measured data. I
introduced my ideas to one of my doctoral students, and he
came back to me a month later with the initial concept for a
new algorithm.13 Several years and several theses later, my
research group had developed what I believe continues to be
the best algorithm in terms of accuracy, simplicity of implementation, and independence of the users expertise.14
Another experience illustrates how writing books can
assist research in a seemingly un-related area. A few months
after I retired from the Georgia Institute of Technology, I was
working on a NASA project involving acoustic resonance in
the open cabin of a 747 aircraft to be used as an aerial observatory,15 and I also was working with a visiting graduate student from China whose doctoral research at home involved
issues regarding interaction of structural vibration and the
acoustical field in a cavity. One day, as I was sketching out
some ideas for her to pursue, I began to think of the way auxiliary constraint conditions are handled in classical dynamics.
Such a capability is commonplace when one wishes to formulate equations of motion for nonholonomic mechanical systems, but they rarely appear in the context of acoustics. The
concepts were familiar to me as a result of my authorship of
classical dynamics books, especially the most recent one. The
result was journal articles,16,17 as well as seminars and presentations, that occupied a good deal of my attention. I doubt I
would have launched into this area if I had not written the dynamics books.
VII. CONCERNS ABOUT THE FUTURE

I must confess that my enthusiasm for writing books is

being dampened by emerging threats that have the potential
to have broad impact. One concerns the deleterious economic consequences of violations of intellectual property
rights. Until the advent of photocopiers, copying books
required a level of technology that surpassed what was generally available. Even with a photocopier, most individuals
respected copyrights and reserved duplication of books for
those that were out-of-print with expired copyrights. The
advent of electronic media has altered the situation fundamentally. The last stage in production typically is a PDF
electronic file created by the compositor at a foreign, usually
third-world, location. Who has access to that file will not be
known to you, but some day after your book is published,
that file might appear in a peer-to-peer file sharing service,
most commonly using the Bit Torrent protocol. In addition,
there presently are web sites hosted at hidden locations
whose URL address typically contains the word share at
which one can download electronic copies of books of all
kinds. Even if the vector graphic final print file is protected,
individuals seem to create their own version for these sites
using scanning technology. These file sharing sites claim
they are not aware of any copyright issues, which is preposterous because almost everything they host (music, films,
and software, in addition to books) is protected. I periodically perform an Internet search for mention of my books on
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these sites. They do respond positively by withdrawing the

material when I complain, but the effort is tedious and time
demanding, and another posting often appears soon afterward. Furthermore, the peer-to-peer sharing services have no
one to complain to, so illegitimate copies of my books, as
well as those of many of our colleagues, continue to be available. This issue was the focus of an Op-Ed contribution in
the New York Times18 and a U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.19
This appears to be a classic case where an individuals
actions benefit them but seriously harm society. For a long
time, publishers have had to account for sales of used textbooks, which has now become a very well organized intercollegiate activity. They recognized that the vast majority of sales
would come in the first year or two after its publication, and
therefore priced their books to recover their costs and attain a
profit within that interval. (If you are wondering why textbook
prices have been rising steadily, you now know a primary reason.) Further erosion of sales caused by illegal downloading
will exacerbate the situation. Rising prices will lead to fewer
sales and more copyright violations in a downward spiral.
This situation also has negative consequences for an
author. I noted earlier that few textbooks lead to prodigious
royalty returns. Nevertheless, it certainly is nice to receive a
royalty check, especially because royalties are paid well after
you have completed work on the book. By that time, you will
have forgotten how much work you expended. Furthermore,
when we decide to write a book, we recognize that we will
need to make sacrifices elsewhere. I doubt that there are many
individuals who would begin to write a book if they were told
at the outset that there would be no financial compensation.
Those who would, with the exception of individuals with a
philanthropical educational desire, would not have substantial
research interests. Such individuals have already written textbooks, mostly at the fundamental undergraduate level. Their
work tends to be superficial and to lack insight. Thus, every
time an individual illegitimately acquires a book, they make it
more likely that later books in the subject will not be as good
as they could be, even though they will cost far more.
The advent of electronic media as a medium for distributing and viewing books has other consequences beyond
copyright issues. Here, it is sufficient to note that more than
a half millennium following its printing, we can still read the
Gutenberg Bible. In contrast, I wonder how many readers
still have a computer that can read a 5 1/4 in. floppy disk? Of
course, printed books require proper care, but the technology
on which they depend to be read will not change as long as
people have eyes. Another aspect of the change in format is
an emotional one that I know I share with many others.
There is a certain joy in holding, smelling, perusing, and
then reading a printed book that cannot be duplicated by an
e-reader. A purely electronic format will also remove one of
the greatest pleasures derived from writing a book. When
you receive your complementary copies, you will send them
with great pride to those who were your mentors, your past
students, your colleagues, your friends, and your relatives.
The good feelings generated by this exchange cannot be
duplicated by an e-mail in someones inbox. I have given
autographed copies of my books to students who helped me
J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 131, No. 3, Pt. 2, March 2012

create them. I gave some more to students on the occasion of

my retirement. An electronic file cannot have the same
impact. When you visit another university, there is no better
gift for your host than an autographed copy of your book.
Try doing that with a memory key. A short time ago, I saw
one of my nieces, who remarked that she had received from
my deceased brothers estate a copy of one of my books. She
felt good about the remembrances it generated, and I felt
good knowing that. It is inconceivable that an e-mail attachment could engender the same sentiments.
The preceding issues originate outside academia, but I
believe that the greatest threat to a sustained flow of high
quality textbooks originates internally from individuals who
do not use them. There has come to be a rapidly accelerating
growth of the number of administrators at research universities. Presidents need many provosts and executive vicepresidents who beget many vice-provosts and vicepresidents who manage many assistant vice-presidents and
program directors, deans demand many associate deans who
need assistant deans, and department chairs need many associate chairs. Every one of these individuals claims to need a
large supporting staff. At least one book20 has been published to raise public awareness of this unhealthy trend. This
engorgement of the administrative bureaucracy requires substantial financial resources, a major part of which comes
from overhead funds generated by externally funded
research. Rising indirect costs lead to a growth in the overhead rate, which reduces the funds that actually are available
to the researcher, but that is not the concern here. Rather, it
is that this growth leads administrators to place increasing
emphasis on the acquisition of large externally funded
grants, which in the current environment tends to be work
that has immediate application, and sometimes is proprietary
to the sponsor. A corollary is that the creation and dissemination of knowledge through the performance of high quality
basic research, teaching, and writing papers and books, all of
which are unique capabilities of universities that have long
term benefits for all, are valued less. Faculty understand
reward systems, and adjust their actions accordingly.
Because authorship of textbooks conveys no direct economic
benefit to an administrator, the importance of this activity is
increasingly downgraded at the time that faculty are
assessed. When a young person sees a colleague with a
strong funding record but weak performance in teaching, basic research, and contributions to the technical literature we
have the collective desire to do, granted tenure, or named to
a leadership position, they do not need to be told how to
advance their own career. How long will anyone desire to
write a book in the face of this contrary indication? If
allowed to continue unabated, this trend will have significant
consequences for the faculty. It also jeopardizes the fundamental role of universities and thus is a issue of national
importance.
VIII. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The concerns I have expressed pertain to trends that can

be addressed positively if we have a desire to do so. I do not
believe that they currently outweigh the many positive
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2365

reasons to embark on authorship of a textbook in a subject

in which you are expert. In addition to assuring that
your knowledge is transported to many students, faculty,
and practicing professionals, you will learn much along the
way.
Between the time when you submit the manuscript and
the date when you have fulfilled all of the publishers
requests, you will only think of how much work it required.
Then one magical day you will receive your book, contemplate it with great satisfaction, realize what an awesome
accomplishment it is, and put it on display for all to see. At
that time, your remembrances of the amount of effort you
devoted to the project will begin to fade. When they are forgotten, you will be ready to write another book.
1

J. H. Ginsberg and J. Genin, Statics, 1st ed. (Wiley, New York, 1977).
J. H. Ginsberg and J. Genin, Dynamics, 1st ed. (Wiley, New York,
1977).
3
J. H. Ginsberg and J. Genin, Statics, 2nd ed. (Wiley, New York, 1983).
4
J. H. Ginsberg and J. Genin, Dynamics, 2nd ed. (Wiley, New York, 1983).
5
A. D. Pierce, Acoustics: An Introduction to Its Physical Principles and
Applications (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1981), p. 2.
6
J. H. Ginsberg, Advanced Engineering Dynamics, 1st ed. (Harper and
Row, New York, 1986).
7
J. H. Ginsberg, Advanced Engineering Dynamics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge
University Press, New York, 1995).
8
J. H. Ginsberg, Engineering Dynamics (Cambridge University Press, New
York, 2008).
2

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J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 131, No. 3, Pt. 2, March 2012

C. J. H. Dickens, David Copperfield, Barnes and Noble Classics 2003

reprint (Barnes and Noble, New York, 2003).
10
J. H. Ginsberg, Can you fit authorship of textbooks into an academic
career? J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2389 (2010).
11
John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, Biography.com (2011).
Available at http://www.biography.com/articles/John-William-Strutt-3rdBaron-Rayleigh-9452863 (Last accessed Jan 4, 2011).
12
T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, 2nd ed., reprint
(Anchor Books, Garden City, New York, 1991).
13
M. V. Drexel and J. H. Ginsberg, Mode isolation: A new algorithm for
modal parameter identification, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 13711378 (2001).
14
M. S. Allen and J. H. Ginsberg,A global, single-input-multi-output
(SIMO) implementation of the algorithm of mode isolation and applications to analytical and experimental data, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 20,
10901111 (2006).
15
N. A. Veronico, NASAs new airborne observatory sees first light,
Mercury 39, 2428 (2010).
16
J. H. Ginsberg, Derivation of a Ritz series modeling technique for acoustic cavity-structural systems based on a constrained Hamiltons principle,
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 27492758 (2010).
17
J. H. Ginsberg, Implementation of a constrained Ritz series modeling
technique for acoustic cavity-structural systems, J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
128, 25622572 (2010).
18
S. Turow, P. Aiken, and J. Shapiro, Would the bard have survived the
web?, New York Times, February 15, 2011, p. A29.
19
Targeting websites dedicated to stealing American intellectual property,
Meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Senate, February
16, 2011. Available at http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?
id=4982 (Last viewed March 6, 2011).
20
B. Ginsberg, The Fall of the FacultyThe Rise of the All-Administrative
University and Why It Matters (Oxford University Press, New York,
2011).

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