[appophylite]

I decided a few months back to come back to school in my off-time and complete my masters and I decided to do it in Engineering Science And Management. One of the core classes required for the degree is Accounting for Managers (And Engineers). When I bought the book, I didn't think too much about it and haven't had a chance to look at it since until the first day of class yesterday. I was reading through the course syllabus that the professor provided when the name Wayne W. McManus under listed authors of the textbook struck me as familiar. I flipped through the first couple of pages to the page on Author Information, and lo-and-behold, there is a brief paragraph describing author Wayne W. McManus who lives in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, volunteers as a professional Santa in December and is an audio/video enthusiast!

Personally, I think it's beyond cool that 4 years after joining Head-Fi, I'd end up learning out of a textbook co-authored by a fellow Head-Fier!

 

[Baines93]

Cool

So that's how he made all that money?

Atom, huge RV, huge rig, house in cayman, UE11's, everything expensive!

 

[chesebert]

way cool!!

we have some superstars on this forum

 

[Sherwood]

And this is why he's still earning royalties on that book.

If you like it, you should put up a favorable review on Amazon. I checked 'em out a while back and remember being disappointed.

 

[appophylite]

Wow, I did just check out the Amazon reviews and they did seem a bit low. Darn shame too: I haven't had a chance to check out the book in full but I'm gone through the second chapter and it seemed easy enough to follow. As far as textbooks go it appears solid so far. I've seen some really, really bad textbooks in my time and this one was certainly ahead of them.

Ah well, I'll be sure to write a review on Amazon at the end of the semester!

 

[Wmcmanus]

Hey, you've found me! Never use your real name and location in an online forums! Nah, I'm just kidding. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the book and learn something from it.

I've always been embarrassed by those Amazon reviews, and find it odd that several of the positive reviews are essentially 'false positives' in the sense that they are thanking Amazon for a quick delivery but don't say anything about the book itself. So, sadly enough, the Amazon "score" could be worse!

My 'ego protection' theory is that the only people who post Amazon reviews are those who have decided to blame the book for their poor performance in the course. We're talking about a sample of 25 people in the past 6 years; the book has sold tens of thousands of copies during that period.

In fact, our text has been (by far) the #1 selling book in the market for "Survey of Accounting" courses for 20 years strong. Until recently years, we have never even had a single clear cut competitor that had more than a 20% market share, although collectively we don't typically control much more than half the market.

The book certainly takes an atypical (user-oriented as opposed to preparer-oriented) approach; it is designed specifically for the non-accounting student who wishes to gain an overall understanding of financial reporting and managerial decision making using accounting data, but who will not him/herself become an accountant or prepare accounting statements.

For a number of reasons, many 'traditional' accounting educators have a difficult time breaking away from the tendency (dare I say "need") to teach mechanical bookkeeping details (i.e., using debits and credits and taking a transactional approach), which is precisely what our text is designed to deemphasize (and thus does not fully support in terms of the end of chapter materials and the like).

Without going into far too much detail, those types of instructors (as well as their students) will quickly experience a sense of frustration, much as you would in trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. When the central focus is shifted to the resulting financial statements themselves, and the impact of transactions on those statements, the approach that we've taken becomes much easier to elucidate. <--- There I go with my big words and convoluted writing style!

In any case, the book is alive and well. I'm now working on the initial writing/rewriting phases for the upcoming 9th edition.

Here's the link to our website: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/site..._center_view0/

 

[Edwood]

LOL, funny how small our world really is, eh?

 

[vagarach]

Makes sense that Santa has written a book on accounting, no? Keeping track of expenditures, fuel costs, lots of work

.

 

[Caution]

Now thats something worth bragging about

 

[SuperNothing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif My 'ego protection' theory is that the only people who post Amazon reviews are those who have decided to blame the book for their poor performance in the course.

This is the same reason I can never stand those Rate Your Professor websites. Most of the reviews seem to be posted by kids who don't like the teachers and the negative reviews almost always boil down to the fact that they didn't do well in the class. Just because you don't do well does not mean it is a bad course.

 

[amphead]

Good job man!

 

[nsx_23]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperNothing /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is the same reason I can never stand those Rate Your Professor websites. Most of the reviews seem to be posted by kids who don't like the teachers and the negative reviews almost always boil down to the fact that they didn't do well in the class. Just because you don't do well does not mean it is a bad course.

See, I have a different side of the story to that.

I am currently doing a fluid mechanics course as part of my aerospace degree, and it is easily the worst run course I've ever been in. The lecturer doesn't even run 2/3 of the scheduled lectures every week, and the tutorials are absolutely hopeless.

The funny thing is, lots of people have complained about this unit, yet the university has still done nothing about the lecturer in charge of it or the faculty heads who continue to let this sort of thing happen. In fact, there isn't even an official unit feedback as it has to be "requested by the lecturer". Well, when you know you're teaching the course really badly, the last thing you do is ask for official confirmation that you suck at teaching.....

You have no idea how frustrating it is trying to learn all these fluid mechanics equations and principles when your lecturer is incompetent at explaining things clearly and concisely.

My thermodynamics lecturer, on the other hand, is easily the best lecturer I've had the privilege to know, and even though I put in the same effort into fluids as I do into thermo, I've learned much more in thermodynamics then fluid mechanics because the lecturer has taken the initiative to point things out, run classes in an organized fashion and generally help students out whenever they need it.

I really do think that the magic ingredient in education often boils down to the teacher, and there needs to be some sort of system to hold lecturers accountable for student performances. Now, obviously, if you're a lazy ass who just doesn't show up to class than you're asking to fail and do badly, but it is extremely unfair that those of us who try at university have to cope with these incompetent teachers, especially when you remember how much money we're paying universities.

 

[jonathanjong]

Isn't there an evaluation procedure at your institution? At the end of each semester, we are all asked to rate our lecturers/tutors on different variables. Actually, now that I'm teaching, I should say "we ask the students to rate..." It's not a great system, but it's better than the websites.

 

[Aimless1]

small world indeed. I like WMcmanus's description of the approach of the book. Hoping it makes sense to appophylite

 

[XxATOLxX]

Accounting: the biggest pain in the ass since algebra.

We have a test this Thursday, hopefully it isn't too ridiculous.