How to Use This Book

This book was made especially for you, the student.  It arose out of observations and feedback from several semesters of teaching and during the online semesters of 2020 -2021.

  1.  Some students liked to have a reference, but textbooks are prohibitively expensive, and not always aligned with what is taught in class.
  2.  Many students prefer to watch quick videos ( Khan Academy) and often seek out resources online.
  3. Cognitive science and studies of how our brain process information has shown that the more ways you look at information the better it is for long-term retention.

Unfortunately, not everything online is accurate, some (even Khan Academy ones!) use terminology incorrectly, or don’t focus on the concepts that are relevant to problem-solving.

So, I did the work for you.

Within this text, you will find material curated from the internet like animations, videos, and extra links to learning. These deliver the information and content as it pertains to this class.

You will also have access to lecture videos for some topics.

Make sure you have exhausted all the options (Links to Learning, Watching Animations, and other videos provided). If after doing all of that you still find yourself looking for alternative explanations- please seek out help and we will work to find other sources together.

How is this book organized?

In each chapter, you will see the following features to guide you in special colored boxes and include the following:

Learning Objectives

These are your objectives! What you should be able to know and do after reading and completing the chapter exercises.  ALL exam and quiz questions are paired with these learning objectives! You should take these very seriously.

Exercises

Allow you an immediate opportunity to put new information into practice. You should always use these to assess if you have retained basic information like terms and definitions from the readings.

Links to Learning

These provide you with opportunities to either continue exploring the concepts you are learning through connections to other helpful information or provide a better visual of the concept.

Links to Lecture Videos will be in these shaded boxes. They will be preceded by “Dr. Mehta’s Lecture Video” and a title of the video. The titles are ALL hyper linked and clicking on the video name will take you to the video

 

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Introduction to Molecular Biology, 2nd ed. Copyright © by Sapna Mehta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.