Your textbook for this course is Anatomy and Physiology 2e by Betts and colleagues, published by OpenStax at Rice University. It is peer-reviewed, covers everything we need for BIOL 304, and is available in several formats at no cost.
There is no access code. No publisher subscription. No new-edition churn. Use the format that works for you.
How to read this textbook
Pre-read first. Don’t read cover to cover.
Here is a thing that nobody tells you about reading dense science textbooks: you will not remember what you read until after you have already learned it. Reading a chapter front to back, paragraph by paragraph, is one of the least efficient ways to study. Your brain has nowhere to file the information yet.
Cognitive science research on reading comprehension and memory consistently shows that previewing material before deep reading builds the mental scaffolding that makes later study stick. A 5-minute pre-read does more for retention than a 30-minute slow read of the same chapter.
Try this every week:
Skim the chapter. Read the section headings, the bolded terms, and the figure captions. Do not try to understand. Just notice what is there. (5 minutes)Watch the concept videos. Now you know what is in the chapter, so the videos give you context for what matters.Read as you complete the trainer. When you reach a trainer section on a topic, deep-read just that topic in OpenStax. Not the whole chapter. Just what the trainer is asking about. Your brain now has somewhere to file the information because the trainer is asking you to use it.
This is also why the Reading Map separates Read, Focus, and Reference. You are not supposed to read every chapter cover to cover. You are supposed to read what matters and use the rest as a reference.
A quick recommendation
For a summer course, most students do best with the online version open in one tab and the PDF downloaded as a backup. The Reading Map tells you which chapters to read each week and whether to read the whole thing or focus on specific sections, so you are not drinking from a firehose.
Full citation
Betts, J. G., Young, K. A., Wise, J. A., Johnson, E., Poe, B., Kruse, D. H., Korol, O., Johnson, J. E., Womble, M., & DeSaix, P. (2022). Anatomy and Physiology 2e. OpenStax. Access for free at openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology-2e. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.