A kind lady wrote in to tell us of the following typos in the 3rd edition of the A2 Mini Companion: : ‘behaviou’ page 32, ‘deindiviiduation’ page 33, ‘of of’ page 14.
Mind you – the email called it the ‘Mini Comparison’. Nice to know we all make mistakes 😉
Hello Cara, I’m writing to you in reply to your message on my review for the A2 complete companion.
I did think the book was great by the way (as indicated by my 4* rating) so don’t want you to feel disheartened by my few critical points. I was just attempting to create a detailed view of my opinion (as a student) of the book.
Some examples of points that I could not understand as being marked as AO2 was on page 11, The Folkard study on learning ability. This study didn’t seem to support or disprove any AO1 claims, so as a student I felt it was unclear, how to use it as AO2. I also didn’t understand how on page 13, the information on PMS under the evaluation section would be marked as AO2 either (without linking it to determinism). I also was confused about how the majority of evaluation on page 19 for life span changes in sleep, and how it would be used as AO2 so chose to focus on more methodological evaluation of the sleep lab and how this may give distorted views instead.
From a student perspective, i didn’t find the points listed above very clear, and my friends did not either. It may be that its obvious how these are AO2 and i’m just being a complete idiot, however I could not understand how to use them as AO2.
I also felt that if you are looking to improve the book for future conditions, that Narcolepsy and Sleepwalking should have their own double page spreads, and should not be reduced as I found the information too vague to use to answer a full exam question on, and ended up using information from other resources in my january exam.
Apart from these few criticisms, I felt the book was really great and you and your colleagues did a really good job. I used the AS version and also have the mini and research methods companion which I find very helpful. However one suggestion for future editions is putting the researchers names in bold so they stand out (this was really helpful with learning studies for my sociology A levels, as researchers were in bold), making it easier for students to quickly identify who the study was by.
Thank you for taking the time, and interest to contacts me, and I hope my message has made it more clear what I was talking about (without being to pedantic) in my review. (everyones a critic these days, I’m just an 18 year old psychology student what do I know haha).
P.s I feel your books are the better of the lot on the market and I have recommended them to a number of friends.