 |  Life, 4/e Ricki Lewis,
University of New York at Albany
Mariëlle Hoefnagels,
University of Oklahoma
Douglas Gaffin,
University of Oklahoma
Bruce Parker,
Utah Valley State College
The Art Story| We spent more than two years in the research, development and review process to build this stellar new art program. You'll be completely amazed at the breathtaking art in the new edition of Life.
Precision Graphics, of Champaign, Illinois, is a specialized composition house. Their own staff of medical illustrators was commissioned to create, from scratch, the art and photo program for Life.
Connie Balek, the lead developer at Precision Graphics, not only has a degree in biology, but she also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Medical and Biological Illustration from the University of Michigan. Joann Bales has been a medical illustrator at Precision since 1992 and utilizes her extensive health-care and nursing background in developing illustrations. And Jan Trout, the Natural Science Art Director, brings many years of unparalleled experience in rendering art for many of today's leading biology titles.
This team takes pride in purposefully designing illustrations for the Life text that, "tell a story," rather than simply making "pretty pictures." Each person on the development team brought her own skills and strengths to the subject matter. The team collaborated on each and every piece of art to build an accurate and solid program that will help your students learn biology.
Our market research in the field of introductory biology indicates that a student's ability to read and retain is dramatically increased if the art program is tightly integrated with the text narrative. We have made a major investment by having this special art and photo program created for the fourth edition. What did we do to ensure that this investment will pay off for you and your students?
First, we commissioned a study, comparing our previous editions artwork and the artwork of all our introductory biology competitors. This yielded a review and comparison of more than 700 pieces of art and photos, covering the most crucial, and often most difficult, concepts in an introductory course.
Second, we asked a panel of reviewers to assess the accuracy of each piece. Not only was the sheer beauty of the artwork evaluated, but each piece was also examined on the basis of its ability to be instructional. In a nutshell, the artwork had to be attractive to hold students attention, but also had to be pedagogically outstanding. Here's a comment from one reviewer:
"The concepts for the fourth edition are much clearer and have more impact. These are shaping up to be outstanding figures far outstripping all current competitors." Third, we took the extra time and effort to turn the art program back to the author team. The team met on several occasions to discuss each and every piece. Based on their years of experience and content expertise, they collectively analyzed the entire program in order to make the necessary revisions and corrections. These rigorous meetings between the authors and our art team produced a visual program with the accuracy, consistency and creativity that you and your students will truly appreciate.
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education