Reference Tools Books

Designed to be absorbed and assimilated" on the go", Writing Reminders: Tools, Tips, And Techniques by Jim Burke is a collection of over sixty brief yet useful self-teaching lessons to improving personal and professional writing skills resulting in an increased productively by operating at a higher level of performance, skill, and test-taking abilities. Especially intended for writing students, but also of immense value for the non-specialist general reader with an interest in pursing a passion for writing, Writing Reminders deftly addresses everything from using graphic organizers; to facilitate one's writing; to the formalities to be observed when writing everything from letters to creative fiction. Writing Reminders is a very highly recommended manual that can aptly serve as a classroom text, as well as an independent study instructional reference.

An excellent diet resource tool. Well organized and easy to use. This selection comes the closest to having "everything" and with the annual revision/update they surely come quite close to the goal.

This book is small enough to carry in your purse, but still contains a lot of information. It has really helped me make better food choices when dining out. The only thing I wish it listed is the amount of protein. However, for the price and the convenient size, this book is great!

Thoroughly found this book most useful. I would loved to have had it a long time ago. Calorie counting is the most profitable way to lose pounds and this book is very thorough.

Excellent for those who eat out a lot. Many excellent exchange ideas. But, it's not what I expected. I almost never eat out (a few times per year). The print is tiny and often in a color that is difficult to read.

I have found this book incredibly difficult to use. It contains a lot of information, but the way the book is set up, it is not user friendly. The information is not easy to access.

I have gottne hooked on Scrabble on my iPOD and this book has been a great help..you also learn new words. Keeps the mind fresh too.

this book shows scrabble words that the regular dictionary does not..it is really a great asset to the game

This scrabble dictionary is by Merriam-Webster is very easy to read. I keep it near my computer because it's doesn't take up a great deal of room.

We play Scrabble almost weekly, with a friend. These dictionary's are an absolute must! In fact, this recent purchase was a replacement for the same as we had wore out the original ones. Can't play Scrabble without them!

Absolutely great book in great condition. Only thing that was unexpected, was that the paperback was definately not as complete as the hard cover book and I really wanted (and needed) everything the hard cover book had. I guess there's no way to know that until you receive the book. But the book came within a couple of days of my ordering it and everything else was great!

I could not believe the difference in the New tabers Dictionary, the last one I purchased was when I was in Nurses training. Iam very please with the product and am glad I went into Amazon.com looking for it. I didn't think there was a new edition. Thank You

So far my husband and I have found this book to be very helpful, we have only had it a month and are both taking medical terminology. He's taking the class for a biology degree, and I'm taking the class for massage therapy. Every time we have looked up a word, it has been there. If it needs a picture, there is one. It always gives you the root word with prefix and suffix separated and what language the word came from. The thumb index makes it much easier to find pages quickly than the books that don't have them. The definitions are easy to understand and are oftentimes more helpful than the definitions in either of our textbooks.

I was really pleased with my order. I received it within 4 days of purchasing so that was awesome. The quality of my product was amazing and brandnew... overall, im very happy with my purchase.

I was very pleased with the purchase of Tabers Cyclopedic. I never thought that this 8th edition would be so indebt with the information I was looking for.

It is one of the best medical dictionaries out there.

I needed this for a class I am taking and it is wonderful. Almost everything I need is in there. I recommend this book to who ever is in some medical training or even if they already are in the medical profession. It is wonderful

This book has greatly helped me. I think this should be required reading in any school, be it home or public. I will certainly have my new born read it (well, once she is old enough). Now I have so many more tools available to me while reading. You will not read the same after reading this book. If you apply this book your skill will greatly increase. It has help me love to read!

Daniel Fuller, John Piper's hermeneutics teacher uses this book for his class. He doesn't believe in special hermeneutics but general hermeneutics. You can learn more here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/1994/ and http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/2006/1625_Where_can_I_learn_more_about_the_Bible_study_method_called_arcing/

A great book on a seemingly obvious subject. Very insightful and a must for any begining researcher.

This is a review of "How to read a book" by Adler (May 2008).

This book was recommended to me by several authors I liked so aftr reading the positive reviews I decided to buy it. I can see that some see this book as 'timeless' and I think that is true, but I have also some criticism.

Pros:
- I see the main value of the book in teaching you the ability to structure your reading process/effort so that you get maximum value out of reading any book. For experienced readers (age 35+) this may be already a kind of automatism, but for less experienced (either in terms of #years or in terms of type of topic) this is probably not the case.
- I liked in particular the fact that the author not only discusses how to read book with emphasis on analytic content (rational / scientific / factual type of books), but also other kinds of literature.

Cons:
- The book is way too long. The author takes many pages to make a point that can also be done in 30% of the space. Fortunately, the author provides summaries of his 'rules' and tips. Nevertheless, an author who writes about how to efficiently read a book, should be brief himself! Just as you may expect from a dedicated reader that he reads efficiently, you may expect from a good writer he thinks through how to make a point, and be brief in the end, not forcing a reader to read many superfluous pages. Adler failed here. This makes me downgrade my rating.

Bottom line: If possible get it from a library; I would not recommend buying this book if you are in the second half of your 'reading life'.

i bought this book to learn how to read, but then i found out i couldn't read it. :(

nothing in this book is revolutionary. these are things any reader already knows and does, things that one had to learn to get through college. If you have a thirteen or fourteen year old definitely make him or her read it. The last section is sort of a plug for a different work by the author, which doesn't make it bad, just approach it with the necessary skepticism. On the whole a good and interesting read. The list of books at the end is mostly crap. There is a difference between being educated and well rounded and a crusty old lit snob. one could waste an awful chunk of ones life reading dusty old greeks or Proust instead of Beard of Lewis or Vonnegut. Update it yourself and don't tread it as a holy document, (which is pretty much how it was represented to me) and remember that its probably just articulating better than you could things you already know.

Nutshell review - If you want to know the ins and outs of using Google and all the advanced switches, tips, and tricks then this is your book. Good resource to own.

We got a used copy of Google Hacks, and my wife studied the searcher's tips for a couple weeks before I got to study the webmaster's guide. Like the Jack Sprats of the nursery rhyme, we licked that platter clean. It's dated now, but that only means there is more on Google than got into the book, I have not found a script or search parameter that was discontinued.

This is not for light reading, it is intended for people who want to get the most out of the web, and are not content with Wizards and auto-pilot.

While Google is used by a large percentage of the population of internet users today, Google offers a host of additional services and features that may be accessed using the tips and tools found in "Google Hacks".

This is primarily a book for intermediate- to advanced-users, but it offers some easy-to-use and useful tips and tools for all users. For those interested in extended the utility of the powerful Google service, this is a good resource.

1. Word order matters
2. repetition of words ignores the repeating words with no search results

3. inanchor, inurl, intitle, site
inanchor:oreilly -inurl: oreilly -site: edu
oreilly in anchor text
oreilly not in the url
site is not edu (limits to a certain domain)

intitle:OSTEOPOROSIS inurl:links
OSTEOPORSIS in the title
links in the url
OSTEOPOROSIS in the anchor text

intitle:biology inurl:help
Takes you to a manageable size of 602 for help in biology.

4. Google does not support stemming (moon, moonlight, moonshot)
Google does support wild card pattern *
Google does have a ten word limit

three * mice
returns
three Blind mice
three white mice

5. daterange:startdate-enddate
[...]

6. Phonebook searchs:
phonebook: searches the entire google phonebook
rphonebook: searches residental listings only
bphonebook: search business listings only

phonebook:nelson id

7: Finding articles
[...] "ADO" or "ODBC"

Searches the site www.listensoftware for all articles about ADO
"ODBC"

8. Searchable directorys

"what's new" "what's cool" directory SAUERKRAUT
"what's new" categories sauerkraut (recipe)
"what's new" listings sauerkraut (links to recipes)

9. GAPIS
[...]

Standalone application that takes advantage of the Google API search component.

Almost anyone who uses a computer knows that Google is a superior search engine - but do you know it also offers ways to organize and manipulate that information? The updated third edition of GOOGLE HACKS: TIPS & TOOLS FOR FINDING AND USING THE WORLD'S INFORMATION tells how, with chapters covering not just search techniques or advanced search strategies, but what to do with the information once it's found. From building a customized Google map for your web site to handling RSS feeds, news listings, blogs, and even using Gmail as an external hard drive, GOOGLE HACKS comes packed with usage tips not to be found elsewhere.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is a well made book, hardcover. this book will help you find anything in the bible your looking for. you can track all words in the bible with this. very thorough. very useful.

This is my second copy of The Strong's Concordance I've purchased. Both copies appear to have a consistently good print quality. Although this book is excellent for finding the English words in the King James Bible to gain their meaning in Hebrew and Greek, it does not show you the various English words translated from each Hebrew or Greek word.

However, if you're only going to own one concordance, then this is the one to have!

If you need a biblical word and reference and "map to the Bible" here it is! It should be the most "worn out" book in a christian's library.

Strong's Concordance, like any concordance, is very helpful in finding verses or doing studies on how a particular English word is used in Scripture. It is based on the KJV.

But what makes this concordance unique is that it indicates the underlying Hebrew or Greek word for the English word. Every Hebrew or Greek word is also numbered. Other Hebrew and Greek reference works are available that are coded to these Strong's Concordance numbers. Also included in this Concordance is a short Hebrew and Greek lexicon. This enables the non-Hebrew or Non-Greek reader some access to the original languages.

But it should be noted, using such resources is NOT the same as actually learning Hebrew or Greek. And far too many people seem to think they know what a verse "really" means by looking up a word in this concordance, getting the number of the Hebrew or Greek word and checking the simple dictionary in the back. Far too many times, I have had people email me with some strange ideas derived in this manner.

The problem is, just looking up a word in a simple dictionary like the one included here is not what you would call an exhaustive word study. And to make matters worse, this dictionary was produced in the 1800s, but much about the Greek language has been discovered since then. So the definitions are not always reliable.

Moreover, once you actually learn Hebrew and Greek and work with the original language texts, you will realize there is much more to the meaning of a word than can be expressed in a simple dictionary. The various shades of meaning can only be discovered by the use of more exhaustive lexicons that discuss how the word is used throughout Scripture and in extra-biblical literature.

It was such much more exhaustive resources that I utilized in working on my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition (ALT). I never bothered referring to a simple and less than reliable resource like this dictionary.

That said, this concordance does have value. Use it as an introduction to working with the original languages. But remember it is just that, an introduction. Don't think you are somehow studying the Hebrew or Greek because you can use a number to look up Hebrew or Greek word in a simple dictionary.

Also, if you use a version other than the KJV, it is helpful to also have a concordance based on that version. That is why I came out with a Complete Concordance to the Analytical-Literal Translation: Second Edition for users of my version.

The type that was used for this book is so tiny that it makes the book unusable.

I'm relatively new to linux and this is a great book to have handy. Very small and tightly packed with easy to find commands and examples. Great tool and good price.

A pocket sized guide to the essential commands of Linux. While specific to an older version of Fedora, this is still a very handy reference. All the essential commands are covered and explained.

This is a small book with a limited purpose and it acheives its goals. More or less indispensable for the Linux user.

Jerry

While this may be an excellent reference for experienced Linux users, it will be of very limited use for beginners or those who use Linux through a graphical interface. It is also specifically directed towards Fedora. It would be helpful if your descriptive blurb on the book revealed these two facts.

This is definitely a great companion for any Linux administrator or hobbyist who is trying to become a level 60 command line warrior. There are plenty of commands to familiarize yourself with, and they are grouped logically (rather than alphabetically), which means that when you look up a command, you can find other similar commands in the same section. This book was written with Fedora Core Linux in mind, so it may not cover some of the commands unique to other Linux distros.

These book includes most used unix commands. One step more explanatory than man pages. With its small size, it's very appropriate for reading while travelling with bus or metro.
But this is not a complete reference book, for advanced users.

If your trying to do anything complicated with Latex and need a reference to this is the book you need.

This is perhaps the definitive reference book on LaTex. It's totally comprehensive. For that, it's perfect and you need one if you're going to do some serious LaTex work.

It's not so good as an instructional manual or for someone like me who wants to learn LaTex. Not enough examples and "show me" illustrations on how to achieve, for example, common typsetting and formatting layouts. Wish it had more examples of how to do the top 25 most common layout tasks.

This is a compilation of many concisely written topics. I have not enjoyed the writing much, and have found examples more clearly written on many web sites.

An up-to-date reference for experienced LaTeX users. This book does NOT contain an introduction to LaTeX. Rather, it assumes that the reader has a working LaTeX system and has written some documents before. The value of the book lies in its breadth of coverage. There is a solution for just about any LaTeX problem I can think of. Mostly, the solutions consist of a recommendation for some third-party LaTeX package (style file) and a short review of its use. But the book also covers some quite esoteric issues in-depth. For example, it contains the only introduction to BiBTeX style file programming that I'm aware of.

An indispensable resource for serious LaTeX writing for those with high standards for their typesetting.

If you are going to buy one book on latex this is the one. It covers all the basics of document typesetting with latex. I actually own the first edition of the book but of course, you should always get the latest one. In the book there are sections to cover the following topics:

- Setting-up single or multi-column layouts
- Typesetting basic headings and text
- Creating tables using either the "tabular" or the "array" packages
- How to have tables span multiple pages
- Working with floating figures
- How to typeset beautiful math formulas
- Handling accented characters
- Basic pictures and graphics import
- Installing new fonts
- Creating indexes
- Adding tables of contents and tables of figures
- Adding good looking bibliographies with Bibtex

Lots of material is covered. Though there is overlap I also think that the book by Leslie Lamport is a good complement to this book. Leslies book is shorter, more to the point and perhaps a better introduction to latex than this one. But on the down side it covers less material. This is why I consider this book to be the one to get if you get only one.

A well-organized, bullet-pointed listing of the big elements of the Lean Six Sigma processes. A great tool to have handy for referencing when the big kahuna wants to talk about the program. It's the size of a typical paperback novel and organized in a logical, intuitive fashion.

I teach Lean Six Sigma and have used this book for the Black Belt certification course. It has just the right amount of detail to serve exactly as the title suggests. It's not a beginner's how-to book - think of it as the condensed version of your LSS course, for when you know there's a tool for something you want to do, but can't quite remember the details. Or, when you think you remember but just want a quick check and an example to give you confidence in using the tool.

I've also used it in my consulting work and have heard only rave reviews from clients. This handy tookbook should be in every Lean Six Sigma facilitator's library.

The book was received quickly, in the condition described and at significant savings over the campus bookstore.

It is a handy reference book that packed with tools and key points. In view of its approach and its size, I would say it reasonably include the information. Yet, if would be better (a) if its size be reduced in view of its contents; or (b) expand the contents a little more for giving more details; plus samples would be better. The book contains samples but are very brief. Don't read it as a reference book, it is not. Neither don't regard it as a textbook. If you want to have a briefing or general idea, then, this is quite a good book. If you are new to Six Sigma, I also recommend it to you for its size and contents. May be some other people with in-depth knowledge of Six sigma would tell if it is also good for them for revision.

Worth a lot more than I paid for it. Two copies on my desk. One loaner. It gets lots of mileage. THIS IS A GREAT DESK REFERENCE.