general

Microbiology: An Introduction is a superb textbook! All the introductory microbiology materials are explained in remarkable details and simplicity. You can go through an entire chapter really quick. The figures that accompany the text are beautiful and very informative. I am glad that my professor chose this text for the microbiology course that I will be taking this fall. My friend, who took the course last year has the previous edition (6th) and a large amount of materials was updated by the authors when I compared the two editions. The two CD-ROMs that accompany the textbook are excellent. The Student Tutorial CD-ROM even has sound clips of a large number of micro-organism names that appear throughout the book, allowing you to hear the correct pronunciation. The problem sets that appear at the end of every chapter are very well made. All in all, this textbook is a very good reference for introductory microbiology. The only bad thing that I can see from the book is that there is no answer key for the problem sets at the end of each chapter. I don't think there is a solutions manual either.

The beauty of this book lies in its choice of simple terms, when analyzing complex issues. A good introductory effort! Also, the tutorials of its accompanying CDs would enhance revisions.
Most readers will appreciate the way this book handled all those discussions partaining to microbial taxonomy, bacterial growth, and viral replication. Unlike many introductory microbiology texts, this one presented comprehensive information on the nature of prions.
But, even with the embellishments that included two CD-ROMs and web access, the retail price of this book is far from reasonable. This textbook delivered decent output on medical aspects of microbiology. However, it ran average info on industrial applications of microbiology; and performed poorly on environmental aspect. It remains a good book, but given its relatively high price and unbalanced coverage, I would not rate it as my first choice. There are many better texts in the market.

Be aware that this is NOT the textbook, it is the Study Guide! Although it may be useful for you (we decided to keep it anyway), it isn't what the title says.