Invertebrate Zoology/How to Use Guide

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How to Use the Study Guide to Invertebrate Zoology

The purpose of the Study Guide to Invertebrate Zoology is to weave&mdash;out of the information on Life Science contained in Wikipedia&mdash;a course of study for the student or layman. It is anticipated that this course will be either supplemental to instruction being received at a school or college, or will be self-directed. In either case, the Guide is not a novel and should not be approached as one. A smooth flow of dialogue is simply not possible and should not be anticipated. The Guide may be closer to the sometimes disjointed notes generated by a student from a lecture or careful reading of a detailed textbook.

Within each subsection of a Chapter, introductory text is followed by one or more "reading assignments" of the form:


 * Read Zoology ( Links need not be pursued at this time )

Following (that is clicking on) the link (to Wikipedia "Zoology" article in this case) will open an article intended to provide the details of the Chapter subsection. Recommended articles should be read from top to bottom, and then re-read following some or all of the links embedded in the article to other articles for expanded elucidation or to clarify terms; that is, in most cases, completion of an "assignment" (recommended article) includes at least some or all articles linked to the first. Obviously, it cannot be the case that all links are followed to articles, whose links are then followed to articles, and so on until no new material is encountered. It is likely there would be no quick end to such a pursuit. The amount of time spent wandering beyond the original article is partly a personal matter of how much the reader is getting out of the foray than anything else. Realize it is certainly possible to wander well off the subject at hand. As in the example above, notes are provided with assignments giving some direction for pursuing links. An instruction NOT to pursue links simply means the additional material will be encountered later in the course of instruction, and going beyond the assigned article may provide too much detail for a beginning student. The following example:


 * Read Science ( The following links are included: )
 * Scientific Method
 * Philosophy of Science

specifies that two other links ARE part of the assignment. Other links encountered may be followed to expand your knowledge or, as always, to aid in understanding of technical terms encountered. Hyperlinks included with the text in the Guide are there simply for convenience, usually to topics somewhat peripheral to the main one. In all cases, finding your way back to the Guide may become tricky, but we have to leave this up to you to establish, beyond pointing out that your browser's Back button is intended for this purpose.

Note that at the beginning of each module, links are provided to both the previous chapter and the succeeding chapter, as well as to the main Table of Contents.

Final Note
As a final note, read the next Section and consider how you might make contributions to the text.