The sociology primer is designed for introductory sociology students. Like a hard copy primer, text, graphs and images are used to introduce basic conceptual schemes and the corresponding empirical social patterns. As such, basic reading and mathematical skills are still required even though we are using cyberspace (bits) rather than paper (atoms) to hold the information.
While you cannot easily carry this primer about as you might a paperback, putting this material on a Web site adds other possibilities. Important to many students, if they have Web access, is that there is no cost to access this site. Another advantage of a Web primer is that the reader can use hyper links to move about the primer but more importantly to hyperlink to materials external to this primer.
The primer is not designed to replace your textbook or other readings. I make no attempt to summarize the typical introductory text nor do I cover every area of sociological study. Neither do I try to include all points of view. I include what interests me and what I think beginning students should understand about social phenomena.
Cyberspace changes faster that real space. As such, this primer is a work-in-progress and your feedback is important. Feedback on content will be helpful in making future updates more understandable and useful. I would also appropriate knowing of relevant web sites for hyper links. With thousands of new Web sites added daily and old addresses changing, it is difficult to keep up without help from users.
The primary focus for updates will be on content. However, advanced technologies like sound and video will be introduced in future updates.