"Essentials of Biology" is an essentials level introductory general biology text for non-majors students that combines Dr. Sylvia Mader's superb and accessible writing style with clear visuals, a comprehensive learning system, and abundant supplements. "Essentials of Biology" emphasizes the relevance of biology to students' lives within a framework of biodiversity and basic-concepts coverage of all main areas of general biology. The three key features of "Essentials of Biology" include: Dr. Sylvia Mader's succinct, precise writing style. Sylvia's writing is what has earned her a reputation as one of the most successful introductory biology textbook author ever, and it is what will be most compelling in this text; a comprehensive learning system to help students get the most out of each chapter's text content and an incredible instructional visual program; our package would not be complete without our robust media technology package with quality animations, digitized videos, OLC, and student interactive CD-ROM. Each chapter features numerous pedagogical tools that are carefully developed to help students grasp challenging concepts. These include: a numbered outline at the beginning of each chapter with accompanying concept statements for the main topics in each chapter; Check Your Progress questions and answers at the end of each major heading within the chapter to help students assess their understanding of the previous section; and the boldface terms in each chapter are page referenced in an Understanding the Terms list at the end of the chapter, and a matching exercise allows students to test their knowledge of the terms. They also include: a Thinking Scientifically section at the end of each chapter gives students the opportunity to use critical thinking skills to respond to scientific questions; the Bioethical Issue at the end of each chapter briefly discusses a controversial issue confronting society and poses questions to help students fully consider the issue and arrive at an opinion; numbered summary at the end of the chapter to help students review; and, Testing Yourself objective questions at the end of the chapter to help students prepare for the test.