英语作业-纸质书和电子书

E-books or paper books

What is the e-book? An e-book is a book in electronic format. It is downloaded to a computer, PC, Mac, laptop, PDA, tablet, smartphone or any other kind of reading device, and is read on the screen. It can have numbered pages, table of contents, pictures and graphics, exactly like a printed book.

E-books present many benefits and advantages. It is very simple and easy to purchase and download e-books through the Internet. After download you don't have to be connected to the Internet in order to read the e-book. You can stay offline. If you wish to have it printed, it is very easy-.Just click on the print button in the e-book, to print it with your home printer. E-books are delivered almost instantaneously. You can purchase, download and start reading them within minutes, without leaving your chair. You don't have to go to a bookstore to buy them, neither wait for them for days, weeks and sometimes more to arrive in the mail. 2. No trees are required to manufacture paper for the pages of e books. When you need certain information, you can get it immediately, by downloading an e-book. Many e-books are sold nowadays with bonuses, which you usually do not get with a printed book. This adds value to your purchase. E-books take up less space. It is very simple and easy to purchase and download an e-book. People living in big modernized cities, in a remote village in a faraway country or on a small island, can equally access an e-book. It takes them the same amount of time to purchase and download an e-book, provided they have an Internet connection. It is possible to purchase an e-book 24 hours a day, every day of the year, from the comfort of your own house or office. You can purchase and download an e-book, even if you are on a vacation. All you

need is a laptop, tablet. Smart phone, or a reading device, and wireless Internet connection.

The e-book has so much edvantage, the parper books have a hard time. Half a decade into the e-book revolution, though, the prognosis for traditional books is suddenly looking brighter. Hardcover books are displaying surprising resiliency. The growth in e-book sales is slowing markedly. And purchases of e-readers are actually shrinking, as consumers opt instead for multipurpose tablets. It may be that e-books, rather than replacing printed books, will ultimately serve a role more like that of audio books—a complement to traditional reading, not a substitute. How attached are Americans to old fashioned books? Just look at the results of a Pew Research Center survey released last month. The report showed that the percentage of adults who have read an e-book rose modestly over the past year, from 16% to 23%. But it also revealed that fully 89% of regular book readers said that they had read at least one printed book during the preceding 12 months. Only 30% reported reading even a single e-book in the past year.

Books are not going anywhere. Neither is publishing. Since Gutenberg made his epic contribution to the human race, publishing has secured a place as one of the largest and most profitable industries in history. In that time, publishing has adapted to major technological changes, survived economic meltdowns, persisted through political censorship, and made it to the other side of catastrophic price wars.

It’s convenience that is drawing people to e-books and that is what will kill printed books. Or, if not kill them, reduce them to the same minority hobbyist status that vinyl records now occupy.