This article examines the communicative categories and linguistic features of university textbook prefaces. The textbook preface is a highly interactive genre, with a double purpose: informative and promotional. The analysis of the genre moves and of their realization reveals that the preface is used by the author both to help the audience use the book and to convince them of the value of the book. This twofold purpose accounts for the most relevant features of prefaces: the frequent use of textual metadiscourse and the pervasive presence of evaluation. The criteria used in the preface to evaluate the textbook are related to the audience's expectations about introductory textbooks: novelty, usefulness, accessibility, comprehensiveness, importance, and interest.
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