Elementary Algebra for College Students

This is an easy-to-use introductory text designed for a first course in algebra, offering a clear, concise presentation of the topics with many sample problems to facilitate student understanding. The seventh edition retains the basic subject matter and pedagogy of the previous editions but it differs from them in several significant ways. The first three chapters have been extensively reorganised to introduce equations and word problems in a spiral approach. Problem solving is developed gradually and integrated with the introduction of standard algebraic topics. The text has also been strengthened by broadening the scope of many topics and by incorporating greater variety and more challenging problems into the exercise sets. New to this edition are sections on the laws of exponents; Nth roots and fractional exponents; and radical equations. In addition, existing material on scientific notation, use of formulas, operations with fractions, and graphing of quadratic equations has been expanded and strengthened. The previous edition of this book was published in 1984.