Elementary Algebra
Presently (March 2015) the book has neither table of contents nor index. I had to build my own table of contents by hand before I could settle down to review this book. This, of course, makes a score of 5 impossible. Actually, the book is riddled with so many typesetting errors it is unusable (by students) in its present form. Hopefully this can be remedied soon, because the book has the potential to serve as an excellent reference text.
All of the usual sections are here: real numbers, solving linear equations and inequalities, factoring polynomials, radicals and rational exponents, quadratic equations and graphs. The treatment is thorough and precise, with plenty of warnings about common mistakes, and large exercise sets with answers to the odds provided.
My only concern (aside from the many typesetting errors) is with graphing. Although straight lines and parabolas are covered thoroughly, I see hardly any examples of other kinds of graphs. Instructors who like to showcase a broader array of patterns (such as exponential growth) early in a student's graphing experience will need to supplement.
Mathematical ideas are everywhere most carefully stated, with only one exception that I found. On page 4 it reads: "When studying mathematics, we focus on special sets of numbers. The set of natural (or counting) numbers is combined with zero." What, always? It goes on to define the whole numbers as the natural numbers combined with zero, which of course is the intent of the paragraph, but due to some typographical error or whatever it doesn't quite begin right.
"At the moment" this material seems timeless.
Ideas are stated precisely, as in any other mainstream math text. This could make it an excellent, authoritative reference.
For most beginning students, however, precision and lucidity are two different things. Consider, for example, this Key Takeaway for section 6.3: "If a trinomial of the form ax^2 + bx + c factors into a product of two binomials, then the coefficient of the middle term will be the sum of certain products of factors of the first and last terms." I realize it's not a super-advanced sentence; nonetheless, most of my elementary algebra students would struggle to understand what is being said.
Then again, most examples and so on are quite clear about "do this, then do this, but don't do this." At the risk of making math seem like a collection of memorized steps, it does clearly show what needs to be done. But the overall narrative behind the examples is not the best fit for my students, so I cannot give a perfect rating for "clarity/lucid and accessible prose."
Excellent overall, in the presentation of facts. No complaints there.
I was, however, hoping for a tighter correspondence between the stated learning objectives and the review questions/questions on the sample exams. Just to pick section 9.5, graphing parabolas: finding the maximum/minimum earns a subtitle in this section, and related questions appear in the review and on the sample exam, but it is not one of the stated objectives. Also: one of the stated objectives is to find the vertex by completing the square, but this specific objective is not measured in the review questions or the sample test. Students are asked to find the vertex, certainly, but are not asked to complete the square.
This book is as "modular" as any other math text I've seen, in the sense that one could skip certain sections towards the ends of the chapters if one felt crunched for time, or even come back to cover them at a later time. But if modularity is considered a strength, I see no reason why this book should score more points than any other.
One non-modular aspect: students will see examples involving functions at the ends of many sections. The instructor could choose to ignore them, of course, but would not have a way to hide them from students' view.
I already mentioned it's missing its table of contents. Other structural problems: section 4.1 is presented twice, on page 539 and again on page 560; section 4.3 is presented twice, on page 594 and again on page 611. Chapter 10 is not really a chapter but a short appendix with some area and volume formulas. Chapter 7 is missing its title. Many sections (if not most) begin at the bottom of a page.
The typesetting issues are so numerous that the text is actually unusable in its present form (for students, anyway). Fraction bars are missing, exponents are not superscripted, sometimes the radical symbol follows instead of preceding its contents, etc.
Obviously, these errors are "minor" in the sense that it shouldn't take too many days for someone to clean them up. Hopefully this is in progress even as I write this review.
But my next question would be: where are the embedded video examples promised in the preface? Are these also under construction? The .pdf file I was able to download contains no such links or otherwise. It is impossible to assign a high score when I haven't had the chance to see all that is promised.
Looking at the print version, I do like the ordering of topics well enough. None of the chapters have any motivating introductions, though; adding some would be a nice touch.
The only viewing option I have in March 2015 is to download the .pdf file. I tried reading it on screen, but ended up printing it out (4 pages per sheet, double-sided, some trees were spared) to write this review. As mentioned above, I have not been able to view any embedded videos, as promised in the book's preface.
If this were meant to be a print reference, then I might be able to give a high score once the many typesetting issues are resolved; if it is meant to be more than that, then I haven't had a chance to see what it will be.
It's not the grammar but the typesetting that hurts, as described elsewhere.
I see no issues here.
I went back and reread the preface. It says this book makes no assumption of prior algebra experience, though it certainly assumes a high proficiency in reading. I also saw, in the section on negative exponents, that it assumes a certain familiarity with the dimensional analysis method of converting units.
It also says this is "by far the best elementary algebra textbook offered under the creative commons license." Well, as described above, the typesetting still needs major cleaning up. With that done, however, I do expect this text could serve as an excellent reference… but then there is the question of whether it will have any embedded videos, and how good those will be.
It claims modularity, but I'm not seeing how this book is any more or less modular than any other math text.
It says it stresses the importance of paper/pencil practice, but I'm not sure what this is referring to. I do remember the author saying that learning to factor polynomials takes a lot of practice and patience, but I don't recall any specific exhortations to write out steps by hand.
Obviously this is a work in progress, and I have not seen the final product. Perhaps the author is fishing for some early feedback. Well, I'd say it's a great start, but later reviews will have to trump mine.