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    Physical Modeling in MATLAB

    Reviewed by Katie Sheldon, Adjunct Professor, Central Oregon Community College on 8/21/16

    Comprehensiveness rating: 5

    This book covers introductory programming with MATLAB in a methodical manner. This textbook was perfect for students who did not have a programming background. The text did a nice job summarizing chapters and explaining terms and methods in a non-programming language. Perfect for my introductory course.

    Content Accuracy rating: 4

    I used this textbook in conjunction with FreeMAT, the free version of MATLAB. There were a few functions that did not translate into FreeMAT. This was a unique situation for the free version of MATLAB. Other than that, the textbook was well-written and error-free.

    Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

    The chapters in this textbook are well-organized and up-to-date. The organization of the chapters would make updating or adding features without adding clutter relatively easy.

    Clarity rating: 5

    This was the most clear MATLAB textbook that I found for an introductory course. The textbook combined a nice balance of technical programming language with detailed explanations and summaries in language accessible to a first-time programmer.

    Consistency rating: 5

    This textbook is consistent in terminology and organization. Each chapter follows a similar format and is easy to follow.

    Modularity rating: 5

    Each section does not have large blocks of text. Rather, the text provides a nice balance of example scripts and code with explanations and reasoning behind each method. My students seemed to find the mid-text examples a beneficial addition to each section. No one section was too lengthy. Easy to follow and well-labeled.

    Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

    I found the lack of plotting methods to be the biggest downfall of this text. I ended up including my own section on plotting capabilities. All included sections were very thorough and easy to follow.

    Interface rating: 5

    The textbook is free of significant interface issues. The online version is very easy to navigate with direct links to chapters. There are minimal image distortions.

    Grammatical Errors rating: 5

    I did not find any grammatical errors in the text.

    Cultural Relevance rating: 5

    This text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. There were not any examples that I came across that have any racial or ethnic background references.

    Comments

    This textbook was very easy to follow for my students in an introductory MATLAB course. I would have liked to see a section on plotting capabilities, but other than that, it was a wonderful text!

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