Electromagnetics Vol 1

Reviewed by Ahmet Emin Akosman, Assistant Professor, Roger Williams University on 11/27/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The book beautifully covers all the topics for an introductory Electromagnetic Theory book. Some explanations are not as thorough as it could be. Referencing to Wikipedia for further reading sounds well in the beginning, but those subjects in Wikipedia are not necessarily captured in a detailed way.

Author's own explanations for the concepts looks sufficient and understandable for an Undergraduate Engineering Student.
One more important point: The book lacks additional problems, even though it includes nice exercises with solutions.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Content is accurate and error-free as far as I checked. Since it is a technical subject, the explanations look unbiased and concise.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Since it is a fundamental theory, the content covers the theoretical background nicely. However, it could be nicer to include more applications using these fundamental theories. It seems the book targets Physics departments more than the Engineering departments.

Clarity rating: 5

The author's language is clear and explains all the basic terminology. The amount of context is sufficient for an introductory Electromagnetic Theory course.

Consistency rating: 5

The author described the content in a clear way, and the terminology and framework is consistent. I did not come across with a major ambiguity or contradicting explanation throughout the book. Specifically, the explanation for the usage of scalar and vector quantities, and their notations is very useful.

Modularity rating: 5

The book is divided into very precise and logical sub-chapters. The amount of sub-sections does not look overwhelming at all. Book's references to other chapters are consistent.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The flow and the evolution of the topics are reasonable, and mostly done in the same way with the other Electromagnetic books available.

Interface rating: 3

Some figures are not printed, and some are not clearly displayed. Also, in some examples, the drawings could be bigger and clear.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text is almost error-free grammatically. Also, almost no typographic errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The book's content is not applicable for an evaluation of cultural discrimination.

In short, the book is very concise, and follows a contextual framework that is common in other Electromagnetic books. It can be easily used in an introductory Engineering Electromagnetic Theory course, however the instructor should prepare a good amount of example problems, since the book lacks additional exercises.

Reviewed by Willis Troy, Assistant Professor, Anderson University on 1/10/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This book does not cover smith charts, which are frequently covered in a first semester EM course. However, they aren't absolutely necessary and they are referenced for further reading.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I saw 1 error, but it was fixed in the errata for the book.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The structure of this book is quite similar to other EM text books. It might be even more relevant as time goes on because it can be quickly updated and distributed.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is clear and does a good job of addressing typical confusions students might have.

Consistency rating: 5

I didn't notice any inconsistencies.

Modularity rating: 5

This text does a good job at having the sections stand alone. Often it will review material in each section or reference it for quick study.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

There are two camps in Electromagnetics courses - cover transmission lines right before wave propagation, or at the beginning of the course. I feel that the material is better suited before plane wave propagation. However, this text is quite modular so it can be constructed to suit those needs.

Interface rating: 3

Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between figure captions and continued main body text. If they could have the figure captions indented a bit, smaller font, or different font, I think it would help immensely.

The highlighted caption text of the figures was nice, but given the word instead of the symbol might prove confusing for some.

The yellow key idea boxes seem to be bounded at times and not at others, though this might be an issues with my pdf reader as I didn't notice it when I loaded the pdf in safari.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The book is focused only on the technical nature of Electromagnetics, I did not see any references to people or culture.

The number of examples in the text went down as the text progressed, it would be nice to have some more in the text.
A reviewer might think that this textbook doesn't have problems, but the book's site on the Virginia Tech website does contain problems as well as solutions. The website also has the errata.