DC Electrical Circuit Analysis: A Practical Approach

Reviewed by Benjamen Taber, Adjunct Instructor, Central Oregon Community College on 1/5/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

Friore has an excellent introduction, discussing not just the fundamentals of sig. figs., engineering notation, etc., but also critical thinking and the scientific method. The text covers the content of a first-term introductory electrical engineering course on DC electronics, hitting on all of the major learning outcomes with the exception of operational amplifiers (and logic circuits, if that's something you're interested in teaching).

Content Accuracy rating: 5

This book is accurate, with only a couple errors associated with end-of-chapter exercises. The author and editors have done a thorough job with this text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Fiore's book is up-to-date, and its content and construction are such that the text will remain relevant for a long while. The author also maintains (frequently updates) several other textbooks in addition to this one--including laboratory manuals for both DC and AC electronics, and one on programming with C and Arduinos--that you can use to complement this textbook.

Clarity rating: 5

Fiore's prose is a pleasure to read. It is both fun and informative, and is clear with high information density. The text does a good job of using both words and mathematical expressions to describe important concepts and relationships.

Consistency rating: 5

The text is consistent in terms of its organization, terminology, and voice.

Modularity rating: 5

Chapters could be reorganized or omitted as needed, and each chapter is split in to sections that can be easily broken-up without much disruption to the reader.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Fiore presents topics in a self-consistent, logical manner, and it is reasonable to organize the flow of a course based off of the text.

Interface rating: 5

The text has a clear interface, with not glaring issues or inconsistencies. The PDF version could use more navigational links beyond the ones from the table of contents to the start of each chapter, but it does include links to sources (ex. to Wikipedia for resistivity values).

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Fiore's grammar is clear.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive but, largely as a product of its subject, it does not make use examples that include a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds (or, rather, examples that include these at all!). The instructor will need to ensure that they build an inclusive community of learning without relying upon this text to do the heavy lifting.