Introductory Chemistry - 1st Canadian Edition

Reviewed by Farkhondeh Khalili, Adjunct Professor, Massachusetts Bay Community College on 5/24/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

I believe the book was easy to understand and follow. The real life data would help the students to understand the relationship between the real life and science world.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The data, equations, and calculations were very precise and accurate.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Topics of discussions in each chapter were relevant to all the examples and topics.

Clarity rating: 4

I believe in chapter 3, we need to discuss atomic theories before talking about formation of ions and ionic compounds.

Consistency rating: 5

The chapters were consist with the topics and explained the information provided.

Modularity rating: 5

I like the fact that after introduction to each chapter, the chapter is divided to multiple sections explaining the topics.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

I think the Organic Chemistry chapter must comes at the very end (chapter 18) instead of being between inorganic chapters.

Interface rating: 5

Navigating from each section in a chapter was very easy & reliable.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

As far as I can tell, I could not find anything.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

No, the book was very factual and accurate.

Comments

I believe there must be a section about mixtures at the very beginning as well more introduction to atoms and ions before talking about ionic compounds

Reviewed by Leah Schnaith, Chemistry Instructor, Minnesota State College Southeast Technical on 12/28/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

Many topics are covered, some need to be covered to greater scientific depth.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

My coworker and I spent a summer editing the errors in this open source textbook. The biggest issue was the inaccurate depiction of Electron Dot (Lewis Structures).

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Basic concepts for chemistry need to be covered in every aspect of the discipline.

Clarity rating: 4

Some students have struggled with the user friendliness of this textbook.

Consistency rating: 4

The textbook seems to be consistent throughout the text in regards to scientific concepts.

Modularity rating: 2

The modularity to this textbook needed to be reworked. I did not find having the same concept repeated in several chapters helpful nor did my students. For example, the mole concept was presented as a different topic in three different chapters, first for atoms, then molecules and finally formula units. In addition, the order of chapters did not work for me. Both my coworker and I revised the order and split chapter 3 into 2 different units to make the content presented in a more logical order for students.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

As previously noted, I would not have organized the textbook in the order presented. Students were expected to understand Lewis structures prior to learning electronic configuration, which is the basis for understanding chemical bonding.

Interface rating: 4

Additional diagrams and illustrations would be helpful throughout the textbook.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

A few grammatical errors were present in the textbook; however, the bigger issue was the inaccuracy of a few concepts.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Culturally insensitivity and offensiveness is not often a problem in chemistry textbooks.

Reviewed by Lorena M Rios Mendoza, Professor of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin - Superior on 9/19/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This book has the main topics for an introductory chemistry book and introduces chemistry appreciation through ideas and examples of real life. It is a basic chemistry concepts book for non-chemistry majors. Each chapter has questions, examples, and challenge problems. The book's final part has appendixes with appropriate information and a glossary with terms used. However, more illustrations and boxes are necessary to conceptualize the ideas in all the chapters. Chapter 2, when numbers are included, the non-majors in science students sometimes struggle to handle numbers and units. More examples and boxes to visualize the math involved in the use of numbers and units are necessary. Naming compounds is a complex topic for beginners in chemistry. Chapter 3 needs to start with separating matter into pure compounds and mixtures, separating into atoms, molecules, and ions, and introducing how to name them. Atomic theory is an important topic that can be presented with more history and application examples to understand this complex topic better. In general, all the concepts in the chapters need more pictures that exemplify these topics. The videos idea in some parts of the chapters is illustrative and help to visualize the concepts.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The content is accurate and presented in a simple way to be clear for non-chemistry majors. The concepts have been the same since their development. However, the book needs more practical examples and pictures or figures to exemplify the chemistry topics. Sometimes the concepts can be challenging to understand, and it is essential to use simplifications to ease some of these concepts.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The topics are up-to-date. These concepts have been the same since a long time ago; however, it is important to have new examples connecting concepts with our modern world. More discussion could make the book stronger.

Clarity rating: 4

The content is written in an easy way to read and in a simplified presentation of chemistry concepts. The introduction of chapters throughout the book is direct and in an efficient form. Each chapter has the learning objectives, definitions, and examples for calculations. The organization of the chapters is up to the authors, but my only advice is to give more examples with pictures and related to our modern society and needs for this era.

Consistency rating: 5

This chemistry book is consistent with the terms used and in how the authors presented the content.

Modularity rating: 4

The book is divided into short chapters that can help students to understand the bases in chemistry topics. Each chapter has the learning outcomes that will help students to focus on this learning. Each chapter has problems with solutions that will help students to practices their understanding.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The authors keep the chapters in some logical order to introduce chemical principles. The organization of these chapters is to develop one or two concepts that help students digest the chemistry topics more quickly. If I can change the order of the chapters, I will move chapter 16 (organic chemistry) to the last chapter, and the concepts are new and different from the kinetics and thermodynamics. A more visual book help students to understand and learn. Many times images can show the connection between concepts and everyday processes. Most students from non-chemistry majors must be able to comprehend the chemical principles and acquire problem-solving skills. Most of the concepts are not in deep discussion, but it is ok for non-chemistry major students. They need to understand the basics of chemistry and its applications.

Interface rating: 4

I do not see interference issues through the book. The pictures and videos used in the book are good. The text is free of features that can distract when one is reading.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I do not find negative, insensitive, or offensive cultural references in all the book.

Reviewed by Steven Cummings, Assistant Professor, Howard University on 1/31/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This is rated somewhere between a 4 and a 5. The book is overall reasonably comprehensive for a book geared to non-chem majors. However, some concepts could use more depth or be included, such as:
Missing areas that should be addressed include precision and accuracy when discussing significant figures. The way naming and empirical formula are presented in Chapter 3 does not feel as strong as traditional textbooks, primarily because of the order presented – it would help to move the introduction of atoms, atomic theory, masses, and isotopes to the beginning of Ch. 3. Then move the ionic/polyatomic compounds toward the nomenclature. More clearly identify cross multiplication for ionic compounds; introduce hydrates, more clearly explain the use of Stock nomenclature. This would allow a “bottom-up” approach. Once reagent states for chemical reactions are introduced, the authors do not consistently use them – especially in the end-of-section or end-of-chapter problems. State functions should be introduced in Chapter 7 with enthalpy (as it’s a state function) and can help to detail the relationship to temperature, heat, and enthalpy – and the idea of why doubling a reaction should result in twice as much heat. In chapter 9, having a description of Coulombic attraction should be included to help explain certain concepts such as lattice energy trends. Other than that, Ch. 9 is well done and flows reasonably well with plenty of examples and good descriptions.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Fortunately for general chemistry, the material hasn't really had significant changes to our fundamental understanding in quite some time. This text is consistent with others. I do have two minor issues I would like to see addressed.

As with too many general chemistry textbooks, the authors incorrectly identify acids ionizing into an H3O+, rather than the more correct H5O2+ or even H7O3+. We can use the hydronium for convenience, but students should realize that this is still incorrect. Another area I hope the authors remove is the idea of hybridization beyond sp3 because hybridization of the d with p orbitals does not occur due to the energy differences between the atomic orbitals – the authors should mention (that best evidence at this time) is sp3 hybridization with ionic bonding in high flux. Also, it would be nice for the authors to point out that hybridization is a simplified and useful approach, but not completely accurate – but much easier than LCAO.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The authors place an emphasis on why students should care about many of the topics throughout the text. It was interesting to see new examples presented, such as the “Gimli Glider” in Ch. 2 or the Aum Shinrikyo in Ch. 3 or using cesium for dating wine (among others) regarding the importance of unit conversions.
However, there is no thorough discussion on environmental chemistry or modern materials. Because the book is targeted to non-chem majors, it doesn't need an in-depth discussion on semiconductors, nanoparticles, or plastics. It would greatly benefit other STEM majors to familiarize themselves with these topics.

Clarity rating: 5

I generally find the book easy to read and understand. It helps that there are plenty of examples throughout. Concepts and terms are introduced, and where necessary referenced back to the original concept as the authors realize that some may need refreshers.The chapter 1 introductory material provides some useful background reading for students not really sure why they’re taking chemistry and to give a primer what the book will be covering. Chapter 2 really begins the meat of the subject with units. Throughout the book material is presented in a straightforward and efficient manner. But, to prevent the material from becoming dry to those that aren’t hardcore about the subject, relevant and useful examples are included
But I do feel there were issues with some of the presentation order which is addressed under organization

Consistency rating: 5

Because of the nature of chemistry, the authors were consistent with terminology and how they present material.

Modularity rating: 5

The authors split material up into easily digestible topics that most students should be able to read in less than 15-20minutes, including working through practice problems provided. Like most general chemistry textbooks, there are available exercises at the end of each chapter. Beneficial is that many sections also have problems at the end of each section. Answers are provided for odd-numbered problems at the end of each chapter. There aren’t quite as many problems available as there are in traditional textbooks.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The book organizes material in broad categories with closely related topics kept as much together as possible – one advantage to this approach is that students will be able to focus on one idea at a time. The approach feels to work well for this book as the chapters are laid out in a reasonable concept building, though I would have put nuclear and organic chemistry after the kinetics chapters. The authors make use of QR codes (there are also direct links available) to extra videos that provide a brief overview for each section allowing for a full distant learning experience.

Considering the likely target audience, Chapter 7 was another well-done chapter for most students. It doesn’t needlessly provide depth that other textbooks may have, but it presents most material in an efficient, orderly, and easy to grasp manner. And because gases were already introduced before energy, it is possible to now have limiting reagent problems involving work and heat unlike other textbooks that often introduce gasses much later.
Ch. 8 is setup very different compared to many other “electronic structure” chapters. And in this case, I don’t think it’s good. This chapter would benefit from being taught via a “historical” concept introducing ideas as they were discovered beginning with work function/binding energy. Having the electron configuration prior to quantum numbers (at least to me) moves the fundamental building block out of order. While important, limiting de Broglie and Schrodinger relationships is good as most undergraduate chem students will not benefit from this material. One trend that should be added in a future version are isoelectronic atoms and the concept of cations becoming smaller and anions becoming larger (there are useful images that highlight these changes). I also would like to see a more in-depth discussion on effective nuclear charge as this can really lay the groundwork for many of the other trends of the periodic table.
Chapter 10 could use a bit more expansion on the intermolecular forces and how they influence the physical properties. This section was also incomplete as ion-dipole and polarizability were not included. It would make more sense to introduce colligative properties after concentration units. If it were just the concept of “why you’re learning this,” that would be fine, but the introduction of math requiring units that had not been taught (molality) is highly unusual. Plus - it makes more sense to have colligative properties and osmotic pressure merged with van’t Hoff factor.
The serious discussion of acids and bases, dilution/neutralization after solutions is better than many text books. Some try to move this earlier. This book limits acid/base discussion just to naming. But again, I feel the authors order of presentation could improve. Move buffers until after the pH scale (it makes sense to have this right after autoionization of water). Show a visual scale with the strength of acids. Introduce the Lewis Acid and Lewis Base definition and how this relates to Bronsted-Lowry definitions. The equilibrium chapter is good to have right after as it allows for a good discussion on buffers and solubility products. But the discussion of buffers can be built up more now that it was introduced in the previous chapter. Putting chapter 17 after equilibrium would be useful at this point since the concepts are related. This will also be useful for explaining half-life with nuclear chemistry from a more fundamental perspective. As with an earlier chapter, there are formatting issues with some equations (in the pdf at least).
For chapter 14 – a good chapter, but again, I do not understand why oxidation and reduction reactions are introduced at the end of the chapter. This should be the first part of the chapter setting everything else up.
Chapter 15 is one of the more complete, but not overly burdensome chapters, compared to other textbooks making it ideal for introducing the concept for general chemistry students that may not be chemistry majors.

Interface rating: 4

Regarding the presentation, the pictures format is of general good to high quality. The pictures are unique compared to some other textbooks and in many more cases more readily approachable and interesting. Nitpicks include some of the flow charts, or larger equations being blurry and of a lower production quality (i.e. Fig 1.6 among others). Additionally, there was more than one font and not consistent sizing of the text. The spacing between problems, equations, or figures could be improved in some areas (i.e. 1.1 where each problem and multipart problem lacks the clear visual separation between problems; almost all reaction equations in the text). The degree C symbol does not have a space between the number and unit – it should. Pg 300 (and a few others) – an equation not properly formatted is present (in the pdf). These items were distracting to me when reading. But they do not take away from the quality of the content presented.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Other than the occasional mixing of some English/American version of spelling (e.g. vapour/vapor), there were no major grammar issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

There are, as far as I could tell, no negative cultural references. In fact, the examples that are used would help to build a better cultural understanding as they highlighted chemistry in a variety of countries and cultures throughout history without any allusion to good or bad.

Comments

This is a review on the David Ball’s and Jessie Key’s 1st edition of Introductory Chemistry that has had some sections updated in 2014. My review is of the pdf version. This book also comes in epub and html versions.

This is a book I am currently using as a supplemental book for my students, especially for students to be provided alternative explanations on some concepts from myself or the text book our department uses. To me, it's biggest strength comes from attempting to make material relevant and practical. However, even for a non-majors course, it would need some improvements to become an adopted textbook