College Algebra and Trigonometry, Global Edition 6th edition

Book Preface

In the sixth edition of College Algebra & Trigonometry, we continue our ongoing commitment to providing the best possible text to help instructors teach and students succeed. In this edition, we have remained true to the pedagogical style of the past while staying focused on the needs of today’s students. Support for all classroom types (traditional, hybrid, and online) may be found in this classic text and its supplements backed by the power of Pearson’s MyMathLab.

In this edition, we have drawn upon the extensive teaching experience of the Lial team, with special consideration given to reviewer suggestions. General updates include enhanced readability with improved layout of examples, better use of color in displays, and language written with students in mind. All calculator screenshots have been updated and now provide color displays to enhance students’ conceptual understanding. Each homework section now begins with a group of Concept Preview exercises, assignable in MyMathLab, which may be used to ensure students’ understanding of vocabulary and basic concepts prior to beginning the regular homework exercises.

Further enhancements include numerous current data examples and exercises that have been updated to reflect current information. Additional real-life exercises have been included to pique student interest; answers to writing exercises have been provided; better consistency has been achieved between the directions that introduce examples and those that introduce the corresponding exercises; and better guidance for rounding of answers has been provided in the exercise sets.
The Lial team believes this to be our best College Algebra & Trigonometry edi-tion yet, and we sincerely hope that you enjoy using it as much as we have enjoyed writing it. Additional textbooks in this series are

HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW CONTENT

■ In Chapter R, more detail has been added to set-builder notation, illustra-tions of the rules for exponents have been provided, and many exercises have been updated to better match section examples.
■ Several new and updated application exercises have been inserted into the Chapter 1 exercise sets. New objectives have been added to Section 1.4 out-lining the four methods for solving a quadratic equation, along with guidance suggesting when each method may be used efficiently.
■ Chapters 2 and 3 contain numerous new and updated application exercises, along with many updated calculator screenshots that are now provided in color. In response to reviewer suggestions, the discussion on increasing, decreasing, and constant functions in Section 2.3 has been written to apply to open intervals of the domain. Also as a response to reviewers, intercepts of graphs are now defined in terms of coordinates rather than a single number. This notation continues throughout the text.
■ In Chapter 4, greater emphasis is given to the concept of exponential and loga-rithmic functions as inverses, there is a new table providing descriptions of the additional properties of exponents, and additional exercises requiring graphing logarithmic functions with translations have been included. There are also many new and updated real-life applications of exponential and logarithmic functions.

■ In Chapter 5, we now include historical material for students to see how trigonometry developed as a means to solve applied problems involving right triangles. In this chapter and the others that cover trigonometry, we have reorga-nized exercise sets to correspond to the flow of the examples when necessary.
■ Chapter 6 continues to focus on the periodic nature of the circular functions. To illustrate, we have added exercises that involve data of average monthly temperatures of regions that lie below the equator, as well as data that describe the fractional part of the moon illuminated for each day of a particular month. A new example (and corresponding exercises) for analyzing damped oscilla-tory motion has been included in Section 6.7.
■ Chapter 7 now includes a derivation of the product-to-sum identity for the product sin A cos B, as well as new figures illustrating periodic functions associated with music tones and frequencies.
■ In Chapter 8, we have reorganized the two sections dealing with vectors. The material covered has not changed, but we have rewritten the sections so that Section 8.3 first covers geometrically defined vectors and applications, while Section 8.4 then introduces algebraically defined vectors and the dot product.
■ In Chapter 9, special attention has been given to finding partial fraction decompositions in Section 9.4 and to linear programing in Section 9.6. Examples have been rewritten to promote student understanding of these very difficult topics.
■ In Chapter 10, greater emphasis is given to analyzing the specific aspects of conic sections, such as finding the equation of the axis of symmetry of a parabola, finding the coordinates of the foci of ellipses and hyperbolas, and finding the equations of the asymptotes of hyperbolas.
■ Throughout Chapter 11, examples have been carefully updated to ensure that students are able to understand each step of the solutions. Special con-sideration was given to mathematical induction in Section 11.5 by providing numerous additional side comments for the steps in the solution of examples in this difficult section.
■ For visual learners, numbered Figure and Example references within the text are set using the same typeface as the figure number itself and bold print for the example. This makes it easier for the students to identify and connect them. We also have increased our use of a “drop down” style, when appropri-ate, to distinguish between simplifying expressions and solving equations, and we have added many more explanatory side comments. Guided Visual-izations, with accompanying exercises and explorations, are now available and assignable in MyMathLab.
■ College Algebra & Trigonometry is widely recognized for the quality of its exercises. In the sixth edition, nearly 1500 are new or modified, and hundreds present updated real-life data. Furthermore, the MyMathLab course has expanded coverage of all exercise types appearing in the exercise sets, as well as the mid-chapter Quizzes and Summary Exercises.