Precalculus: Functions and Graphs

With faster pacing and less review, this is the perfect text for those students in precalculus who are going on to calculus-clarity without compromise. A hallmark of this text is its focus on problem solving. Students are provided with numerous opportunities to reason and think their way through various problems. The author's goal is to get the students to see that the mathematics in this book is interesting, useful, and worth studying. Emphasis is placed on using graphic, numeric, and analytic points of view in discussing and in solving problems throughout the text.

Mark Dugopolski was born in Menominee, Michigan. After receiving a B.S. from Michigan State University, he taught high school for four years, and then went on to receive an M.S. in mathematics from Northern Illinois University. He also received a Ph.D. in the area of topology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Mark has been teaching at Southeastern Louisiana in Hammond, LA, ever since.

Mark has been writing textbooks for about fifteen years. He is married and has two daughters, and enjoys playing tennis, jogging, and riding his bicycle in his spare time. Despite the presence of sailboats both on and in his precalculus textbooks, Mark does not sail-- it's his passion for showing students how mathematics is used in the real world that led him to the world of sailing.