Precalculus (Dugopolski) - Tapa dura

This text is designed for a variety of students with different mathematical needs. For those students who will take additional mathematics, the text will provide the proper foundation of skills, understanding, and insights necessary for success in further courses. For those students who will not pursue further mathematics, the extensive emphasis on applications and modeling will demonstrate the usefulness and applicability of mathematics in the world today. Many of the applied problems in this text are actually real problems that people have had to solve on the job. With an emphasis on problem solving, this text provides students with an excellent opportunity to sharpen their reasoning and thinking skills. With increased critical thinking skills, students will have the confidence they need to tackle whatever future problems they may encounter inside and outside the classroom. This text is technology optional. With this approach, teachers will be able to offer either a technology-oriented course or a course that does not make use of technology. For departments requiring both options, this text provides the advantage of flexibility.

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, and ever since, Mark has been teaching at Southeastern Louisiana in Hammond, LA. He 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.