x to dx, Explained

Calculus is built from algebra. This book builds both.

Many students who struggle in calculus are really struggling with the algebra underneath it: a sign error in a difference quotient, a fraction that will not simplify, a logarithm rule half remembered. x to dx, Explained fixes the problem at its source. In 24 chapters it takes you from the number line to the definite integral, one idea at a time, and shows you at every step where each piece of algebra is heading.

Every chapter is built the same way:
- A Big Idea that sums up each section in a sentence or two
- Worked examples solved step by step, with the reason for every step written beside it
- Watch Out boxes on the mistakes students make most often
- Ten practice problems after every section, and a 16-question Self-Check at the end of every chapter
- Where This Shows Up in Calculus: the chapter's algebra at work in limits, derivatives and integrals, with Try It problems
- A complete answer key at the end of every chapter

What you will learn, in six parts:
- Foundations: numbers, expressions and exponents, polynomials and factoring, radicals, equations and inequalities
- Functions: graphs, lines, quadratics, polynomial and rational functions, exponentials and logarithms, transformations and inverses
- Trigonometry: right triangles, the unit circle, trigonometric graphs, identities and equations
- The Bridge to Calculus: sequences and series, rates of change and the difference quotient
- Differential Calculus: limits, the derivative, differentiation rules and their applications
- Integral Calculus: antiderivatives, the definite integral and the Fundamental Theorem, applications of integration

The back of the book adds a formula reference, a gallery of parent-function graphs, a fully labeled unit circle and a glossary.

Written for high school students heading toward calculus, college students who need the algebra behind their calculus course, homeschoolers, and adults returning to mathematics. Plain language, clear graphs, and no step skipped.