Customer Reviews

Calculus: From Graphical, Numerical, and Symbolic Points of View

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Most of the other reviews have it wrong. I imagine they are mostly from calculus students who got grades they didn't want, which isn't hard to do no matter WHAT book is used. I'd hate to think any calculus teachers downrated this book. It's a prize winner.

I teach advanced placement calculus; have for 34 years, during which time I've seen and used a LOT of calculus texts. This book is an excellent treatment of the topics of calculus--not Real Analysis, for math majors, but great for its intended audience.

Most of my students read the book since I encourage that. Most who read it report that they like it, especially the humor. Those who don't like it no doubt dislike the lack of example after example after example after example after example that dull the mind and prepare the reader ONLY for those numerous similar-if-not-identical problems in the homework.

Not an easy read? It's CALCULUS! Read it slowly for comprehension, with a pencil. It's not a novel.

But it IS NOVEL. Its concept-oriented approach is quite unlike the traditional algebraic approach. We have computer algebra systems today; UNDERSTANDING the CONCEPTS of calculus is what's more important and Ostebee and Zorn provide this through a variety of thought-provoking problems. In most sections, no two are alike. FAR from traditional-looking.

As a reform text, it is unusual in that they built the book from the ground up. None of this, "OK, we're getting pressure to put in graphing calculator problems; let's make volume umpteen different--put little calculator icons next to every 3rd problem and add a few lines to each chapter and stick 'Graphing Calculator' in the title" approach taken by other authors and companies.

But it's not just for high school AP calculus. Many colleges use it. Do an internet search. No, it's not as widely used as some of the aforementioned modifications of older popular texts, and should NOT be unless instructor and student are unwilling to think, assimilate, and apply concepts constantly. P.S. This is a sure fire way to learn ANYthing.

I used this book for my calc class and while it is an interesting and noble approach at changing the way calculus is being taught today, it lacks the ability to explain things on the student's level. It is a great text if someone already knows calculus, to get at the concepts in an alternative light. However, for students with little or no calculus experience - prepare to be lost and pray for a hepful professor.

Horrible text due to the following reasons:
* authors use "convince yourself" too many times without showing adequate amount of proofs (typical method of "convincing" students in other texts). Personally, I got so fed up with this that I threw this book (softcovered edition) on the wall of my dormitory hundreds of times throughout the semester out of frustration. I was lucky that I had an EXCELLENT professor during my first semester of Calculus.
* the "proofs" that are used are mostly examples or counterexample and do not rigerously explain the "why" questions?
* needs organization
* not enough examples to adequately solve end of chapter problems; humans learn through example
* some typographical errors

Pro's: Some of the end of the chapter problems are ingenious and help provide the student with a deeper understanding of the material.

Overall: If you are a student forced to use this text you should obtain another book (Hostetler for example) to supplement the reading material and attend all lectures. This was the only way I passed the class.

This is the third calculus book I've had, and the only one I haven't understood. In the others I could always follow their examples and relate them to the homework questions. In this book the example problems have nothing to do with the homework questions. I imagine if one had a good calculus teacher this would be less of a problem.
Basically this book taught me nothing more than to hate calculus.

If you read it through and through, you will find how wonderful it is to approach calculus in a graphical, numerical and symbolic way. If you want to challenge your mind in this way, this book is probably the most suitable for you. I am using it in my calculus calss, and I found the concepts are very clearly explained. The thing that I love most of this book is that it helps students develop a good understanding of calculus through observing and studying the graphs of the functions. This only imperfection of the book, if any, is that there lack of some theoretical exercises. But any book can not be perfect. The most important thing is how you enjoy it. For me, it is a new and fresh guide of the study of calculus.

This book was inflicted upon me as an undergrad student at St. Olaf. Thus far, I had mastered all previous math-related classes - Algebra, Trig, Analytic Geometry, Physics, Statistics...always getting A's in high school and college. (I was pre-med bio major). Suffice to say, I'm not an idiot. I graduated with a 3.6 in my undergrad and 3.9 in my doctorate.

With that said, I could not make head or tail of what on earth they were trying to get us to do in this text! From my understanding, they were trying to teach us not the function of Calculus, but how to reason your way through it?!? However, this is not appropriate for a beginner. I met with the prof individually...I enlisted the help of other students in Advanced Calc II to help me understand the assignments. Guess what? The Advanced Calc II students had no idea how to help me. Does that tell you anything?

I ended up dropping the class because I thought I was going to get a B. I re-took it and got a B.

I still don't understand calculus. And it has disheartened me to the whole subject.

If you want to say "goodbye" to math, I highly recommend using this text for Calculus I.

I am a fan of traditional theorem-proof exposition, and this Ostebee-Zorn text demonstrates why. This book attempts to make calculus easy to understand, but the only result is that it is impossible to follow. Essential concepts are buried deep within piles of verbiage, and the examples skip important steps making them hard to follow. Add to that the large number of typos and errors in the solutions manual. As a teaching assistant, I have had strong mathematics students who could not understand this book and whose knowledge of calculus suffered as a result. With so many quality calculus textbooks on the market, it is hard to understand why a school would choose to use this unsuccessful experiment.

I praise Ostebee and Zorn for making an attempt to make calculus easy and for everyone. But I just don't think that is true. Calculus is a sophisticated form of mathematics and sometimes it needs to be taught with vocabulary and methods within the mathematics community and outside of everyday life. When you combine this with the usual high number of mistakes present in a first-edition book, a great deal of the phrase "we'll discuss/define this soon", excessive use of the graphing calculator, and some pretty lame jokes, you get a product that's not really worthy of being used in a college-level course.

I bought the book for college and it has served it's purpose. It is a good book. There is quite a bit of writing in it and some of the pages are bent and wrinkly, but it was a good buy.

I can't rate this book because what I got delivered was volume 2, when I needed volume 1 and the description above at the time of my order did not state this. It only listed an edition(2nd), not the volume. So, Im out shipping $$ as I have to return it. Just want to make people aware of this.

Cheers.