6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Analytical Chem book/Chem ref, March 1, 2006
This review is from: Exploring Chemical Analysis (Paperback)
This book was a required text for my analytical chemistry class. I was at first a bit worried about it, I tend to be picky about chemistry textbooks, but I quickly fell in love with this one. The chapters are short and to the point (most between 20 and 30 pages). Harris tells you what you need to know and gives some good examples in those 20 pages. Other books I have had to use took in excess of 50 pages to describe what Harris does (much better at that) in under 30. This is a nice feature for the time pressured college student.
The formating is also really nice. At the end of each chapter, all of the equations discussed are printed with text telling what each variable is. This is nice for when working on problem sets as you don't have to flip throughout the chapter trying to find one relationship and then search for an hour finding out what each variable means (We all forget at least once). It also makes studying for the exams easier and proofing notes to make sure you have the right equations has never been easier.
The book is directed at either a chem or non-chemistry student. At most schools analytical is low enough to get non-chemistry or even science majors in it. This book walks this line rather well. It doesn't bore the students that are "really excited" about chemistry and it doesn't confuse the "normal" kids. It is easy to read and also, like mentioned before, has little jokes in it.
A few other minor things I liked were the sections on statstical analysis and the paper on which it was printed. I took a stats 100 level class while in highschool and I knew most of the stuff still. However, some parts I forgot and had to relearn. I had to do it for bio and for chem, the bio book and prof made it so boring and drawn out. Harris, on the other hand, jumps into it and makes math and stat analysis, almost, fun. The most minor of my comments is about the paper the book is printed on. A lot of textbooks are printed on overly gloss paper and filled with "look at this picture" images. Harris has color plates, but the majority of the book is composed of greens and blacks. The paper isn't glossy and light doesn't glare on it. This just makes the sitting down and reading part much easier on the eyes.
I would recommand this text for someone wanting to brush up on analytical chemistry, or even just general chemistry. I, as well as most of my peers, intend to keep it as a reference book because it is so well formated and written. In that way, it is almost hard to outgrow.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What do you expect?, September 30, 2005
This review is from: Exploring Chemical Analysis (Paperback)
This is an analytical chemistry textbook, not exactly the most thrilling of chemical disciplines. (unless you are an analytical chemist). It explains things fairly well, and the problems are at the end of the chapters are pretty similar to what you would find on the ACS test for analytical chemistry. The author has a sense of humor and randomly inserts jokes in some of the material. I believe this is the most popular of textbooks for analytical/quantitative chemistry courses.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good examples, hidden humor, August 13, 2003
By A Customer
Step by step examples help tremendously with learning the problem-solving techniques used in this book. I also love the random goofiness found at points in the text. It made me almost want to read the whole thing just to find the funny stuff!
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