Customer Reviews

Sawyer's Internal Auditing: The Practice of Modern Internal Auditing

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am currently using this book to teach a college-level class in internal auditing. I initially chose it over Brink's Modern Internal Auditing (which I thought was very good but which was written at a rather high reading level) because 1) it was newer and less expensive for my students; 2) it purported to cover Sarbanes-Oxley; and 3) the previous edition was very good and I expected the same or better from the new edition.

However, what I found was that the new material was apparently thrown in without much attempt to integrate it with the original material. Many of the new sections are basically each a review of a single article. Therefore, there is language such as this in the section on Risk Disclosure Considerations in the Risk Assessment Chapter:

The writer analyzes FASB 5 and AcSEC SOP 94-6 in providing descriptive language that should be of interest to internal auditors . . . The writer suggests that inasmuch as the above disclosure taxonomy is incident to organizational management . . .

It is not a standard approach to refer to *the writer* and creates some confusion among my students.

Another problem with this approach is that some of the articles reviewed overlap with other textbook material, so there is a lot of redundancy. In some cases, it is rather shocking that a better editing job was not performed.

I agree with a previous review about the end-of-chapter questions. They are often not covered in the text. It is quite difficult to even guess how some of the questions were determined to belong with a particular chapter. As an instructor, a test bank would have been helpful also. The previous edition did have one; this does not.

Having said that, I will continue using this textbook until I'm sure I've found something better. It is definitely comprehensive! Many of my students enjoy Sawyer's trademark, colorful prose. However, I have gotten the comment from several students that the book must have been designed as a handbook for experienced auditors rather than as a textbook because it is so different from anything they have experienced.

I find it absurd this is the flagship book of the IIA and they could not even bother to include, or make available, an answer key for the 400+ multiple choice questions contained in the book. This is especially ridiculous considering how often it is used as a textbook for auditing courses.

must have book for every internal auditor in the world. comprehensive and thick yet easy to understand each topic. to be as one of guidance for daily internal auditing work.

This book is very comprehensive but a little over bearing by size alone. However as a learning and reference book it is excellent.

THIS IS A MAGNIFICIANT BOOK FOR CIA.

This auditing book is the best that I have seen.

I will use this book as a wonderful refernece for as long as I own the book.

I used this text for a performance auditing class. It is an excellant book. It contains more information than a person could learn in one class, we only went through about half the book. It is a must for anyone interested in becoming an internal auditor. It is easy to understand, and follows a logical format.

One of the worst text books I have ever had to suffer through. The verbage seems to come from some one who would rather be writing bad novels and doesn't want anybody to really understand what's being said. Furthermore, the review questions at the end of each chapter, in many cases, had nothing to do with the chapter they follow or even any information in the book itself on occasion. The remaining questions are written so vaguely you have to spend twice as long searching back through the text as it took to read it in the first place just to find something that resembles what the question is asking. It took me four days to read three chapters and finish the review questions at the end of two and I have no idea if I learned anything because the answer key is no where to be found. I can say this though, it may be vague and useless for a new learner, but at least it's longwinded and tiresome.

This book is very useful for people working in internal audit field.