Order of Operations Example

Question

I am currently writing a textbook for algebra. I am designing this book for the students as oppose to other textbooks that are designed for the faculty. The audience of this book is for an advanced high school student or someone taking college level algebra.

I am working on the order of operations section, and would like to know what you think of the following example:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4362182/ordero...

Let me know what you think? Is it helpful ?

If you have any suggestions please let me know.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Honestly, algebra itself makes very little sense to me :) but I'll have my son (currently taking algebra) and my husband take a look at it sometime tomorrow and post more then!

Edit - will do!  They're on a Scout activity tomorrow, so it will likely be early evening before they're home to do so. :)

Answer 2

It may be technically correct and pull in all of the rules for order of operations (I didn't proof-read it), but I'd just question if such an elaborate example is realistic or needed. Will a student or anybody encounter such a monster anywhere other than a textbook? There must be more realistic examples. The second example looked like pretty standard fare for that topic. FWIW I'm a math dept. chair at a public school.