Consistent with its approach, interesting applications featuring real world data in the form of ordered pairs, tables, bar and line graphs, and equations have been incorporated throughout the book.The book includes in-depth coverage of "true" college algebra topics. New to this edition and consistent with current teaching practices is the early introduction of graphing lines in a rectangular coordinate system and functions in Chapter 3. This organization provides readers/students with increased exposure to basic graphing and function concepts, an integral part of later mathematics courses, as they study polynomial, rational, and radical expressions in Chapters 4-6. Chapters 8-10 provide comprehensive coverage of additional graphing and function topics.