Authors Paula McKenna and Honey Kirk hail from the state of Texas, where they teach students of all ages, skill sets, and backgrounds. As active teachers in diverse classrooms, their aim is to provide developmental students with a solid mathematical foundation, while also giving them the means to expand on that foundation after they leave the classroom. As authors, they help students build their mathematical foundation by teaching algebra as a story, emphasizing applications, problem solving, and language to help students understand how topics relate to one another and to the world around them. They begin this book with a thorough review of prealgebra to ensure that students begin building their algebra skills on a solid base, and each chapter opens with an application that serves as a running theme for the content throughout the chapter. The authors make problem solving easy for students through the "4 P's" problem-solving process (Prepare, Plan, Process, and Ponder), which encourages critical thinking and thoughtful discussion. Review of Real Numbers and Problem Solving; Equations and Inequalities in One Variable and Applications; Linear Equations, Inequalities, and Introduction to Functions; Linear Systems of Equations and Inequalities; Exponents, Polynomials, and Applications; Factoring Polynomials; Rational Expressions; Roots and Radicals; Functions; Complex Numbers and Quadratic Equations; Conic Sections; Inverse, Exponential and Logarithmic Functions For all readers interested in algebra.