Chemical Principles: Chemical Principles Student Text

Description

Known for helping students develop the qualitative, conceptual foundation that gets them thinking like chemists, this market-leading text is designed for students with solid mathematical preparation and prior exposure to chemistry. The unique organization of the text supports this qualitative-to-quantitative approach. A strong emphasis on models and everyday applications of chemistry combines with a thoughtful, step-by-step problem solving approach to build conceptual understanding.

My sense is that the topics are pitched at an appropriate level. The writing style is crisp and to the point whereas the art, tables, and end of chapter problems nicely support the written text. The writing style is lucid, direct, precise, and non-verbose. Some other introductory chemistry texts adopt a verbose presentation with the attendant loss of clarity. The students who are floundering and to whom I have recommended Zumdahl invariably come away with an enhanced understanding of the relevant chemical concepts after a thorough encounter with this text. This is the singular text that does not compromise discipline of mind and contains flashes of insight and brilliance reminiscent of the Linus Pauling series of introductory texts, and yet is conceptually and algebraically accessible to most students with a good background in high school chemistry.