Precalculus 1: An Investigation of Functions

The first half of the second edition of Precalculus: An Investigation of Functions. This is an open textbook, available free online. This first portion of the book (Chapters 1-4) is an investigation of functions, exploring the graphical behavior of, interpretation of, and solutions to problems involving linear, polynomial, rational, exponential, and logarithmic functions. An emphasis is placed on modeling and interpretation, as well as the important characteristics needed in calculus.
Over the years, when reviewing books we found that many had been mainstreamed by the publishers in an effort to appeal to everyone, leaving them with very little character. There were only a handful of books that had the conceptual and application driven focus we liked, and most of those were lacking in other aspects we cared about, like providing students sufficient examples and practice of basic skills. The largest frustration, however, was the never ending escalation of cost and being forced into new editions every three years. We began researching open textbooks, however the ability for those books to be adapted, remixed, or printed were often limited by the types of licenses, or didn’t approach the material the way we wanted.