[Help Write] AN Community Maths Textbook

[qazser]

Hey AN mathematicians and anyone else reading this,

What's happening?
I'm compiling an AN community textbook for Maths Methods 3/4 and Specialist Maths 1/2 & 3/4 and need the help of the community to contribute to writing it.

Why I'm Doing this?
Pi and Brenden once described AN as "a place that levels the playing grounds for those who want to achieve their dream uni path/careers/goals, regardless of the school you go to or your financial background". They said AN doesn't charge for lectures because charging a mere $5, which could be nothing for some of us, means alot in the decision of a financially disadvantaged student if they would like to attend.On Lecture day, $20 AN notes were sold. Brenden quotes "I asked them if they wanted the note. They smiled sheepishly before saying no." Furthermore, the textbooks we use (Essentials/Quest/Zealous's little guide) cover topics in too much mathematical jargon or doesn't go in depth enough into topics might hinder the learning of the mathematical community out there. This textbook written by the community aims to bridge that gap. Community written, using our understanding of the topics, i hope we will be able to lend a student's insight into topics to aid in your learning.

Release Date
We (the AN community) intend to release the textbook before next year's lectures. So far, the intent to do this so far in advance is due to the fact that Statistics has recently been introduced and we have not much experience with this (except Eulerfan). It is intended for the AN community to check through this textbook and edit it as a community before releasing it at next year's lectures.

Monetising
I don't intend to offend Zealous or SilverPixeli or anyone else out there but i hope AN might print this out and sell it at next year's lectures for $5, which should be affordable for most people. All proceeds go to charity or the development of the AN site.

What the community can do to help
This is a community textbook, not my textbook. I only intend to compile it, and write sections of it that i feel i am confident with.

Format
LaTeX

Need 5 editors to mathematically edit each page of the textbook to make sure it makes sense, fits within study design requirements, grammatically right etc.

Methods' Drafts
AN Methods Textbook Drafts

Live PDF of Method's Textbook
https://www.sharelatex.com/project/570490f93482ef051e0ba83b/output/output.pdf

[qazser]

Maths Methods 3/4

Topics written or under writing:

Orson - Polynomial Long Division (W)
Qazser - Rational Root Theorem  (F)
Qazser - Synthetic Division          (F)
Qazser - Polynomial Division by Inspection (F)
Qazser - Equating Coefficients (W)
Qazser - Types of Numbers (F)
Qazser - Notation Set/Interval (W)
Wyzard- Arithmetic of Functions (F)
Wyzard - Composite & Inverse Functions (W)

(W) - Writing
(F)  - Finished
(E)  - Edited
 

PM me or just reply below to pick a topic you would wish to write

[qazser]

Specialist Maths In General 1/2 & 3/4

Syndicate - Complex Numbers (W)
ZSteve - Vectors (F)

(W) - Writing
(F)  - Finished
(E)  - Edited
 
PM me or just reply below to pick a topic you would wish to write

[Syndicate]

Specialist Maths 1/2

Nothing As Yet

PM me or just reply below to pick a topic you would wish to write

I can help with that 
I have already finished most of my specialist 1/2 (except trig and graphing), and had a look at 3/4 questions from my finished topics. I will PM you further about the topics, I can asist with 

[qazser]

I can help with that 
I have already finished most of my specialist 1/2 (except trig and graphing), and had a look at 3/4 questions from my finished topics. I will PM you further about the topics, I can asist with 

Pick any topic, will discuss via PM

[Syndicate]

Pick any topic, will discuss via PM

Alright, I can start with Complex Numbers 

[qazser]

Alright, I can start with Complex Numbers 

Added In

[odeaa]

I'd like to help, PM coming your way kind sir

Also, I think it would look much better and more professional if it was compiled in tex (just my opinion, word is still pretty good these days)

[qazser]

I'd like to help, PM coming your way kind sir

Also, I think it would look much better and more professional if it was compiled in tex (just my opinion, word is still pretty good these days)

Been playing with Latex, will take it into consideration Thanks in advance btw, i'm off on a 10k run (yeah its rainy) so wont be on for next hour

[pi]

Whilst I think this project is a neat idea, please make sure this is coming second to your own personal VCE studies at all times

[qazser]

Whilst I think this project is a neat idea, please make sure this is coming second to your own personal VCE studies at all times

Its kinda like passive learning Ty Pi

[Syndicate]

Whilst I think this project is a neat idea, please make sure this is coming second to your own personal VCE studies at all times

Contributers can also use this opportunity cleverly, and revise whilst creating the book 

[Alwin]

Hey guys,

Many of you may not know me - I was quite an old user and now spend most of my time lurking not posting  . But I saw this thread and though you I should share my experience with you:

• qazser: It's a very nice idea and I love it! I love it so much that if you look back through the notes section of ATAR Notes (SAC 1 Revision Notes) you'll actually find I was doing a similar thing during my year 12, but breaking my notes up for individual SACs. It does take a lot of time, trust me. I only uploaded SAC 1 & 2 as the rest were only half-attempts and were only decent enough to share with school friends.
  Like pi said, you need to make sure that VCE comes first, there is plenty of time to give back after you finish your schooling
  
  
• If you want to continue, I would highly recommend using LaTeX, or at the very least LyX. I did my SAC notes in word and it takes forever, compared to when I was using LyX to help thush write the methods notes last year. I'm also helping standardise lecture notes (HSC and VCE) this year for AN, and LaTeX is all I'm using. There are also online web apps that let you share and co-write LaTeX or LyX (ShareLaTeX and rollApp come to mind). LaTeX means you can concentrate about writing content and worry about formatting later on (whereas Word you have to fix up like every other line as you go.
  
  
• You will need help. Think about the kind of people needed to produce a book - writers, maths editors, english editors, typesetting specialists, graphics designers, etc etc. If you really want to make this happen, make sure you have a good, skilled team I'd love to help out, but I'm hard pressed at ATAR Notes at the moment to get work done here. You may also need someone to thing about costings... $5 per book sounds very cheap (unless it's a very thin textbook < 50 pages, in which case the AN lecture notes would probably already have more content then the community textbook?)
  
  
• Lastly, try use all available resources if you want to make this happen. There was a time where I thought about writing some code to trawl the maths forums to collect and create a database of past questions/answers, but gave up because of the complexity. You can probably already find many great resources on the forums already and the most useful ones can be found in the stickied resources threads. I'm sure if you asked  the original users nicely (if they're still active) if you can use parts of their guides, they'd be fine with it.
  

This wasn't meant to discourage you, it was just me sharing my opinion and my own experiences. It will be very tough if you want to get it all done during year 12. Don't feel guilty if you decide, along the way, that you need to take a break from writing the textbook to concentrate on your own studies -- scribbling down revision notes for just yourself and writing up a document you know is going to published are two very different things. I would be almost tempted to say that you may even learn less, because you are focusing on trying to make others understand your written content, rather than you trying to understand the content thoroughly.

Good luck with it If you have any questions, message me or reply to my post. I'll respond when I see it

[brenden]

An admirable and massive initiative. I will just say that the print cost for such a textbook would probably approach $20 so it would likely have to be distributed electronically.

[odeaa]

Would deffs have to be an online thing if it was gonna be that cheap, otherwise it would need to be like $40 to be feasible