Briggs/Cochran is the most successful new calculus series published in the last two decades. The authors' years of teaching experience resulted in a text that reflects how students generally use a textbook: they start in the exercises and refer back to the narrative for help as needed. The text therefore builds from a foundation of meticulously crafted exercise sets, then draws students into the narrative through writing that reflects the voice of the instructor, examples that are stepped out and thoughtfully annotated, and figures that are designed to teach rather than simply supplement the narrative. The authors appeal to students' geometric intuition to introduce fundamental concepts, laying a foundation for the rigorous development that follows.

This book covers chapters single variable topics (chapters 1-12) of Calculus for Scientists and Engineers, which is an expanded version of Calculus by the same authors.