Product Description
The world’s best-selling introduction to the tools and techniques of analytical chemistry is back in a new edition. Thoroughly revised and including cutting-edge research methods, the book retains the author’s witty, personable writing style of the earlier editions. It is loaded with real-life examples, beginning with a chemical analysis of how much caffeine is in a chocolate bar, and includes many more problems – hundreds on CD-ROM along with spreadsheet data files… More >>
Quantitative Chemical Analysis
Tags: analytical chemistry, cd rom, chocolate bar, cutting edge research, new edition, personable, quantitative chemical analysis, research methods, spreadsheet data, writing style
#1 by E. G. Olmstead on June 26, 2010 - 9:52 am
One of the best written textbooks in any area of chemistry. Here is a measure of the quality of this book. When I was graduate school, most of our research group owned a copy of Harris and we kept it on our shelves for handy reference. We had all purchased it as undergraduates but kept it because we LIKED it and found it so darn useful. It is an excellent general reference for anybody whose work involves chemical analysis. The tables of acid dissociation constants and redox half-potentials are some of the most extensive you will find any textbook.
When I first started teaching, I used Skoog & West on the basis of my predecessor’s recommendation. However, during my first semester, I found myself constantly referring to Harris because of its clear explainations and good examples. In the second semester, I conducted a head-to-head competition with students reading a chapter on the same material from both Harris and from Skoog. The overwhelming student preference was for Harris and I have used it in my classes ever since. Readers who don’t like Harris aren’t going to be happy with any analytical chemistry textbook.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by D. Lancaster on June 26, 2010 - 12:26 pm
I just took a class that required this textbook, and I used the 6th edition instead of the 7th, and there was only one difference…. in the 6th edition, 2 topics were seperated into 2 different chapters, and in the 7th the two topics were combined into one chapter… If your a student and need this book for class, save yourself some money and buy the 6th edition. The word and homework problems are identical.
Rating: 3 / 5
#3 by Doc Bailey on June 26, 2010 - 2:53 pm
This book has become the new standard for both quantatitive and instrumental analysis courses. Goodby, Skoog!
The textbook (in different editions) has been used for our Quantatitive Analysis course for several years, with excellent results.
I am currently adopting it for my Instrumental Methods of Analysis course. Although I will need to suppliment some material (FTNMR is not covered, for example), the main important instrumental techniques ARE covered very well – straight and to the point!
As for the prior poor reviews, well the problem seems to me to be in the student, not the textbook!
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by teva_man on June 26, 2010 - 5:31 pm
Jeez, I can’t believe some people don’t like this text! It’s always been one of my faves, and ditto for my colleagues! In all the years I was in school, I never ran across a text that was written with such a friendly tone, and simultaneously discussed difficult concepts so clearly. Harris’ discussions of acid/base and complexometric chemistry is particularly nice, and he even goes out of his way to discuss the preparation of around 30 a/b indicator solutions. Not something you’d find in every text! The problems given at the end of each chapter were great and usually very fun to do (as opposed to Pchem problems, which always made me want to shoot myself). The new edition (1998) was a nice expansion of the previous ones, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. BRAVO, Daniel!
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Anonymous on June 26, 2010 - 6:04 pm
When I was an undergraduate student, the reference text was Chimie Analytique Generale by Gaston Charlot (which is quite an antique, completely unexplained, but problems are OK). But when I really needed a clearly explanation, no other book could match Harris. It’s clear, yet fully explained, and it’s miles better than any Quantitative Chemical Analysis book (e.g. Skoog, Christian, among many others). It covers not only “classic techniques, e.g. titrimetric techniques acid-base equilibria, gravimetric methods, titrimetric analysis by complex with EDTA, among others, but it can also be adapted to Instrumental Methods courses (but, at some point, some additional material must be supplemented).Thanks to that book, I happened to learn quite a lot, and I used it for 4 semesters in Analytical Chemistry. If you don’t like this one, you probably won’t like any other Quantitative Chemical Analysis textbook. Now that I’m a practicing chemist, I’m still amazed that this book has never abandoned my desk because is an excellent reference work. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Analytical Chemistry.
Rating: 5 / 5