MA001: College Algebra

In the next few sections, you will begin to strengthen your ability to graph functions without the aid of a graphing tool and without having to do a lot of algebra. You will learn some basic transformations that can be done to the graphs of the toolkit functions to make more complex functions. For example, we can take the graph of the square root function $f(x) = \sqrt{x}$, shift it to the left or right, and determine the resulting equation. Conversely we can begin with the equation of $f(x) = \sqrt{x-2}$ and determine what has been done to the graph of $f(x) = \sqrt{x}$ without doing a lot of algebra.