Algebra Math Help

Can someone explain how to graph polynomial functions in detail? ?

My book does not only describe it correctly, or very easy for me follow. My Algebra 2 book sucks. It makes everything more difficult. If you have or have had a book-McDougal Littell and you know what I mean. Please help me! I have researched a bit on and all tutoring sites given was tutorials.I college and my course 'm the Internet only in high school! any good link or detailed descriptions would be greatly appreciated!

That's not an easy question to answer in a forum like this. About all I can do is give you some advice. A good first step is to learn the relationship between algebraic and geometric animal one. There are basic forms that may be associated with the degree of the polynomial. For example, constants (0 degrees) are horizontal lines. Linear equations (the highest power = 1) as y = 3x + 2 are straight lines. You will cross the x-axis once. Quadratic (more power = 2) are parables. You will cross the x-axis at most twice. Cubics (more power = 3) cross the x axis than three times and so on. All this relates to the fact that a polynomial will have as many roots as the number of times that its graph crosses the x-axis That having has been said, the next best thing you do is determine the intercepts. The intersection is easy, as all you have to do is plug in 0 for x. Get the intersections x requires that the entire function set equal to 0 and find the roots. If the function is quadratic or less, that's easy. If cubic or higher, which may be a bit harsh. This is part of why their teachers of algebra has devoted much time to teach the factors. If you can factor the function, which is several steps for good in discovering the roots. Two theorems which should be familiar as they are key to finding roots of polynomials of higher order. Descartes rule of signs and rational root theorem. The Rule of signs tells you how many roots to find – the number of positive, how many negative, how many complexes. A positive result obviously indicates a positive number for an x-intercept. A negative result indicates a negative number. A complex root indicates a place where the increases function or descend to the x-axis, but turns before arriving. Rational main theorem provides a way to identify all the rational roots of a polynomial. If the polynomial has irrational roots, this theorem will not find them and that is enough on its own, but just getting the rational roots is often enough so you can find the rest. I do not go into any of the theorems here, because this answer is too long already, but are almost certainly in your book, and you can google if necessary. In fact, once you have roots and a sense of the shape of the graph, you can get a pretty good qualitative sketch of the graph. There are techniques you'll learn in the calculation that allows you to get down with precision, but I think we can skip for now. The other only thing I would say is that, as tedious as it is, it's easy if you keep working on it. Just look for general trends. Good luck.

Algebra: Introduction to Algebra