Not a bad book for students confronting analog circuit analysis for the 1st time. The book should also provide a comfortable review for someone who has been away from the subject for awhile

It is obvious that some thought went into this work. The book is without calculus, but the EE student should appreciate the crisp & clean presentation & find it a good companion to a more advanced course. It is often the insight & approach to solving these basic analog circuit analysis problems that are most important at this time & this book should help in that regard. As opposed to many technical books by this publisher, I found few errors; however I have not worked many of the problems - which are numerous. The book follows the Schaum Outline format: bare-bones introduction of a subject with some of the meat contained in the problems. This can result in one needing another sentence or two in the text to fill a hold, as in the chapter on Phasors, for example.

I do think the PSpice circuit analysis is over played a bit. The author does introduce the old MS-DOS text based system (with little explanation) where circuit node files must be written, compiled & run. I suspect that since Windows 95 & the wide distribution of PSpice 8.0 with the schematic capture front end, these more recent & useful features would now be in use in most institutions & work places.

However, the book is well worth the price & covers most of the subjects usually encountered in a 1st semester course of beginning analog circuit analysis plus a good introduction to Op-Amps. I recommend the book.


Schaum's Outline of Basic Circuit Analysis by O'Malley   February 17, 2004
Joseph S. Maresca (Bronxville, New York USA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

This work contains many classic problems in the basic concepts,
resistance, temperature, series and parallel circuits,
bridging,operational amps, capacitors, inductors, sinusoidal
alternating voltage and current, complex algebra and phasors,
AC circuits, loops/nodals, power in AC circuits, transformers,
three-phase circuits, balanced loads and many classic areas
on the EIT examination. The work has a fairly comprehensive
treatment of operational amplifiers for the EIT exam.
EIT exam takers must review the Supplied Reference Manual
in electronics and utilize the engineering calculator effectively.


Ground Zero Review   March 27, 2005
T. M. Burke
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

This book is an excellent starting point for the basics of electrical engineering. 30 years after graduating, I started with this book in preparing for the Professional Engineering exam. Many problems, with solutions, which solidifies the basic theory.

The best $15 I have ever spent!


Excellent Textbook Companion   October 29, 2006
W. R. Wadley (Burke, VA, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I initially picked up this book to do remediation on my first circuit analysis course, and have continued to use it through the second course. I call the Shaum Series my "secret weapon" for doing well in EE classes (and physics too, actually). The few pages of exposition at the beginning of each chapter are clear, concise, and mostly complete (Electric Circuits by Nahvi is more rigorous), and the problems, half with detailed solutions and half with just answers, are on-topic, perfectly-tailored, and numerous.

If you are taking circuit analysis courses, EE or not, you would be a fool to not have this book in your bag.


Excellent supplement on the topic of circuit analysis   June 2, 2006
calvinnme
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

This is an excellent supplement for electrical technology and electrical engineering students taking a first course on circuit analysis. It is a particularly good companion to Boylestad's "Introductory Circuit Analysis", which is a standard circuit analysis text that has insufficient examples on several subjects. This outline starts with the analysis of DC resistive circuits, goes on to AC circuits, and also covers power circuits, transformers, and op-amps. There is a good chapter on complex numbers and phasors, an understanding of which is essential for the study of circuit analysis. There is no need of differential or integral calculus although the book uses derivatives in the chapters on capicitors, inductors, and transformers as needed for voltage-current relations. Even though there is not one integral shown in the book, the outline is still useful to engineers since circuit analysis courses mainly use only algebra.
This book also presents necessary tools such as PSPICE, the computer circuit analysis and simulation program for PC's. SPICE is the standard for analog circuit simulation across the electronics industry, and knowledge of its syntax is essential. The outline also covers the use of advanced scientific calculators in the context of solving actual problems.
Besides being a good source of examples and solved problems, this outline does a pretty good job of outlining the basic theory of circuit analysis. I highly recommend it.