1.2 What is this not?

There are a couple of things that I want to explicitly say that this material is not. These include:

• A substitute for coming to class — I will take attendance anyway, but not attending class and relying on this material is not a good plan. Please do not do this.

• A full substitute for the textbook — In a number of places, the textbook contains substantially more details than I am able to provide here. In my experience, it is also useful to have different “voices” that you can refer to (e.g., you may find my explanation unclear but may find the textbook much clearer). The textbook also contains substantially more material than what I provide in these notes. If there are additional topics in the textbook that we do not cover that you would like to learn about, these should all be understandable for you by the end of this semester.

• Sufficient for making good grades on exams — I don’t suspect that it will be a good strategy to rely exclusively on the material provided here in order to do well on the exams. I think this material should be helpful and perhaps even a good starting point when it comes to studying, but it is not sufficient for making a good grade in the class.