Free Textbooks

Perhaps one of the more important resources for a course is a textbook.  One difficulty with choosing a textbook for an introduction to proofs course is that there is no "standard" syllabus for the course.  Many colleges and universities develop their own version of this course.  That being said, there are several textbooks from which to choose and there are a growing number of free or low-cost textbooks.

A very good place to find free textbooks is the Open Textbook Initiative of the American Institute of Mathematics.  One of the books in the Introduction to Proofs section is the text that I have written, Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof.  The first edition of this book was published in 2003 by Pearson Eduction, Inc. and was initially developed as a textbook for the proofs course at Grand Valley State University, MTH 210 - Communicating in Mathematics.  The second edition was published in 2007, and I started developing a third edition sometime in 2009.   However, Pearson decided not to publish the third edition and so the copyright for the text has been returned to me.  I have decided to distribute the book through a Creative Commons License.  Anyone can dowload a free copy of the book (pdf) file through Grand Valley State University ScholarWorks.