Parentheses

Paul Horstmeyer 9th Grade

Simplifying

Distributive Property

Intervals

Simplifying

When you need to simplify an expression, you have to follow an Order of Operations. An operation is a mathematical action, like addition or multiplication. This order matters, and is always the same. This order is commonly referred to as P.E.M.D.A.S. This is an acronym formed from the first letter of each operation. The P stands for parentheses, which is the first operation. So, in other words, you will deal with everything inside the parentheses first. If there arent any parentheses, then move on to the E.

Distributive Property
Parentheses play a large role in multiplication. One common multiplication technique used with parentheses is the distributive property. The distributive property requires two things: (1) Two or more terms inside of parentheses, and (2) an expression (like a number or variable) sitting on the outside of the parentheses.

Here, you can see that the blue a is the expression sitting outside the parentheses, and the b and c are two terms inside the parentheses. Every part needed is present. So, according to the distributive property, a will be multiplied by the b and the c.

Intervals
Parentheses are used in denoting intervals. Different types of parentheses create different types of intervals. The two types used are the normal parentheses like ( and ), while the other type is commonly referred to as brackets, shown as [ and ]. This is the main difference between the two types: Parentheses are used when the interval does not include the outer number, while a bracket is used when the interval does. For example, the interval 1<x<4 would be shown as (1,4). While the interval 2x 5 would be denoted with brackets, like so: [2,5].

Citation Slide
Slide 2 Equation example: http://www.coolmath.com/prealgebra/05-order-ofoperations/images/order-of-operations-05-03.gif

Slide 2 PEMDAS example: http://www.webquest.hawaii.edu/kahihi/mathdictionary/images/PEMDAS.png

Slide 3 graphic: http://www.coolmath.com/prealgebra/06-properties/images/05properties-distributive-03.gif