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Practice This! Boxes (see pages 60, 191, and 274). Most chapters include at least one Practice This! box. which takes a particular chapter issue and shows how it is being used right now in everyday financia1 decision making.

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Industry Insight Boxes (see pages 72, 241, and 337). Hershey Chocolate North America is highlighted throughout the text in a unique series of boxes that apply key topics to an actual company setting. Written by Samuel C. Weaver, Director, Financia1 Planning and Analysis, of Hershey Chocolate North America, this series gives students the opportunity to explore the application of corporate finance topics, such as capital budgeting, stock repurchase and dividend policy, through a financial planner's eyes.

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Calculator Hints and Spreadsheet Strategies (see pages 94, 120, and 152). Realizing that there is more than one way to solve problems in corporate finance, we introduce two new sections that will not only encourage students to learn different problem-solving methods, but that will also help them to learn or brush up on their financial calculator and ExcelÔ spreadsheet skills. Calculator Hints is a self-contained section in various chapters that first introduces students to calculator basics and then illustrates how to solve problems with the calculator. Appendix D goes into more detail by solving the problems with two specific calculators. The unique Spreadsheet Strategies feature is also in self-contained sections and shows students how to set up spreadsheets to solve problems -- a vital part of every business student's education.

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FAST Problems (see pages 105, 200, and 283). Almost every chapter ends with a list of problems that are linked to the Financial Analysis Spreadsheet Templates (FAST) software product packaged with every book purchased from Irwin/McGraw-Hill. These ExcelÔ templates are a valuable extension of the Spreadsheet Strategies feature.

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Highlighted Phrases (see pages 12, 156, and 215). Throughout the text, important ideas are presented separately and printed in a green box to indicate their importance to the students.

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Pedagogical Use of Color (see pages 59, 212, and 221). We use a full color palette in Essentials not only to make the text more inviting, but, more importantly, to use as a functional element to help students follow the discussion. In almost every chapter, color plays an important, largely self-evident role. A guide to the use of color is found on the endsheets.

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Concept Building (see pages 52, 153, and 223). Chapter sections are intentionally kept short to promote a step-by-step, building block approach to learning. Each section is then followed by a series of short concept questions that highlight the key ideas just presented. Students use these questions to make sure they can identify and understand the most important concepts as they read.

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Summary Tables (see pages 62, 66, and 101). These tables succinctly restate key principles, results, and equations. They appear whenever it is useful to emphasize and summarize a group of related concepts.

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Numbered Examples (see pages 58, 127, and 209). Separate numbered and titled examples are extensively integrated into the chapters. These examples provide detailed applications and illustrations of the text material in a step-by-step format. Each example is completely self-contained so that students don't have to search for additional information. Based on our classroom testing, these examples are among the most useful learning aids because they provide both detail and explanation.

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Key Terms (see pages 53, 128, and 236). These are printed in red the first time they appear. These terms are defined within the text and in the margin.

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Key Equations (see pages 54, 124, and 180). These are called out in the text and identified by equation numbers. Appendix B shows the key equations by chapter.

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Chapter Summary and Conclusions (see pages 73, 134, and 249). These paragraphs review the chapter’s key points and provide closure to the chapter.

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Chapter Review and Self- Test Problems (see pages 73, 134, and 249). Review and self-test problems appear after the chapter summaries. Detailed answers to the self-test problems immediately follow. These questions and answers allow students to test their abilities in solving key problems related to the content of the chapter.

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End-of-Chapter Questions and Problems (see pages 76, 137, and 250). We have found that many students learn better when they have plenty of opportunity to practice. We therefore provide extensive end-of-chapter questions and problems. The questions and problems are generally segregated into two levels -- Basic and Intermediate. All problems are fully annotated so that students and instructors can readily identify particular types. Throughout the text, we have worked to supply interesting problems that illustrate real-world applications of chapter material. All problems in this edition are new or revised. Answers to selected end-of-chapter questions appear in Appendix C.

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