vii G-W Integrated Learning Solution Together, We Build Careers At Goodheart-Willcox, we take our mission seriously. Since 1921, G-W has been serving the career and technical education (CTE) community. Our employee-owners are driven to deliver exceptional learning solutions to CTE students to help prepare them for careers. Our authors and subject matter experts have years of experience in the classroom and industry. We combine their wisdom with our expertise to create content and tools to help students achieve success. Our products start with theory and applied content based upon a strong foundation of accepted standards and curriculum. To that base, we add student-focused learning features and tools designed to help students make connections between knowledge and skills. G-W recognizes the crucial role instructors play in preparing students for careers. We support educators’ efforts by providing time-saving tools that help them plan, present, assess, and engage students with traditional and digital activities and assets. We provide an entire program of learning in a variety of print, digital, and online formats, including economic bundles, allowing educators to select the right mix for their classroom. Student-Focused Curated Content Goodheart-Willcox believes that student- focused content should be built from standards and/or accepted curriculum coverage. Standards from the American Welding Society were used as a foundation in this text. Welding Fundamentals also uses a modular approach, with different welding processes presented in discrete sections. Universal and essential information is presented in the fi rst section. The sections that follow present information about specifi c welding processes. This allows instructors to teach the material in the order that fi ts their curriculum. We call on industry experts and teachers from across the country to review and comment on our content, presentation, and pedagogy. Finally, in our refi nement of curated content, our editors are immersed in content checking, securing and sometimes creating fi gures that convey key information, and revising language and pedagogy. Precision Exams Certifi cation Goodheart-Willcox is pleased to partner with Precision Exams by correlating Welding Fundamentals to their Welding Technician, Entry Standards. Precision Exams Standards and Career Skill Exams were created in concert with industry and subject matter experts to match real-world job skills and marketplace demands. Students that pass the exam and performance portion of the exam can earn a Career Skills Certification™. Precision Exams provides: • Access to over 150 Career Skills Exams™ with pretest exams and posttest exams for all 16 Career Clusters. • Instant reporting suite access to measure student academic growth. • Easy-to-use, 100% online exam delivery system. To see how Welding Fundamentals correlates to the Precision Exams Standards, please visit www.g-w.com/ welding-fundamentals-2017 and click on the Correlations tab. For more information on Precision Exams, including a complete listing of their 150+ Career Skills Exams™ and Certificates, please visit www.precisionexams.com. Wavebreakmedia/istock.com