Solving Quadratics
There are three ways in which you can solve quadratics – each method requires setting the quadratic to 0 first:
Factorising
This is the simplest method provided that the quadratic can be factorised.
Example:
Quadratic Formula
If a quadratic cannot be factorised but does have roots, then the quadratic formula will find them. Recall that the discriminant will tell you how many roots a quadratic has. See Discriminants page.
The quadratic formula says that if 
Completing the Square
This is another infallible method for finding roots if a quadratic can be solved. See Completing the Square page.
Example
Sketching Quadratics
Completing the square is also useful for sketching a quadratic. The reason for this is that, by writing the quadratic in completed square form, we can see the transformations applied to the graph of 
1. Find the roots using one of the above methods, roots occur when y=0.
2. Find the y-intercept, this occurs when x=0.
3. Find the coordinates of the vertex by completing the square and applying transformations to 
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