Sawyer's Internal Auditing: The Practice of Modern Internal Auditing

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing update to a classic book
Review: I am currently using this book to teach a college-level class in internal auditing. I initially chose it over Brink's Modern Internal Auditing (which I thought was very good but which was written at a rather high reading level) because 1) it was newer and less expensive for my students; 2) it purported to cover Sarbanes-Oxley; and 3) the previous edition was very good and I expected the same or better from the new edition.

However, what I found was that the new material was apparently thrown in without much attempt to integrate it with the original material. Many of the new sections are basically each a review of a single article. Therefore, there is language such as this in the section on Risk Disclosure Considerations in the Risk Assessment Chapter:

The writer analyzes FASB 5 and AcSEC SOP 94-6 in providing descriptive language that should be of interest to internal auditors . . . The writer suggests that inasmuch as the above disclosure taxonomy is incident to organizational management . . .

It is not a standard approach to refer to *the writer* and creates some confusion among my students.

Another problem with this approach is that some of the articles reviewed overlap with other textbook material, so there is a lot of redundancy. In some cases, it is rather shocking that a better editing job was not performed.

I agree with a previous review about the end-of-chapter questions. They are often not covered in the text. It is quite difficult to even guess how some of the questions were determined to belong with a particular chapter. As an instructor, a test bank would have been helpful also. The previous edition did have one; this does not.

Having said that, I will continue using this textbook until I'm sure I've found something better. It is definitely comprehensive! Many of my students enjoy Sawyer's trademark, colorful prose. However, I have gotten the comment from several students that the book must have been designed as a handbook for experienced auditors rather than as a textbook because it is so different from anything they have experienced.

Rating:
Summary: Test portion an abortion
Review: I have not only read the book, but taken the test portions that go along with it. It gives a good history of internal auditing for those new to the auditing field. It is also helpful to those with a moderate degree of experience. However, you will need to take the course from the USDA in order to find out what the chapter review answers are. I speculate 90% of them are just to vague! Other chapter review questions will not known until after you have read a chapter ahead. Example, some of the answers to chapter 2 review you will find from reading chapter 3. In chapter 23's test review if I recall, most of the answers come from chapter 22 etc. I did find it in my heart to give the book a 3 star because the information was helpful, but I would wait until 5th edition. As far as I know the course is not worth any college credit but should be good for CPE credit.

Rating:
Summary: Test portion an abortion
Review: I have not only read the book, but taken the test portions that go along with it. It gives a good history of internal auditing for those new to the auditing field. It is also helpful to those with a moderate degree of experience. However, you will need to take the course from the USDA in order to find out what the chapter review answers are. I speculate 90% of them are just to vague! Other chapter review questions will not known until after you have read a chapter ahead. Example, some of the answers to chapter 2 review you will find from reading chapter 3. In chapter 23's test review if I recall, most of the answers come from chapter 22 etc. I did find it in my heart to give the book a 3 star because the information was helpful, but I would wait until 5th edition. As far as I know the course is not worth any college credit but should be good for CPE credit.

Rating:
Summary: Sawyers Internal Auditing
Review: I used this text for a performance auditing class. It is an excellant book. It contains more information than a person could learn in one class, we only went through about half the book. It is a must for anyone interested in becoming an internal auditor. It is easy to understand, and follows a logical format.

Rating:
Summary: Sawyers Internal Auditing
Review: I used this text for a performance auditing class. It is an excellant book. It contains more information than a person could learn in one class, we only went through about half the book. It is a must for anyone interested in becoming an internal auditor. It is easy to understand, and follows a logical format.

Rating:
Summary: Stay away. You'll get more from a "Hardy Boys" book.
Review: One of the worst text books I have ever had to suffer through. The verbage seems to come from some one who would rather be writing bad novels and doesn't want anybody to really understand what's being said. Furthermore, the review questions at the end of each chapter, in many cases, had nothing to do with the chapter they follow or even any information in the book itself on occasion. The remaining questions are written so vaguely you have to spend twice as long searching back through the text as it took to read it in the first place just to find something that resembles what the question is asking. It took me four days to read three chapters and finish the review questions at the end of two and I have no idea if I learned anything because the answer key is no where to be found. I can say this though, it may be vague and useless for a new learner, but at least it's longwinded and tiresome.

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: THIS IS A MAGNIFICIANT BOOK FOR CIA.