This book was written for dental and dental hygiene students as well as practicing general dentists and dental hygienists. It began as a revision of an earlier book, Dental Hygiene: The Detection and Removal of Calculus, written by Anna Matsuishi Pattison and Jacquelyn Behrens for the U.C.L.A. Allied Health Professions Projects. In planning the revision, however, it became evident that a book of much wider scope and depth was needed in dental education, one designed to systematically introduce both dental and dental hygiene students to the basic clinical procedures of periodontics: Hence, a new book with a new title, Periodontal Instrumentation: A Clinical Manual, was published in 1979. The acceptance of the first edition by the educational community has been most rewarding.