Matrix Canonical Forms : Notational Skills and Proof Techniques

This material is a rewriting of notes handed out by me to beginning graduate students in seminars in combinatorial mathematics (Department of Mathematics, University of California San Diego). Topics covered in this seminar were in algebraic and algorithmic combinatorics. Solid skills in linear and multilinear algebra were required of students in these seminars - especially in algebraic combinatorics. I developed these notes to review the students' undergraduate linear algebra and improve their proof skills. We focused on a careful development of the general matrix canonical forms as a training ground.