As mentioned earlier, Gauss’s law is useful in determining electric fields when the charge distribution is characterized by a high degree of symmetry. The following examples demonstrate ways of choosing the gaussian surface over which the surface integral given by Equation 24.6 can be simplified and the electric field determined. In choosing the surface, we should always take advantage of the symmetry of the charge distribution so that we can remove E from the integral and solve for it. The goal in this type of calculation is to determine a surface that satisfies one or more of the following conditions: