Sometimes we want to add the terms of a sequence. What would we get if we wanted to add
the first n terms of an arithmetic progression? We would get
Sn = a + (a + d) + (a + 2d) + . . . + (ℓ − 2d) + (ℓ − d) + ℓ .
Now this is now a series, as we have added together the n terms of a sequence. This is an
arithmetic series, and we can find its sum by using a trick. Let us write the series down again,
but this time we shall write it down with the terms in reverse order. We get
Sn = ℓ + (ℓ − d) + (ℓ − 2d) + . . . + (a + 2d) + (a + d) + a .