Hi Arthur,

Factoring by grouping is convenient when there is no common factor among all your terms.

Take for example:

xy + 2y + 3x + 6

There is nothing common to all 4 of these terms, so we can try to factor by grouping instead.

Split the quadratic into 2 groups:

xy+2y

3x+6

Now factor each of these 2 groups:

y(x+2)

3(x+2)

Since the (x+2) is common to both this can be factored out:

(x+2)(y+3)