OK! I usually find the Lateral Area first. To do this you would take the outside side, not the circle bases. To find the LA you would do 2 times pi times the radius times the height of the cylinder, so 2πrh. THen you would find the SA of the bases, you would do pi times r squared, so πr^2. So, to find the SA of a cylinder, you would do 2πrh + πr^2
