Knowing the Network Function (NF) pertaining to a certain input-output couple individuated inside a linear electrical network (LEN) is crucial, as it provides a synthetic and effective description of the input-output relationship and allows one to derive several key features of the subject system as well as to devise proper strategies to modify them. From a mathematical point of view, an NF may be expressed as the product of a real number, called the gain constant (GC), by a real rational function of the complex variables, whose numerator and denominator are called the zero polynomial (ZP) and the characteristic polynomial (CP), respectively, and may be obtained by calculating the determinants of proper matrices. However, when a design-oriented symbolic hand analysis is needed, calculating the said polynomials in this manner may turn out to be tediously cumbersome; and above all, such a route may fail to illuminate the way that their coefficients depend on the circuit elements. The same may be said of numerical computer methods, which are suited to providing a global description of the NF in the frequency domain rather than analytical expressions of its coefficients. In this paper, a method is proposed that permits one to obtain the ZP without calculating any determinants. With respect to other methods that achieve the same goal, the present one does not require prior calculation of the CP or a nullator-norator pair (NNP) to be compulsorily inserted in the subject circuit. Instead, it is based on applying the Andreani-Mattisson extension (AME) of the Cochrun-Grabel algorithm (CGA) for the calculation of the CP to a circuit obtained from the assigned one by inserting in the latter a proper dependent source. The nature of such new circuit allows the worker to employ the classical tools of LEN theory so as to make the analysis as simple as possible and often performable by straightforward inspection, without the need for possibly involved equilibrium equations. Moreover, it is shown how the same technique can be applied to a properly modified version of the original network in order to calculate the CP as well. In this case (not compulsorily but if judged convenient for simplifying the calculations), a NNP may be employed in conjunction with the dependent source. The proposed method once again allows one to exploit the classic tools of LEN theory so as to considerably, if not drastically, simplify the analysis associated with the direct application of the AME to the original network. Finally, the calculation of the GC (that completes the knowledge of the whole NF under study) as well as circuit degeneracy are discussed and practical examples of application of the proposed techniques are given. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.