On a Problem of Dobrowolski and Williams and the Pólya-Vinogradov Inequality

In [2] E. Dobrowolski and K.S. Williams considered a problem of obtaining estimates for the sum _n=a+1 ^a+N f(n),for a certain class of functions f. One specific application of their result is a new method for estimating character sums. In particular, they obtain a form of the Pólya-Vinogradov inequality with the constant 1/(2 log 2). In this note we improve their estimates and obtain, in particular, a form of the Pólya-Vinogradov inequality with the constant 1/(3 log 3). A nice feature of our estimate is that it is obtained by a very simple argument.