Homework Guidelines
The graders and I will attempt to carefully grade your
work, and give you feedback on it so that you can improve
your skills. This is time consuming work, but is an important
part of your learning in this course. Evaluating student's
work is made more difficult (or impossible) when
it is sloppily written, when there are loose pages, when there are
many words crossed out, etc. So you have to do your part
to help us evaluate your work efficiently. Your homework must
conform to the following rules:
-
Work should be written on 8.5" x 11" paper without
ragged edges. If you tear pages out of a spiral notebook,
be sure to cut off the ragged edges with a scissors.
-
Your name should appear at the top of each page. Pages should
be numbered and stapled together.
- You should have a cover page which gives your name
and a table of contents consisting of three columns.
In the first
column, all of the problems should be
listed in the order in which they appear on the assignment,
In the second column, you should put the page number
of your homework on which your solution
can be found, or "not done" if you didn't do the problem.
The third column should be left blank for the grader to record scores.
- The cover page should also include a list of any acknowledgements
of help you received on the assignment. See the discussion below
concerning collaboration on homework.
- Your work should be presented neatly and legibly. Homework
prepared on a word processor is encouraged.
After writing
out your homework, you should check it for readability, and, if
necessary, rewrite it.
-
In the case of problems with a short answer, it is not enough
to only give the answer. You must
include enough additional information (explanations, diagrams, etc.)
to justify your answer.
- Make sure that all the rules of English grammar (including
those of spelling and punctuation) are strictly obeyed.
- Each problem should be followed by an "Acknowledgement"
that provides the contributions of others (including
the instructor, tutors, other students, or books) to your solution.
See the discussion below about collaborating on homework.
For example, you might say "Acknowledgement: Phil Smith explained the
problem statement to me"
or "Acknowledgement: I discussed this problem
with Jennifer Jones" or "Acknowledgement: Professor Sills got
me started on this problem" or "Acknowledgement: I found a problem
like this worked out in the book Isn't Math Wonderful by A. Bacus."
If you worked entirely on your own
you should write "Acknowledgements: none".
Written work that deviates significantly from these requirements
may be rejected as "unacceptable".
Policy on collaboration in homework.
Obtaining
written work pertaining to a homework problem
from another individual
is cheating and
will be treated as such.
On the other hand, discussing classwork with others is
a valuable and
legitimate way to learn. To keep this distinction clear,
students must follow the following guidelines:
-
Absolutely no written work
pertaining to an assignment is to be given to
or obtained from others.
You may discuss problems with others, but the final write-up of
your solutions should be done completely independently.
-
Discussions about a problem, hints received, etc.
(including office hour hints) are to
be acknowledged on your paper as described in the "Proper Homework
Format" list above.
Failure to properly acknowledge help
received on homework may be taken as evidence of cheating.
Note: These guidelines for homework preparation were prepared by
Professor Michael Saks (the course coordinator) and used with his permission.