- "On my honor, I have neither given nor received unauthorized
aid in doing this assignment."
For purposes of preparing your hand-in homework, no aid that involves anything but your own brain, your textbook, your notes, and any handouts from me, is authorized. The "no aid" restriction doesn't apply until I have announced the hand-in date for a given problem. Up until that announcement, you're allowed to work with each other, ask me for help, etc.
But once the hand-in date for a homework problem is announced, you are on your own. Remember that you are supposed to do ALL assigned problems. It is very unwise to procrastinate, waiting to see which problems I'm going to require you to hand in, before deciding which problems to work on.
At all times, you are EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN from using online sources (other than materials I post for the class) to help you with your homework problems in any way. You are also EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN from using any other sources for this purpose, unless I give you specific permission. Any infringement of the spirit, not just the letter, of these restrictions, will be considered a violation of the Student Honor Code, and will result in your receiving a failing grade for the course.
Homework Rules
Homework will be collected at the beginning of the period on the announced hand-in day, and must be completed and stapled together before the start of the class period. Even when homework is well-written, reading and grading it is very time-consuming and physically difficult for your instructor. In order that this process not be more burdensome than it intrinsically needs to be:- The homework you hand in must be neat, and must either be typed or written in pen (not pencil!). I encourage, but do not require, you to typeset your homework in LaTeX; see below. Please do not turn in homework that is messy or has anything that's been erased and written over (or written over without erasing), making it harder to read. (Note: "written over without erasing" includes not just superimposing one letter written in ink on another, but writing something in pencil and then tracing over it in pen. The latter practice leads to an eye-straining "double vision" effect. Don't do it.) If you are writing on both sides of a sheet of paper, do not use paper/ink combinations for which the writing on one side of the paper shows on the other side. Anything that is difficult for me to read will be returned to you ungraded.
- Work everything out for yourself on scrap paper
first. Carefully rewrite (or typeset) what you're handing on clean
sheets of 8.5" x 11" white paper, leaving wide
margins (left and right and top and bottom) and
enough other space for me to write comments. Typesetting
your homework in LaTeX should automatically give you ample margins (as
well as prevent problems with neatness, overwriting, etc.), unless you
deliberately override LaTeX's default margins and replace them with
smaller margins. If you squeeze words in at the
bottom, sides, or top of a page, do not expect that work to be graded
or to receive any credit, even if I graded such work on an earlier
assignment.
- Staple the sheets together in the upper left-hand corner. Any other means of attachment makes more work for me. The staple should be close enough to the corner that when I turn pages, nothing that you've written is obscured. (If you have trouble stapling this way, you haven't left wide enough margins at the left side and/or top of the page, and should rewrite your homework.) Also, don't use paper that's been ripped out of a spiral-bound notebook; it will make a mess on my floor.
- Write in complete, unambiguous, grammatically correct, and correctly punctuated sentences, just as you would find in your textbook.
- Warn me about partial proofs. If a problem is of the form "Prove this" and you've been unable to produce a complete proof, but want to show me how far you got, tell me at the very start of the problem that your proof is not complete (before you start writing any part of your attempted proof). Do not just start writing a proof, and at some point say "This is as far as I got." Otherwise, when I start reading I will assume that you think you've written a complete and correct proof, and spend too long thinking about, and writing comments on, false statements and approaches or steps that were doomed to go nowhere.
- If you'd like to use LaTeX to typeset your homework, here is a source-file template that includes some commands that you may or may not already know (depending on how much you've used LaTeX in the past, if at all). Rigid use of this template is not required. If you already have some version of TeX (e.g. MiKTeX, a version commonly used with Windows) installed on your computer, this template file should open automatically when you click on it; otherwise, open it with whatever you use to read a plain-text file. To use LaTeX, you'll need to install some version on your computer. (Legitimate versions of LaTeX, such as MiKTeX, are available for free. While there are some non-free text-editors that some people prefer to the one that comes with MiKTeX, I have never used them, and sites that try to sell you anything connected with LaTeX may be scams.) There is abundant documentation on the internet for how to do this; I don't have any particular website I prefer for this. If you have friends or classmates who've already installed LaTeX on their computers, they are likely to be a better source of information than I on the most convenient way to install, and the quickest way to get up to speed.
- How homework will be graded
- Assignment 0. Due date: Monday 8/26/19,
but try to complete it sooner. There is very little to hand in, and
what you hand in won't be factored directly into your course grade,
but the assignment is important. It is meant to help you decide
whether you are ready for this class, and (if you stay in the class)
to help you avoid costly mistakes on future work that you do
hand in.
Answers to the proof-writing quiz are posted here. - Assignment 1. Due date: Monday 9/9/19.
- Assignment 2. Due date: Friday, 9/27/19.
- Assignment 3. "Virtual due-date": Friday
10/18/19. Update: No homework will be collected for this
assignment. I would
rather have you move on to the next homework assignment.
- Assignment 4. Due-date: Friday, 11/8/19.
- Assignment 5.
"Virtual" due-date: Thursday 11/21/19 (the day before the
midterm). Hand-in due-date: Monday 11/25/19.
- Assignment 6. "Virtual" due-date: Friday 12/6/19. No homework will be collected for this assignment.