Math 321 – 3              Communicating Mathematics through Homework               Spring 2008

Learning Differential Equations involves more than just solving problems.  Learning how to communicate your solutions effectively is equally and perhaps more important.  In this class much of your communications with me will be in the form of homework.  You should think of your homework assignments that you turn in as mathematical conversations with me.  In order to make it possible for me to hold up my end of the conversation with you, it is important that you write your homework in a manner that is easy for me to read and comment on.  With this in mind, the following are formatting schemes should be followed when working out homework assignments.

1.         Your handwriting should be legible.  It would be best to write in pencil so that you can erase.

2.         Homework with multiple pages should be stapled in the upper left-hand corner.

3.         In the upper right-hand corner of the first page you should write in this order:

Ø      Your Name

Ø      Math 321-3

Ø      Assignment k (where k is the number of the assignment on the assignment sheet)

Ø      Due date (from the assignment sheet)

4.         Problems should be clearly numbered on the left side of the page. 

5.         You must begin each problem with the original problem statement or a summary of the statement.  This should include what you are asked to do and the form of the answer.

6.         Your solution should be NEATLY written.  Include your scratch work when possible.  It may help your neat writing to start a problem on scratch paper and then rewrite it when a decent form for the solution becomes apparent.

7.         Any graphs or diagrams that you draw must be labeled.  Axes should be labeled and a scale for the horizontal and vertical axes should be clearly marked.

8.         Your solution must conclude with a sentence stating what was to be done and your answer, with units if appropriate.

9.         If you are unable to complete a problem or unsure of your answer, write a note (i.e. initiate a mathematical conversation) on your paper explaining what the difficulty is.  I will attempt to answer your questions when I grade the assignment.