Writing clearly helps promote clear
thinking, so we will focus some of our attention on learning to write
more clearly.
An overall guideline is to write solutions in a form that you could
understand if you looked back at the assignment a year after completing
the course (try this with previous work!) or in a form that is
understandable to another student who is not in the course with you.
Writing for each assignment should follow guidelines for that
assignment and all previous
assignments.
These guidelines are adapted from those developed by Dr.
Tracy Payne.
Abbreviations are as follows:
(M)
|
Mechanics
|
| (P) |
Presentation
|
(O)
|
Organization
|
(L)
|
Logic
|
(E)
|
Enhancement
|
Assignment 1
| (M) |
Use complete, clear, concise, grammatically correct
English sentences.
|
(M)
|
Write the result you are proving in the form of a statement. Start each proof with "Proof :"
and end each proof with a box or "qed". |
Assignment 3
| (O) |
Introduce names for all
objects that arise in the course of the proof, especially if they were
not given in the statement of the result to be proven.
|
(P)
|
Split your proof into cases when necessary and strive to give a unified, concise proof when cases are not necessary. |
Assignment 4
| (L) |
Be careful to justify each
conclusion you draw as following by hypothesis, construction, or from a previous
theorem or result.
|
(P/O)
|
Include sufficient detail and organize it effectively so the reader can
easily follow the train of thought (imagine the reader is a colleague
in the same course, not someone who already knows how to prove the
result). |
Assignment 5
| (L) |
Each object you use or construct in the
course of your proof must either be
- chosen to be arbitrary,
- assumed to exist in the hypothesis,
- or shown to exist.
You must explicitly and carefully state the origin of any object you
refer to.
|
(M)
|
If using a theorem or result to
draw a conclusion, cite the theorem or result by name or number or by
stating the hypothesis and conclusion |