Here are some guidelines on what to expect for the written homework.

The main point of these assignments is to give you practice at communicating mathematics. It’s not enough to just know for yourself why a piece of mathematics works, you also need to be able to communicate that to coworkers, colleagues, and clients. When communicating mathematics, you want to clearly explain both what is true and why it is true.

Here is a sample write-up, with some commentary.

Grading Rubric

• (50%) Mathematical Correctness. Your argument should be mathematically valid and lead to a correct conclusion.

• (50%) Clarity of Writing. I should be able to follow your argument, and you should clearly explain why your argument is valid. You should adhere to the standards of academic writing: write in complete sentences and paragraphs, etc.

  The point of this isn’t to be picky about grammar and spelling; typos and grammatical errors aren’t a big deal and you won’t lose points unless it’s so egregious that it’s hard to understand. Rather, the point is that you shouldn’t submit scratch work or just turn in calculations with no explanation.

My advice is that you submit hand-written work. If you prefer to submit typewritten work that is also fine. But it can take time to learn how to properly do mathematical equations in a word processor, so I don’t want to require that.