Math 300                     Spring 2016

Major Writing Assignment #2

Pick one of the problems from the 2016 Practice Comps Exams with which you had some difficulty, either because you couldn’t remember the concept, particular definitions or solution methods, or because you got stuck even though you thought you knew how to approach the problem.

Write a relatively short (definitely more than 1-2 pages but less than five pages) paper in LaTeX that does the following

• Restates the problem
• Provides background to solving the problem (by stating needed definitions and formulas, and all solution steps, etc
  
• Presents a correct and complete solution to the selected problem
  
  

Key issues to consider:

Make sure you’re writing (text, with mathematics embedded) and not just stringing a bunch of symbols, expressions, or equations along the page. This is especially key as you start solving the problem – include connectors and commentary as you work through the various steps. You might want to check out a journal article, such as in The College Mathematics Journal, to see examples of how this is usually done. Some text books are better than others at doing this.

Make sure there is appropriate context for the statement and solution of the problem – in other words, you probably don’t want to start the paper with the exact statement of the problem as it appears on the Comps Exam. But also don’t start with “Buckmire is making me write about a problem from the 2016 Practice Comps Exam. So here we go.”

Consider handing this to your DWA major friend down the hall. Without you explaining it to them, could they understand why you wrote this short paper? Can they generally follow it (perhaps without understanding the details of the mathematics, since you may assume basic familiarity with the concepts by the reader); this is a great check to make sure it’s not just a string of mathematical symbols? Or would they just say “Looks like math homework to me”?

Since you will likely need to include mathematical symbols throughout the paper, you must use the LaTeX typesetting program. If you need to include images, those need to be scanned in and embedded in your document, they can not be hand drawn on to the paper itself. The electronic (pdf) version of your document is the version that will be graded.

The point of this exercise is to create a paper which demonstrates your ability to communicate mathematical ideas clearly and effectively, as part of the Junor Writing Requirement.

Final draft due: Tuesday April 12th, in class (hardcopy) or PDF with LaTeX source shared using overleaf.com or sharelatex.com by 10:00am.