CS 475: Warm Up and Homework Policies

If you have any questions or concerns about these policies, please don't hesitate to ask in lecture, during office hours, or on Campuswire.

• Warm Up exercises and homeworks will be turned in on Gradescope. Please login through the university netid and password.
• Weekly Warm Up exercises will consist of multiple choice/short answer questions that need to be turned in individually. They will be graded automatically after the deadline.
• Homework can be turned-in in groups of size at most 3.
• Details on homework submission logistics can be found here.
• Advice on what and how to write homework solutions can be found here.
• No late Warm Ups or Homeworks will be accepted. Gradescope automatically stops accepting submissions at the deadline. You can turn in solutions as often as you like before the deadline; only your last submission before the deadline will actually be graded. We strongly recommend submitting something well before the deadline, to avoid any last-second emergencies.
• To offset the absence of late submissions, we will drop some Warm Ups and Homework scores when calculating the final total. See course grading policy.

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Logistics: How to submit

• All homework solutions must be submitted electronically on Gradescope as a single PDF file. Gradescope will not accept other file formats such as plain text, HTML, LaTeX source, or Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx).
• Register on Gradescope through the university netid and password.
• Homework solutions may be submitted by groups of at most three students. We strongly encourage (but will not require) every student to work in a group with at least one other student. Students are are responsible for forming their own homework groups.
• If you are turning in a group solution, please remember to indicate all members of the group on Gradescope at the time of submission.
• As error correction, each submitted homework solution should include the following information in large friendly letters at the top of the first page.
  • The homework number
  • Names/netids of all group members
• Please make sure that you clearly indicate the problem number you are solving before each solution.

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Form: What and how to write homework solutions

Please make it easy for the graders to figure out what you mean in the time they have to grade your solution. If your solutions are difficult to read or understand, you will lose points.

Answer the right question. No matter how clear and polished your solution is, it's worthless if it doesn't answer the question we asked. Make sure you understand the question before you start thinking about how to answer it. If something is unclear, ask for clarification! This is especially important on exams.

Be Honest

• Write everything in your own words, and properly cite every outside source you use. We strongly encourge you to use any outside source at your disposal, provided you use your sources properly and give them proper credit. If you get an idea from an outside source, citing that source will not lower your grade. Failing to properly cite an outside source thereby taking credit for ideas that are not your own is plagiarism.

  The only sources that you are not required to cite are the official course materials (lectures, lecture notes, the textbook, homework solutions, and exam solutions from this semester) and sources for prerequisite material (which we assume you already know by heart).

• List everyone you worked with on each homework problem. Again, we strongly encourage you to work together, but you must give everyone proper credit. If someone was particularly helpful, describe their contribution. Be generous; if you're not sure whether someone should be included in your list of collaborators, include them. For discussions in class, in labs, or in office hours, where collecting names is impractical, it's okay to write something like "discussions in class".

Be Clear

• Write legibly. If we can't read your solution, we can't give you credit for it. We strongly recommend typesetting your homework using LaTeX. You are welcome to submit scans of hand-written homework solutions, but please make sure they are clear and easy to read. If you have sloppy handwriting, use LaTeX.
• Write sensibly and carefully. We can only grade what you actually write, not what you mean. Please be clear.
• Don't submit your first draft. Revise, revise, revise. First figure out the solution, then think about the right way to present it, and only then start writing what you plan to submit.
• State your assumptions. If a problem statement is ambiguous, explicitly state any additional assumptions that your solution requires. Please also ask for clarification in class, in office hours, or on Piazza! Yes, even if the assumption is "obvious".

Be Concise

• Omit irrelevant details. Try state only the minimum assumptions needed for your argument to go through.
• Don't regurgitate. Don't re-explain stuff that was covered in class. Just refer to the relevant results. But make sure the results are applicable in your context!

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