Physics 161: General Mechanics, Fall 2007, Sections 0201-0204

A note about legible homework.


For information on substance, including grading, see the discussion about homework on the course information page.

For reasons of neatness, clarity, and effective thinking, you should work on these assignments by writing and revising drafts of what you think and what you have to say. Use scrap paper first! Write drafts of whatever exposition you need to explain your thinking, be that exposition mathematical or verbal, and then, when you've got it in the form you want, prepare the final copy to hand in. The final step, of course, is to proofread--probably the best way to do this is to read what you've written out loud to yourself. You'll hear mistakes you hadn't noticed before.

Working out your thinking for these assignments will very often involve sketching pictures and or drafting equations.  For the final copy you hand in, you may then want to use a computer to make neat drawings and equations. But you'll probably find it easier to do these by hand--one good choice is to type what you can on the word processor and leave spaces for you to fill in formulas and pictures by hand.

In any case, please be sure that what you hand in is neat, clean, and easily legible. If your handwriting is like mine, you must type or use a word processor. And if the printer's running out of ink, replace the cartridge or find another printer! The bottom line: If your assignment isn't easily legible, we will not accept it. (The reason for that is simple consideration for the teaching assistants, who have a great deal of work to do.  I don't want your TA have to spend any time at all looking at your work trying to figure out what letter or symbol or number that is on the page.)