Kevin Karplus
2 Jan 2003
| Kevin Karplus | 315B Appl. Sci. | Thurs 2-3 and by appt. | 459-4250 | karplus@soe.ucsc.edu |
| Daniel Ford | College Eight Cafe | Wed 11-1 | 459-5327 | ford@soe.ucsc.edu |
| Alex Barangan | Baskin lobby | Thurs 3-4 | alx@soe.ucsc.edu |
| NONE YET |
In the past, I required students to see a writing tutor every other week, but recent budget cuts have reduced the availability of tutors. Many of you still need extra help, so I encourage you to take advantage of whatever tutoring is available. Past experience has been that the best writers were also the most diligent about seeing the tutors (or that the students who used the tutors most ended up writing best--cause and effect are a little hard to separate here).
I may arrange to have some guest lectures this quarter, as I have to serve on an NSF panel Wed 12 Feb-Fri 14 Feb.
Wei Wei, a reference librarian at the Science Library, will give a a presentation on bibliographic resources on Wed Feb 12, to help you with the ``library puzzle'' assignment. As a courtesy to our guest lecturers, please make an extra effort to be on time for their lectures.
The homework assignments will be posted to the web in two formats: PDF and HTML. To read the files on-line, use Netscape (or one of the other World-Wide Web browsers), and open http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus/. This is the home page for Kevin Karplus, and contains pointers to this class (among other things).
The easiest to read on-line is the HTML, but the Latex2HTML translator occasionally makes mistakes, so there may be some strange behavior. Although it is possible to print the HTML directly from many World-Wide Web browsers, I'll also provide PDF files generated directly from the LATEX originals. These will generally produce a better-looking printed copy that will take up less paper. There will be hypertext links (pointers) from the class page to the PDF files.
Please read each of the assignments carefully--don't rely on a vague memory of in-class discussion. Common problems that have come up with the assignments in the past are discussed in the assignment write-ups, but still about half of the problems I see in turned in work are things that I specifically warn about. Also, do not turn in in assignments that you (or anyone else) wrote in a previous quarter--I will have changed some assignments in ways that make this easy to detect, and turning in the wrong assignment can result in failure.
CMPE 185 has no mid-term or final exams, but the final exam period will be used for a required poster presentation. You will be judged about 75% on the papers you write, 15% on the oral presentation, and 10% on on-line peer editing, in-class work, participation in discussions (both in class and electronic), and so forth. The final paper is about a quarter of the total weight for the papers.
Everything must be turned in by the last day of class, Friday March 14. We will use the finals day (Tues Mar 18, 12-3) for poster presentations, one of the required assignments.
We have two holidays when classes will not meet: Monday 20 Jan and Mon Feb 17.
The following schedule lists the assignments for this quarter with due dates. If the due dates are changed, I will inform you in class. Note that many assignments overlap; this is the normal case for people who write for a living, as engineers do (30-50% of the work day).
You are required to turn in your early draft, as well as the final copy--the early drafts allow us to see how well you edit and how well you respond to suggestions from your peers. Failure to turn in your drafts may result in failure of the course.
For the first time this, I am requiring that all papers be turned in electronically, in PDF format, via a web interface. This submission method allows online peer editing, which you will be required to do; allows online grading; and eliminates the need for me to collect a portfolio of your work at the end of the quarter. The computer also automatically enforces deadlines--late assignments will not be accepted except in extraordinary circumstances.
You must also do your peer-editing promptly, within a couple of days after the drafts are due, so that the students whose work is edited have time to think about the suggestions and make appropriate changes in their final work. Two assignments that have historically caused students the greatest difficulty have two required drafts.
| tentative schedule--see Collage for real due dates | |||
| assignment | first draft due | second draft due | final due |
| 0. intake survey (not graded) | 6 Jan | ||
| 1. job application and résumé | 7 Jan | 10 Jan | |
| 2. in-class hiring memo | 13 Jan | ||
| 3. in-program documentation | 17 Jan | 24 Jan | 6 Feb |
| 4. naive user documentation | 28 Jan | 3 Feb | |
| 5. describing an algorithm | 10 Feb | 21 Feb | 27 Feb |
| 6. term project proposal memo | 14 Feb | ||
| 7. library puzzle | 19 Feb | ||
| 8. term project document specs | 21 Feb | ||
| 9. term project progress report | 28 Feb | ||
| 10. term project | 7 Mar | 14 Mar | |
| 11. poster presentation | 18 Mar 12-3 | ||
The schedule for oral presentations (signed up for in class) is at http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus/185/w03/oral-schedule.html
I have collected all the reading assignments scattered through this reader into the following schedule, and have included chapters to read that are not mentioned explicitly in the individual assignments. Several of the chapters are listed repeatedly--this does not mean you need to read them repeatedly, but that you should read them the first time they appear, and review the relevant parts for the later assignments. Note that this reading is in addition to reading the material in this workbook, which should be read in order, with each section read a week or two before the corresponding assignment is due.
It is probably a good idea to read ahead, since you will have more time at the beginning of the quarter than the end of the quarter.
Please turn in a page of notes on the required reading on each of the read-before dates! The notes will not be evaluated for content, but are our way of ensuring that you read the material actively, getting the most out of these somewhat expensive books.
| assignment | read before |
| [HO91, Chapters 1, 3, 10, 11, and 13] | 6 Jan |
| [HO91, Chapters 5, 7, 9, 21, and 27] | 13 Jan |
| [SJW79] | 22 Jan |
| [HO91, Chapters 8, 9, 17, 22, 23, 29, and 30] | 27 Jan |
| [HO91, Chapters 12, 14, 24, 25, and 26] | 3 Feb |
| [HO91, Chapters 2, 4, 5, 12, 16, 18, 21, and 28] | 10 Feb |
| [HO91, Chapters 15 and 19, Appendix A4] | 19 Feb |
I have not scheduled the reading of Chapters 6, 20, and 31-38, but you should make time to read them. Non-native speakers are particularly encouraged to read Chapters 29-38 early in the quarter--native speakers may find them useful when doing peer-editing on non-native English.