| Kevin Karplus | 315B Appl. Sci. | T F 2-3 and by appt. | 459-4250 | karplus@cse |
You will be expected to see a tutor almost every week--we have enough tutor time to average half an hour a week per student. Some of the students with a weaker background in writing may need to work with the tutors more frequently. 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).
The homework assignments will be posted to the web in three formats: Postscript, dvi, and HTML.
To read the files on-line, use Netscape (or one of the other
World-Wide Web browsers), and open the Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~karplus/.
This is the home page for Kevin Karplus, and contains pointers
to several other documents, including the assignments for this course.
If you have not used Netscape before, almost any of the CATS consultants
in any of the computer labs can help you, because browsing the
World-Wide Web has become a major form of recreation for the
consultants.
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 directly from many World-Wide Web browsers, I'll also provide PostScript 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 WWW pages to the PostScript files. The .dvi format is now readable on Macintoshes and UNIX machines with free software, and is much smaller to download than the Postscript.
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 writeups, but still about half of the problems I see in turned in work are things that I specifically warn about.
CMPE 185 has no mid-term or final exams. You will be judged about 80% on the papers you write, 10% on the oral presentation near the end of the quarter, and 10% on in-class work, participation in discussions (both in class and electronic) peer editing, and so forth. The final paper is about a quarter of the total weight for the papers (20% overall).
Everything must be turned in by the last day of class, Friday March 12.
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 drafts, 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.
Save your assignments after I return them to you! I will ask you to turn them all in at the end of the quarter, so that I can write a fair evaluation of your work. Get a large envelope to keep all returned assignments in, so that you can turn in the entire portfolio at the end of the quarter.
| assignment | draft(s) due | final due |
| 1. job application and résumé | Jan 6 | Jan 8 |
| 2. in-class hiring memo | Jan 8 | |
| 3. describing an algorithm | Jan 15 | Jan 20 |
| 4. in-program documentation | Jan 22 | Jan 25 |
| 4.5 algorithm description (redo) | Jan 29 | |
| 5. naive user documentation (html manual) | Feb 5 | Feb 8 |
| 6. library puzzle | Feb 10 | |
| 7. survey article | Tues, Feb 16 | Feb 19 |
| 8. recommendation letter | Feb 22 | Feb 24 |
| 9. term project proposal memo | Feb 19 | |
| 10. term project document specs | Feb 26 | |
| 11. term project progress report | Mar 1 | |
| 12. term project | Mar 5 | Mar 12 |
| 13. oral presentations | Mar 5?, 8, 10, 12 |
Note: no final exam is scheduled, but the time slot may be needed for oral presenations, if the class is larger than currently expected. Please be sure to come to provide your colleagues with an audience. All written work must be completed and turned in by March 12, the last day of class.
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 wil 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 due 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, 7, and 10] | Jan 6 |
| [HO91, Chapters 11 and 13] | Jan 8 |
| [HO91, Chapter 27] | Jan 11 |
| [HO91, Chapters 12, 14, 21] | Jan 13 |
| [SJW79] | Jan 15 |
| [HO91, Chapters 8, 9, 22, 23, 29, and 30] | Jan 20 |
| [HO91, Chapters 3, 5, 9, 12, 17, 24, 25, and 26] | Jan 29 |
| [HO91, Chapters 2, 4, 5, 12, 16, 18, 21, and 28] | Feb 12 |
| [HO91, Chapter 16] | Feb 19 |
| [HO91, Chapters 11 and 13] | Mar 1 |
| [HO91, Chapters 15 and 19] | Mar 5 |
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.