Homeworks: Everything you always wanted to know is now written down here for you!

1. Submission:

● Homeworks must be ​electronically uploaded​ on CMS.

● You must upload your homework ​yourself​---do not email the TAs with your HW and ask
them to upload it for you!
● Your HW file must be a PDF.
● Handwritten scans are OK, with the following caveat: ​Only clearly legible parts​ of the
HW will be graded. If the TAs can’t read it, they can’t grade it, and therefore can’t give
credit for it.

2. Late policy:
● 20% penalty within 24 hours after deadline; no credit thereafter.
● There are ​no​ exceptions to this late policy, except for university-approved reasons.
● Emails requesting waivers or further extensions: Note that the course staff will not
respond to emails requesting exceptions (unless you happen to really have a university
approved reason---in this case, you may be asked to supply supporting evidence for
your request, if the course staff thinks it necessary to verify your claim).
● To emphasize: this policy ​will ​be implemented, exactly as stated. (See also 3 below, for
an important note to remember!)

3. ​The grade you receive will be based solely on what you uploaded onto CMS, and the time at
which it was uploaded.
● Specifically, this means that forgetting to upload your HW after finishing it, and then
sending a screenshot of the finished HW on your machine as proof that you had it on
time, will not work: Make sure to upload your HW after you finish it---you can always
come back and upload a better version (before the deadline, of course) if you happen to
want to do so!
● Check: Make sure you are ​uploading HW for the right course​!

4. CMS isn’t working and it’s deadline time: Help!!

● Send an email to the course staff email list with (i) a screenshot of the dysfunctional
CMS page (ii) your finished HW (iii) time of upload attempt (if this is more than 2 hours
before the deadline, explain why you cannot try again before the deadline). A TA will get
back to you within 24 hours with a response.
● Schedule time to finish and submit your homework earlier in the future!

The homework itself:

1. How much explanation do I need to provide?
Always include adequate explanation to make it clear why you give the answer you do: that is,
you should say enough (and say it clearly enough), so that ​a reader (here, a TA grading your
assignment!) can clearly understand the reasoning that caused you to reach your conclusion​.
Why? Because you might have arrived at your final answer for
(a) the right reason
(b) the wrong reason
(c) no reason at all (a.k.a random guessing)
(d) the look-over-the-shoulder reason (ie, borrowing, without understanding, someone else's
reason: Bad!!)
Credit is deserved only in case (a), and so you need to supply enough information to make clear
that you belong in that case!

2. Citing “authoritative sources”: Please note that quoting a TA or a statement on Piazza

(whether correct or incorrect) will not result in credit *to you*. Your answers need to be complete
in and of themselves: the only material you may cite is anything that appears in the lecture
notes (or a previous homework), and your own logical reasoning in addition to that, which brings
you to an answer.

Citing a remark from any other source will not yield credit---nor will attempting to lay the blame
for a wrong answer on a remark from any source (including TAs). You, individually, need to
arrive at---and take responsibility for---the answers you write on your HWs.

3. Examples: We will have a later writeup on this subject; check there for details on what your
examples should look like. This will be relevant Homework 2 onwards.

Academic Integrity
You are allowed to collaborate on the homework (​only)​ ​to the extent of formulating ideas as a
group. ​Specifically, this means:
● You ​must write up the solutions to each problem set completely on your own​,
using no memory aids whatsoever from your discussions, and understand what you are
writing yourself.
● You ​must also list the names of everyone that you discussed the problem set with.
● The TAs will be carefully looking for potential violations of the honor code of academic
integrity, i.e., violations of the two guidelines above.

Any violation of the code of academic integrity will be penalized ​severely​.

After it comes back: Regrade requests.

The TAs are very careful to grade problems consistently and uniformly, so regrades are unlikely
to be necessary. If you still think, after looking carefully at the solutions, that you deserve a
different grade, you should submit a regrade request ​**in writing**​ to the graduate TAs, *after*
carefully going over the posted solutions.
Email requests will not receive a response.

The written request must state clearly the following: (i) question number and part to which your
request applies, and (ii) why you think you deserve a higher score, discussing both the TA
comments on your grade and comparing with the posted solution. Note that the TAs will look
over your entire HW and potentially regrade any part of your homework (which could potentially
lead an overall decrease in score, ouch!), so keep this in mind before submitting a regrade
request!