Policies
	course & grading policies

Grading:

if you DON'T participate in sections:
25% Mid-term Exam
30% Final Exam
25% Homework (~weekly)
8% Reading Quizzes
2% QR Assessments
5% Attendance
5% Observing Session

	if you DO participate in sections: 10% Discussion Sections (~weekly) 25% Mid-term Exam 25% Final Exam 20% Homework (~weekly) 8% Reading Quizzes 2% QR Assessments 5% Attendance 5% Observing Session

Homework Policies

Late Homeworks
The penalty for late homework is substantial: 20 points/day. A late assignment runs the risk of receiving little credit. There is no late penalty if you obtain a Dean's Excuse for a late assignment. Please submit the Dean's Excuse with the assignment.

Neatness and Stapling and Photocopies
In order to assist in the grading of homework, please write legibly; you are likely to lose credit if the work is unreadable or messy!
Please staple homework papers together. Do not use paper clips, as the pages may get separated, and may never get back together again... and you may lose credit!
Please hand in your ORIGINAL homework papers, not photocopies.

Working Together
Students are encouraged to discuss course material outside of lecture and section, and are permitted to discuss and help each other with homework assignments. All submitted work, however, must represent original and individual effort. For example, it is acceptable to get help from another student on a homework problem, but it is not acceptable to show someone else how to fully solve the problem, and it is very unacceptable to copy someone else's solution. If you get help from someone, YOU MUST WRITE UP THE SOLUTION YOURSELF WITHOUT LOOKING AT SOMEONE ELSE'S!! In the event of outstandingly similar assignments, the teaching assistants have been instructed to grade one and only one of the assignments and then distribute the points evenly amongst the collective authors.

Expectations on Homework Sets

When answering questions involving math, a few basic expectations will apply (aside from getting the right answer).

1. All answers should be expressed in terms of units, unless there is an excellent reason not to do so (e.g., the number is a ratio). It will be easier for the graders to check your answers if you leave them in the units in which the problem is stated; don't feel compelled to convert everything to standard metric units if the problem is not stated in them. You may of course express your answer in any standard units that you find easiest, but it makes the TA's jobs easier when you use the ``natural'' units of the problem (``natural'' units being, for example, solar masses / years / A.U. if working with Kepler's Law). Make it easy on yourself: convert between units only when you must, or when you are converting to units that differ only by factors of 10. For example, it might be a good idea to convert from centimeters to meters, but would probably be a bad idea to convert from light years to inches, if the problem were stated in terms of light years.

2. Use significant figures when expressing an answer. The number of digits contained in your answer indicates the precision to which you believe it is accurate. If you use too many significant figures, you overestimate the quality of the data which you have been given.

3. Show at least enough work to convince the grader that you have actually done the problem and that you understand how you solved it. While it is not necessary to show every step of algebra, doing so will make you more likely to get partial credit in the event that your final answer is wrong. Also, please draw a box around your final answer to make it more identifiable to the grader.

4. Please justify any assumptions you make while solving a problem. If you want to use a formula that is valid only under certain conditions, explain that those conditions are adequately satisified in your particular case.

Maintained by Jeff Kenney Last modified: 1/9/11