There are 10 homeworks, and the lowest is dropped (a zero grade is eligible for being dropped). Homeworks are due weekly on Wednesdays at 4:59pm EST (Durham time).
You may, and are highly encouraged to, work and submit with a partner (a group of size 2). If you are working with a partner, note the additional details about submitting as a group under Submitting Homework below.
Collaboration:
This class is as much about discrete mathematics as it is about communicating it formally and to be understood. As such, you are highly encouraged to discuss any/all course materials, including homework assignments, with your peers or the instructor. You are welcome to discuss with your generative AI “peers” (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot). However, all submitted work must be your own, in your own words, and all external sources (including peers/AI that you discussed with) must be clearly cited on a per-problem basis. You do not need to cite your partner. Lack of attribution of others’ ideas (e.g., plagiarism) is an academic integrity violation. Give credit to others when it is due, as they should do for you.
In light of this policy, we strongly suggest that you work with your partner on every problem, perhaps first working in isolation and then coming together to compare your progress or even complete solutions. This is opposed to, say, splitting up problems and working on them individually, which reduces your opportunity to practice and learn, and consequently may result in less preparation for exams. Submission of work indicates that both you and your partner understand every part of that work and that both partners have equal responsibility for it.
Exams are done without any external sources or communication with others.
Grading:
Problems are graded using the following 3-point scale:
- 3 pts, Excellent: A solution that is perfect, or otherwise has miniscule errors such as insignificant typos, that demonstrates complete understanding. Suitable for most or all credit on an exam.
- 3 pts, Satisfactory: A significant effort that employs correct techniques, demonstrates core ideas, and achieves substantial correctness despite notable errors (e.g., skipped steps, in handling different cases, or ambiguous/imprecise language).
- 2 pts, Unsatisfactory: A significant effort using appropriate techniques but does not demonstrate accurate understanding of the key ideas.
- 1 pt, Incomplete: A nontrivial attempt that lacks coherence, uses inappropriate techniques or structure, does not demonstrate understanding of the key ideas, or otherwise does not constitute a complete solution to the given problem.
- 0 pts: No atttempt: Missing work or a trivial attempt (e.g., restating the question as an answer or including unrelated information).
Note that S and E are both full credit for homeworks. In addition to a score, you will also receive more detailed feedback on your solutions.
Exams are not graded the same as on assignments, where full credit is expected to only be awarded for perfect solutions.
Lateness:
Homeworks may be submitted up to 24 hours late for a 10% penalty. No other exceptions will be made. Do note that your lowest homework grade is dropped.
Submitting Homework:
Homework solutions must be typeset. There is an exception for figures or diagrams, which may be handwritten, but you must include them as part of your typeset solutions.
We highly recommend using LaTeX over Word and other editors due to its incredible math typesetting capabilities. A free account at Overleaf is an accessible way to use LaTeX without needing to install anything on your own machine (and to other benefits like having them stored in the cloud).
All homework solutions are submitted on Gradescope. You must assign the pages of your submission to the problems to be graded.
If you are submitting with a partner, you must use the Group Members feature to associate them with your submission. Do not submit individually!
Grade Correction Requests
Grade correction requests for projects should be submitted through Gradescope. Regrade request windows will typically be for one week after grades are released. Grades are typically only changed in the event of administrative error or clear grader error (e.g., forgot to hit a rubric button for something clearly present in a solution); please do not submit requests simply to ask for more credit for an incorrect or incomplete solution.
