Labs

Here are some suggestions that should help you to write better labs assignments.

• We've been asked to explain the difference between a lab report and a homework assignment. Your TA sees your lab report not as another homework assignment, but as a chance to talk with you about a math problem. Think of each problem as a puzzle: your job in the lab report is to explain (say, to one of your classmates) how to solve it. Think as you write -- would your explanation help someone else understand the problem? In a certain sense, the "no work, no credit" principle applies even more to labs than to homework: not only do you need to include your work, but you need to explain why it is relevant and why it solves the problem. This is the type of thing we're looking for when we grade!

• One way to improve your explanations is to include only pictures or plots which help you to explain your answers -- extra plots just distract us from your message. Similarly, if you're asked to combine five small pictures into a large picture using the Show command, you generally shouldn't show us the smaller pictures. [If you read, "We don't need to see..." in a lab, it probably means, "We don't want to see...."]

• More generally, if you write your lab report in Mathematica, we don't need to see everything you've done. In fact, taking out unnecessary information clarifies your work. If you're going to print out your report, you can and should "clean it up" first -- click on the blue cell bracket containing the undesirable stuff, and hit the delete key.

  Remember: quality, not quantity. Your TAs are also students, and they've tried to bluff their way through problems by writing on and on about things they didn't understand. It's pretty easy for them to spot now. If something you've written makes absolutely no sense, we'll usually assume you don't understand the problem, and grade accordingly.

  Yes, we know it's difficult to balance "too much" and "not enough" in your writing. In fact, your ability to do this is part of what we're grading! Please do your best and, if in doubt, feel free to ask. You should probably try to err on the side of "too much," so we can get a better idea of what you're thinking.

Here are some more specific instructions. Some of them may seem to be nothing but common sense, but all of them are important.

• Please be sure you're answering the entire question. Unless otherwise instructed by your TA, if it's in a red box in the lab, it had better be on your lab report. We expect that lab work will always take 2 hours to finish each week, and sometimes more. If you're leaving labs early, you should realize that your TA will hold your work to a high standard....
• "Explain your reasoning" does not simply mean, "Show the Mathematica commands you used to solve the problem." It means you should explain your thinking process from the beginning to the end. Mathematica commands can help with certain steps of the process, but they do not make up the process by themselves.

• "Explain your reasoning" also does not mean "Show your Mathematica work for two pages, and then include five lines of explanation afterwards." Your explanations should not come after your work; if anything, they should come before it. The best option, however, would be during!

• We do expect your explanations to be written in complete, coherent sentences, using correct spelling and grammar. Nearly every word processor has a spelling checker; so does Mathematica. (It's under the Edit menu.)

• You should not send your lab report on its final, lonely journey until the two of you have shared the satisfying ker-chunk of the stapler, binding your magnificent folia to one another for all time. Don't deny yourself this visceral pleasure!

• Don't forget -- by themselves, pictures don't prove anything. To prove a function describes an elliptic paraboloid, it's not sufficient to produce a plot and say, "It looks like an elliptic paraboloid." Pictures enhance your intuition and help you to check answers, but they're usually not answers by themselves. [The only exception here would be the exercises where you're told to replicate a picture as closely as possible.]

• We understand that there will be some computer glitches at the beginning of the semester as you're first figuring out how to do your lab reports. As the semester goes on, however, you should be able to hand in your lab reports on time. You should work on them early enough so that even if the [printer / computer / network] [at home / in Lab X] breaks down, you'll still be able to hand it in.

Finally, don't forget that your TA and professor are here to help you! If you're not sure what's expected, or want individual help improving your labs (or homework, or understanding, or...), all you have to do is ask. (Please ask. We get bored during our office hours with nobody to talk to!)