Introduction to web readings

The readings on the course web site are designed to a) decrease the need for lecturers to drone on and on and b) consequently decrease the amount of caffeine you'll need to consume during lecture to stay awake. Since we design the lectures assuming you've read these pages, we can spend more time in lecture helping you understand and apply the material and less time on simply presenting theory.

As you'll soon discover, this course is extremely fast-paced. We meet in lecture only twice a week, but we cover the same amount of material as if we met three times. A frequent criticism is that the lectures are too heavy on theory and too light on application. These readings are one way to make sure applications don't get scrimped.

A lecture, not a textbook

View these readings more like a lecture than a textbook. They are not a replacement of a mathematics textbook because they don't cover all the theoretical details behind the main ideas. For the same reason, they should be easier to understand than a textbook. I hope you can read them and make sense out of them in your first reading. If you encounter explanations that are confusing, please let me know (e.g., via e-mail or an online discussion posting).

Why you should read these pages

Believe it or not, these readings are not designed to give you yet one more thing to do for this course. Yes, you need to take an online quiz based on the readings, but the quizzes should be straightforward. The real reason for these readings is help you with the main work of the course: the homework. If you read the readings before lecture, we can spend more of the lecture on applications that will shed light on how to attack the homework (and exam) problems. We can do this only if you do your part in reading before lecture--hence the quizzes to give you added incentive to do your part.

Organization of the readings

The readings are organized by lecture. In each lecture group, the required "pre-lecture" reading appears first, followed by the quiz. The pre-lecture readings and quizzes cover material from the upcoming lecture. After the quiz are other pages that supplement the lecture. (These latter readings may assume content from the lecture.)

More on quizzes

Each quiz is at 9:05 AM the day of the lecture for which it is assigned. (Unfortunately, WebCT doesn't allow multiple deadlines for quizzes, so the quiz is due at 9:05 AM even if you are in the 1:25 PM lecture.) Before this deadline, you can take each quiz up to three times. When you submit each quiz attempt, it will be automatically graded. If you take a quiz multiple times, only the highest score will count toward your grade. Each quiz contains two questions worth one point each.

Feedback

I apologize in advance for any errors and confusing explanations. Please alert me to errors and send me suggestions (e.g., via e-mail or an online discussion posting). I continue to make changes to the readings and quizzes based on the feedback I receive.

Practice quiz

The next page is a practice quiz to allow you to get a feel for how the online quizzes work. It does not count toward your grade.