MA 210 Extra Credit Assignment

The original textbook we used (Doerr and Levasseur) ended up having a few issues. In addition to formatting and readability, many explanations were difficult to follow, examples and details were buried in the exercises, informative proofs were skipped, and overall the text was hard to learn from on its own.

As an extra credit assignment, you may submit a revised version of a section from this textbook. Creating this revision has two main goals:

Demonstrating that you understand the material well enough to teach it to others
Producing resources that can help future students--in addition to improving the (freely-available) textbook

A completed section would be worth around 3% of the course grade, depending on the quality and thoroughness of the submission--this may go higher or lower. (The professor reserves the right to adjust this value without notice). You can complete this assignment multiple times, each time for a different section of the text.

NOTE: You should check in with the professor about what section you will be revising to make sure it's feasible/worthwhile! Valid sections should be anything assigned as a reading in class. Note that this is from the D&L text, not the Rosen!

Assignment Details

Your revision of the textbook section should have the following properties:

You have provided your own explanation of the concepts.
Do not just copy and paste a description from the textbook (or from any other source, which would be considered plagarism). Do not simply pick synonyms for existing words, or re-order sentences. You should instead provide a new (though possibly similar) explanation of the topics of the section! Imagine that you were handing this to a future MA 210 student for them to use a resource or study guide--how would you explain the concept?
- You are welcome to use other textbooks/sources as inspiration though. There are some discrete math books on the shelves in TH390, and others are listed as "recommended" on the main page. Be sure and cite any sources you use!
You have included all topics from the section.
This includes all the definitions, theorems, etc. Note that this may include concepts we did not review in class, or that reviewed only briefly. You might also need to add concepts or components that we discussed in class that are not in the text, if that helps justify the explanation!
You have included appropriate examples and demonstrations for the topics.
Note that you can use the same examples as the textbook (or from the homework problems), but you should be sure and give a thorough explanatoin of them!
You have included proofs of included theorems where appropriate.
Some theorems we've gone over in class, others may be in the back of the text as homework answers, and others you may be able to locate demonstrations of online. Your proofs should be explanative--again, a new MA210 student should be able to read your explain and easily understand how it works! You are welcome to ask questions about details of theorems/definitions/etc.
You have included at least one (1) exercise problem for the reader, with a solution in the "back".
This is in addition to any examples you have worked in the text. You can adapt a problem from the textbook (e.g., give the equation different numbers/etc), or include an even-numbered problem (the answer for which had not been previously provided). Your problem should give the reader a chance to practice what you think is the most important skill from this chapter! Including multiple exercises and solutions is a good way to improve the quality of your submission and get further points. Multi-part problems are good.
Your submission is formatted and readable.
Pretty please? The "right" way to do this is to write it up in $L a T e X$ , but using Word or another processor is also fine. Please submit your writeup in .pdf format. The formatting is not the important part. Don't get bogged down in this!

Submission

Submit your section rewrites in .pdf format to the professor via email.

Submissions will be accepted through Fri, May 16th at noon. So you can revise a chapter after the final exam if you feel you did poorly, though I recommend doing this ahead of time (it's a good study exercise!).