When it comes to programming assignments, most upper division students know how to prepare their code and what to turn in. You may be less familiar with what we expect when you prepare and submit writing assignments. Please read this page carefully, and read it over again each time you start a new assignment. Your grade will suffer if you don't follow these instructions.

Submission mechanics: Unless we say otherwise, you will submit each assignment in two ways: on paper at the beginning of class on the due date and electronically, using the web-based submission system at http://checkmate.ics.uci.edu.Your electronic version should be in .doc or .pdf format. We may use either or both versions for grading, so it is important that you submit each assignment both ways and that your paper and electronic versions are the same. We don't expect technical difficulties with Checkmate, but if you have any, let us know by e-mail right away.

Format: On a separate cover sheet, or at the top of the first page, put your name, "ICS 139W - DeSouza," and the assignment (eg. "Introductory Tutorial, draft"). Place page numbers at the bottom of each page.

Intermediate versions: Writing is an iterative process. The first words you put on paper won't be perfect, any more than the first code you type when you start writing a program. Revision--debugging--is the norm. For most assignments, you will turn in more than one version. We may refer to these intermediate versions as drafts, but don't think of them as incomplete, haphazard "rough drafts" or first attempts. Every one of your drafts should be as good as you can make it--thoughtful, polished work with no spelling or sentence-level errors. We typically edit one draft in class. Don't waste your peer editor's time on proofreading; it's your job to do that in advance so your editor can address the content.

Plagiarism--don't do it: Plagiarism means presenting somebody else's work as if it's your own. You may use whatever outside sources (books, friends, interviews, periodicals) are appropriate for an assignment, so long as you cite them. Any time you use two or more words in a row that you didn't think up and write yourself, you must put the words in quotation marks and indicate where they came from. (There could be situations where this two-word rule isn't appropriate. If you think you have one, check with us.) Even if you paraphrase (state in your own words) someone else's work or ideas, you should cite the source (e.g., "Dijkstra [14] says that unrestricted branching is dangerous."). Plagiarism is academically dishonest, and we expect that nobody in the class will engage in it.
That should be enough said, but unfortunately there have been instances of plagiarism in ICS 139W in the past. We will check for it both manually and by using software that compares students' work with work from other sources, including the Internet and work submitted in previous quarters. ICS school policy is that plagiarists fail the course and have their offense recorded by Undergraduate Affairs. Academic honesty violations can affect a student's graduation, financial aid, and eligibility for honors. The school deals with plagiarism cases every quarter, even though most people don't hear about them. No matter how pressured you feel, don't plagiarize; it's not worth it.

Grammatical mechanics: We expect you, as upper-division students who have satisfied the lower-division writing requirement, to have a good command of the mechanical principles of English syntax, spelling, and punctuation. ICS 139W focuses on content, organization, audience, and style. We expect that you will take the time to make your assignments nearly flawless from a mechanical standpoint. Once we find three mechanical or typographical errors in your paper, we will stop reading and will return the paper to you for correction and resubmission. You will proofread and correct your paper (making no other changes), and turn it in at the start of the next lecture. There is a 10 point charge for this service. Use Writing from A to Z as a reference on these issues. Students who wish to hone their mechanical skills further should contact the Learning and Academic Resource Center on campus (http://www.uci.edu/~ugs/larc/).

Any upper division computer science student should be aware that software-based grammar checkers are horribly inaccurate and entirely untrustworthy. Problems may still exist in a document that the grammar checker doesn't complain about, and often grammar checkers complain about passages that are perfectly fine. It is particularly dangerous to use a grammar checker the way a first-year programming student uses an IDE, just tweaking the prose until all the green squiggles go away. Grammar checkers are no substitute for knowing what you're doing; if it were possible to describe natural language completely and accurately in software, we'd all be able to converse with our computers.

Spelling and spelling checkers: Never rely solely on an automatic spelling checker; they help, but they do not substitute for human intelligence in proofreading. Spelling checkers locate some typographical errors, but they cannot identify such commonly occurring errors as incorrectly used words ("of" for "or," "it's" for "its," "there" for "their" or "they're") or inadvertent substitution of one valid word for another (such as "consistency" for "consistently"). Always leave yourself the time for a calm, undistracted review of your document for these mechanical errors, independent of your revisions for content and style.

Counting words and pages: So that we can speak consistently of the length of assignments, "one page" will refer to one standard, double-spaced typewritten page with 1.25 inch margins. At roughly 30 lines of text per page and roughly 10 words per line, one page by this measure contains roughly 300 words. Typeset material from books and magazines is typically denser. You should use this as a general guideline, and not waste time counting individual words by hand. Most word processors have automatic word counters which you may use if you wish.

Typography: Your papers must be typewritten or word-processed. Except for final versions, everything you turn in should be double-spaced. Be sure to read http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/typography.pdf and apply the typographic principles described there to your papers. If you use an old printer, please make sure the print quality is still clean and legible.

Binding: Do not use any kind of report cover. A simple staple in the upper left-hand corner is fine.