Formatting

Homework Formatting & Submission Guidelines

Formatting Guidelines

Homework submissions must be prepared using a word processor, editor, or other software that can produce typeset results, including math. Hand-written solutions are not acceptable, and a penalty may be assessed for homework that is hand-written. Please do not use plain text with "ASCII math" (i.e. simulated displayed formulas produced using creative spacing and underline/dash characters) or "ASCII art" in place of figures.

We strongly recommend using LaTeX to prepare your solutions (here is a link to a good tutorial from Overleaf), as it is the de facto standard method for typesetting published work in computer science, and it is especially well-suited to typesetting mathematics. Other tools, such as Word and compatible WYSIWYG word processors, can also be used (see these composing tips put together by Prof. Jeremy Buhler for his CSE 584A class) for more information.

Your homework document must have a header, which must appear at the top of each of its pages, that includes your full name and 6-digit student ID (not your WUSTL Key ID) and the Homework number. Page numbers at the bottom of each page are optional but recommended.

Your homework should use a page size of 8.5x11 inches ("letter" size). Most text should be in a proportionally-spaced font with a size of at least 11 points. (However, you might find that a fixed-width font such as Courier is better for writing pseudocode with consistent indenting.) You should use black text on a white background everywhere except possibly in figures. Your figures may be in color if desired, but some people are colorblind, so choose your palette appropriately.

Figures may be drawn using the tool of your choice, or even hand-drawn and scanned as images, so long as they are legible in your final submission. Vector graphics (i.e. those stored as a set of shapes and lines) are preferred to bitmapped images such as GIF, PNG, or JPEG, but either is acceptable. Place your figures, scaled appropriately, inline at the point where they are first referenced in your document, or use your editor's "float" facility (if any) to have them appear at the top or bottom of a page with suitable captions and corresponding references in the text. Please do not just put all figures at the end of the document.

Assignment Templates

To help you follow these formatting standards, we have created this LaTeX template and this MS Word template (the latter can be converted by other editors, such as LibreOffice or Google Docs, to their native formats) as a starting point for your document.

Submission Guidelines

A few basic pre-requisites to start with:

1. You must upload homeworks to Canvas yourself. Do not email them! 2. Make sure you turn your homework by its deadlines. If you turn it in after its assigned due date and time, Canvas will mark it late. Please leave yourself sufficient time to upload your work. Note that the due time is class time (2:30 PM), not 11:59 PM!

   You must upload a separate solution PDF for each problem, and each solution must be uploaded to the correct assignment. Please check after submitting to make sure that you uploaded the right PDFs in the right places. We reserve the right to reject (and give no credit for) assignments uploaded to the wrong place.
   Note that graders may not be able to see your solutions to problems other than the one they are grading, so please ensure that your solutions are self-contained unless otherwise directed.
   You may submit modified versions of an assignment as often as desired, but only the last version submitted will be graded. Versions other than the last will not be visible to the TAs or instructor. If your last version is submitted after the turn-in deadline, it will be considered late. 

Submission Procedure

Here is a summary of the key steps in the submission process, which you must complete once for each problem on the homework.

   Step 1: Save your document in final form.

   Save your assignment as a PDF, which you should be able to create directly from within your word processor or editor or by running the appropriate command to build your LaTeX document. You can name your document whatever you want, but I recommend that you limit the characters in your names (other than the file extension) to English letters, numbers, spaces, dashes, and underscores to avoid tickling any unexpected bugs in Gradescope.
   Step 2: Go to the turn-in page.

   Log into WUSTL MyCanvas and select the correct course and semester. Go to the "Assignments" tab and click on the name of the problem that you want to submit. If you see all homework problems in one big list, select "Show By Type" in the upper right-hand corner of the page; this will split them out by homework, so you don't accidentally submit (say) a Homework 2 problem to Homework 1.
   Step 3: Upload your document.

   Click the "Submit Assignment" button. Select "File Upload" and then "Browse" to pick a PDF file to upload. Ignore any banner that says "This assignment does not count toward the final grade" -- this is an artifact of our scoring system and is not true.
   Step 4: Submit your document.

   Check the box to agree to the Canvas End-User License Agreement, and then click "Submit Assignment" to formally submit. The turn-in time for your assignment is the time at which the "Submit" operation completes.
   Step 5: Verify your submission.

   View or download the PDF linked at the right side of the post-submission page to make sure it what you intended to submit. If it is not, simply resubmit the correct document.
   That's It!

   If you later want to turn in a new version of your assignment, click the "Resubmit" button, which takes you back to step 3. Turning in a new version will change the turn-in time of your assignment.