Communication

Always email the instructor at both addresses, as directed under the Supervised Study Current Semester pages on Blackboard.

Some of your work may be posted on the homepage, so do not include your name or other identifying marks on your work if you wish to protect your anonymity from the public.  The instructor will not include your name unless it is in the text of the message or document you send.  When your name and/or email address automatically appear in email messages, the line(s) in question will be deleted by the instructor prior to your work being posted.

When you submit work:

• Work submitted by filling out a form is sent just 'as is'--you don't have to worry about formatting or anything.
• With other documents you send as attachments, rich text or HTML is usually preferred since it maintains formatting--if you have things in neat columns, for example, they will stay that way.  You should also cut and paste a copy of any attachment into the email message itself.
• Never never never ever attach documents written in Microsoft Works unless they are saved as Rich Text, HTML or plain text files.

When asking a question about a problem, don't assume that the instructor has the text or the problem set memorized. 

• If availble in electronic format, include a copy of the problem (just copy and paste the thing into your document if the problem came from the homepage or another electronic source). 
• In any case be sure you convey all the information relevant to the problem, including what you are thinking about. 

• For example, "When a bullet of mass 40 grams hits a watermelon of mass 14 kg at 400 m/s and exits at 200 m/s how do I figure out the velocity of the watermelon so I can then treat the thing as a projectile and figure out how far it will land from the base of the 2-meter-high post on which it was originally sitting?  I think it has something to do with kinetic energy or impulse-momentum but I can't put it together".  
• This response tells the instructor what you are thinking about the problem and gives the instructor the information necessary to give an informed reply.

The instructor will typically enclose comments between sets symbols such as *&*&--e.g.,  "When a bullet of mass 40 grams hits a watermelon of mass 14 kg at 400 m/s and exits at 200 m/s how do I figure out the velocity of the watermelon so I can then treat the thing as a projectile *&*&  good insight here *&*&  and figure out how far it will land from the base of the 2-meter-high post on which it was originally sitting?   I think it has something to do with kinetic energy or impulse-momentum but I can't put it together. *&*&  Right.  Though energy won't help much, since a lot of energy is dissipated, the total momentum of the bullet and the watermelon must be conserved.   This will allow you to determine the velocity of the watermelon and then proceed with analysis of the projectile, as you correctly proposed to do. *&*& "

• When responding to instructor comments or questions, leave these comments in your document--otherwise the instructor might not remember just what you are responding to.
• Mark your replies with double ampersands &&.  Don't use the double asterisks for your replies because later neither of us will be able to easily find the other's responses without having to read everything that was communicated.

Don't even attempt to emulate things like fractions and exponents by using different lines for base and exponent, or numerator and denominator. 

• Your instructor can read linear forms just fine--e.g., ( 3 x^2 - 5x + 7) ^ 4 / (2x - 5) is easily recognized as a fraction with a numerator which is the fourth power of 3 x^2 - 5x + 7 and denominator 2x - 5.  x^2 means the square of x, and  3x^2 means the square of x, multiplied by 3 (it doesn't mean the square of 3x, incidentally--that would be (3x)^2). 
• You will catch on to this sort of notation fairly easily, but you do need to know about the order of operations you learned in algebra (exponents before powers before multiplications and divisions before additions and subtractions, and grouped expressions take precedence).
• You need to know how to use this notation because computer algebra systems require you to use it when you enter an expression.  In any case it's not hard to get used to.