Advice for Formatting Your Homework
How to Get the Most Points from Your Homework
Ever feel like the students with the best grades have the neatest homework? Or is it the other way around, neat homework leading to good grades? Turning in legible, orderly assignments makes it easier for your teacher to determine how much of the assignment you understand. It also puts him/her in a better mood as the red pen writes your grade. But what makes a well-formatted math paper? Aren’t the right answers the important thing?
No. Answers are actually secondary in a math class. The process of solving the problem – the work – is what math teachers are seeking. Here are some tips to help you earn the maximum points on homework assignments in high school and college.
- Label your paper clearly. This means write your name, class period, and assignment at the top of the first page. You also need to indicate the assignment by page number, lesson number, or whatever system your instructor prefers. If you use more than one page, it’s a good idea to jot your name on all of them.
- Use normal, white, crisp, standard-sized, not spiral, lined, unscented paper for your homework. Flowery paper is just as bad as rumpled, dog-eared, or ragged paper. Staple or paperclip extra pages together. Include any scratch paper (see below) at the end. Do not fold your paper unless the instructor tells you to. Don’t doodle.
- Number your problems clearly. If you do a problem out of order or skip one, leave a note about it and move on. Do each problem below the next, not off to the right. It’s a good idea to skip a line between problems, too. If the problems are very short, it may be okay to include a second column on the same side of that page, but do this sparingly. Even if problems only cover the left half of the page, they will still look neat and orderly – exactly what we’re after.
- Write the problems. (Unless they are word problems, which tend to be too long.)
- Keep work within the margins. If you run out of room at the end of a problem, please continue onto the next page; do not try to squeeze lines together at the bottom of the sheet. Do not lap over the margins on the left or right; do not wrap writing around the notebook holes.
- Show your work. This means showing your steps, not just copying the question from the assignment, and then the answer from the back of the book. Show everything in between the question and the answer.For your work to be complete, you need to explain your reasoning and make your computations clear.
- If a question asks for you to “explain”, “put in your own words”, or “discuss” something, use complete sentences with complete words. Your homework is not a text message.
- It is okay to do “scratch work”, but do it on scratch paper. Things like finding common denominators, prime factorizations, adding strings of numbers, long division, etc. are often important pieces of the computation in a problem, but not really a step of the problem. That’s scratch work. If you have a lot of scratch work, it may be a good idea to label what problem each scratch comes from. Always turn in scratch paper on the back of your homework; don’t throw it out. Sometimes diagrams and pictures are scratch work, but other times they are part of the problem or even part of the answer. When in doubt, put the diagram with the problem. Graphs are seldom considered scratch work but belong on graph paper.
- Do not do magic. Plus/minus signs, “= 0″, radicals, and denominators should not disappear in the middle of your calculations, only to mysteriously reappear at the end. Each step should be complete.
- Remember to put your final answer at the end of your work, and mark it clearly by, for example, underlining it. Label your answer appropriately; if the question asks for measured units, make sure to put appropriate units on the answer.. If the question is a word problem, the answer should be in words.
In general, write your homework as though you’re trying to convince someone that you know what you’re talking about.
Are these rules? Not really. It is possible to score the same on a sloppy or frilly or hard-to-follow paper. But following these guidelines will not cost you points. In fact, clearly written assignments are easier to study from and easier to remember, things that may well improve your test, quiz, and exam scores as well. Neat homework will lead to better grades. Try it and see.
Based on “Homework Guidelines”, http://www.purplemath.com/guidline.htm
Copyright © 1990-2006 Elizabeth Stapel, Used By Permission
