Short Paper Assignment
Math 380W 2022

Your job is to research, prepare, and write a short paper on the topic according to the following
basic instructions.

Deadlines
This will be done in stages. Each is submitted on Crowdmark.
1. Feb. 16: A title, abstract, and 3-5 initial references are due Feb. 16. (one page).
2. March 9: A Plan/outline, complete reference list. This should contain HEADINGS,
SUBHEADINGS, and a discussion either in a few sentences or in point form of what will go in
each section.
3. April 6: COMPLETE paper with all references, illustrations, written in sentences with
citations (footnotes or endnotes).
4. Date of final exam: If required, revisions (this usually affects about 25% of the papers.)


Format
• The pages should be numbered.
• The paper should be single-spaced in US letter or A4 portrait format. It will be uploaded
to Canvas.
• It should be in a 12-point standard font such as Times New Roman or Computer Modern.
• The paper should have no cover page.
• The first page should contain the title, your name and student ID, and an Abstract
describing the content of the paper.
• The Abstract should be one paragraph of three to six sentences.
• The body of the paper should follow beginning on page 2. It should be approximately
1500 words. Do not exceed 3000 words, please.
• The body should contain sections with an appropriate heading for each section. The first
section should be an introduction. The last section may be a conclusion, but we do not
need a conclusion that says "And so you see, we did what we said we were going to do"
followed by a repetition of the introduction. Use a conclusion to actually draw
conclusions. If that has already been done, you don't need it.
• After the body of the paper there should be a list of references. This does not count in
your word count. We say more about this below.
• Illustrations as a rule also do not count in the word count. They should be sourced. This is
not a publication, so they do not need to be public domain -- this is ``fair use''.
• Equations count in the word count, but I will not give a rule. An expression like 2x+5 is
only one word, and most equations would count as one or 2 words.

Everyone is expected to do their best at writing. One sign of this is, very certainly, that you do a
spelling and grammar check. Please note that these do not catch all mistakes: it's versus its,
there, their and they're, etc. will not be caught.

Students whose first language is not English are urged in particular to try to get someone to read
over the paper before they submit it. That will not be me, though I am happy to answer
questions.

Typing
You may use MS-Word, Open Office, or any word processor you like, really. It should be
formatted: don't just use Emacs or some editor. If you are using more than a few equations your
effort will be repaid if you learn to use LaTeX - the Word equation editor is too punishing. This
will be discussed in tutorial. This is useful in general and an online version can be found at
overleaf.com.

Citations and Bibliography Style
Sources should be given for anything that is not general knowledge at the level of the course.
Hence the birth and death dates for individuals need not be sourced, nor does the idea that
Ptolemy used epicycles, or that Elizabeth was queen of England in the late 1500s.

I prefer in-text citations of the form (Archibald and Tazzioli, 2014, 548-549) where Archibald
and Tazzioli are the authors, 2014 is the year of publication, and 548-549 are the pages that have
the information. In the case of internet sites please give the url and some indication (if possible)
of where the information is on the site.

The citation in the text should correspond an entry in the reference list.
This may be headed "References" or "Bibliography". Entries could be done as follows:

Archibald, Tom, and Rossana Tazzioli. "Integral Equations between Theory and Practice: the
cases of Italy and France to 1920." Archive for History of Exact Sciences 68, 2014, 547-597.

If you prefer you may use another style for citation and bibliography. The APA, MLA, and
Chicago formats are described on the Library pages. However you have to be consistent. If you
are LaTeX-savvy you can consider using bibtex. Discuss with me if you are thinking of that.

Sources should not be cited over and over again, especially in the same paragraph. If the entire
paragraph is on one small topic, the source may be given at the end. If you are relying on the
same source for much of your info, you can say so at the beginning and give page numbers.
However, discuss with me.

Footnotes may be used, but in a short paper like this, it is probably better to put anything that you
would put in a footnote in the body of the text.

Nature and Quality of Sources
One source will be suggested as part of your assignment. I am just giving you the author's name
and I expect you to check this with me. In addition to this you should try to find other sources of
good quality that address your topic.
Good sources
Articles in research journals on the history of science, high-quality biographies, and specialized
reference sources about mathematics and the history of science are your best bet. One sign of
quality is good documentation. To locate these, I will suggest the databases MathSciNet and
IsisCB Explore which are available on the library website.


There are also some helpful online tools that give summary information about the history of
mathematics.
The MacTutor website: www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk is a good place to start, but while you
may cite them you should go beyond what they say (look at their reference lists). For detailed
biographical information about many people, as well as further references, you may access the
Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography from the SFU website.

Bad Sources
Try to avoid online postings of student papers as sources, even if some of them are pretty good.
General encyclopedias (like Britannica) are not very good as a rule. Try to go beyond the grade
11 model of research. Popular works are often well-written and interesting, but try to use sources
for which the authors themselves give good sources and where the discussion feels scholarly.
One sign of this is the language. If it reads like an article in Elle or GQ it is probably not
appropriate.

You are more than welcome to discuss the progress of your research with me.

Plagiarism and Academic Honesty
Submitting your paper with your name on it implies that all outside sources have been
acknowledged in the paper and that what is submitted is your work. I have seen written work for
all of you so please, please do NOT submit something that you could not possibly have written. I
would sooner have lots of grammar mistakes and misunderstanding than to be discussing with
you whether you will fail the course for academic dishonesty. If you have any questions at all
about this please ask.