Make sure to read all the directions and specifics below carefully. Notice how a key part of how Journals are evaluated is how much mathematical content, mathematical specifics/analysis is done (can be at a medium, rather than highest, level of mathematical complexity, so long as it's relevant and involves appropriate Quantitative Literacy) See Dr. Barzilai in person if you have questions. Due: Last week of semester.

Requirements:

• Your Professional Expository Mathematics Journal (PEMJ) must be typed; the allowable exceptions are graphs (which you may hand-sketch, neatly), annotations of graphs and images, and so forth.

• Number of Entries: your PEMJ is to have between 7 and 14 entries. Somewhere between "every week" and "every other week" you are to summarize the material of the preceding 7 to 14 days (you do not need to have the period always be the same; e.g. you can have 11 Entries) Entry length: Each of the entries is to be between 1 page and 2¼ pages in length if covering 1 week; and between 2 and 4½ pages if covering the preceding 2-week period.

• Total length: multiplying the numbers in the above requirements give a journal length of 14 to 31.5 pages. You need to stay within these limits but may include appendices, charts, etc, in the back. Feel free to see me early if you have any questions or concerns.

• What to cover? You do not need to be exhaustive (no need to cover every topic) but include the central concepts in such a way that if we bundled together "the best of the best" from our class's PEMJ entries, it could be made into a useful short book or Guide for (hypothetical) sale in the bookstore for review for the Final Exam.

• Nature and Quality of Entries: Your PEMJ entries should be such that they could empower not only those who may directly consider environmental issues in their career but also general citizens to gain both conceptual quantitative understanding of the issues, and also to gain in their quantitative literacy which would allow them to better understand, analyze and make educated judgements about other topics they encounter in the future -- topics that we may not have seen in this course. What material will you draw from? Class explorations and activities, in-class discussions, assigned readings, assigned homework problems, etc (all of the in-class and out-of-class material covered that particular week or 2-week period) including any research you did as you grappled with any of the above.

Evaluation of Journals

The journal will be evaluated based on a rubric with the following focus areas:

1. Professionalism. This includes meeting the above requirement that the journal be typed, obvious things like numbering pages, numbering/labeling any figures, etc, but also includes general neatness, good writing and writing style, a "professional" look, labeling all diagrams, variables and graphs, overall organization, giving proper credit to all sources, etc. (The "P" in PEMJ also means this is not an informal collection of "dear diary" entries. Personal impressions, included concisely, can, if carefully selected, be part of a strong PEMJ; but the PEMJ must be more than that: see II and III below)

2. Mathematics Content

   • Depth.   How sophisticated is your mathematical analysis? It's fine, and possibly necessary in the case of some topics, to have portions of the journal focus on more elementary quantitative analysis. But, taken as a whole are there substantial examples which (appropriately) employ more sophisticated quantitative analysis?

   • Quantity. The aim here is not to have you "stuff" in an artificial way as much mathematical analysis as possible very other sentence; your PEMJ will not receive a higher grade for going that far (nor be penalized for avoiding that extreme). Nevertheless, you will naturally want to avoid having only one single advanced example per Entry and nothing else. Within reason, making more thoughtful (additional) mathematical/quantitative points will be evaluated more highly. See also the "What is an Exposition?" section below.

   • Originality.   It's certainly unavoidable that some of the material, examples, and analysis quoted in your journal will be the same as, or quite similar to, the examples given in class or from assigned readings. A quality journal however will include some original thoughts, original applications, original analysis, and your own original examples. You are also encouraged to include examples that differ from those in class but which you did not invent yourself, ones coming from articles --online or offline-- that you found, so long as you give proper credit (see Professionalism above).

     In general, the more original, creative, and thoughtful you are (rather than reciting only from class or readings) the more highly you will be evaluated, nevertheless, careful, precise, nicely explained concise-but-detailed summaries of material from class, particularly the less basic material, will certainly be looked at favorably too.

Each of the above four areas (Professionalism, Content Depth, Content Quantity, and Content Originality) will be weighed roughly equally (so the sum of the qualities in II will be worth more than just Professionalism, though both are important). Bottom line: Showcase your quantitative literacy, be informative, clear, interesting, and professional.

What is an Exposition?

• An exposition is in a sense a clearly and professionally written tutorial.
• A Google search for "define:expository" includes:
  • "writing that explains an idea and informs the reader"
  • [Expository] writing refers to a precise, factual, informational writing style.
  • Nonfiction writing in narrative or non-narrative form that is intended to inform.
  • The mode of writing whose purpose is to convey information or to explain and establish the validity of an idea (thesis) in a logical, clear, and concrete manner.
  • serving to expound or set forth; "clean expository writing"

• The mathematical exposition you author will be, in a sense, as if you were writing a small section of a textbook. Include (brief) background, the "how" and the "why" as appropriate, meaning, motivation, and application or purpose, possible uses, helpful guidelines/rules of thumb, etc.
• Alternatively, you can think of some of these guidelines as follows: a fellow students who is confused and does not understand the material that week, or who was sick -- should be able to learn a lot from any given weekly or bi-weekly journal entry.

• An Exposition will not just say "I learned about X" where X is a topic. It will Explain X and give specific, illustrating examples. It will include full narration; sometimes relatively brief, but full enough to give context and depth so the reader understand meaning, not merely "facts to memorize" An exposition uses full sentences. It is precise. It includes diagrams, graphs, or examples, which (along with variables, etc) are labelled (in some cases you may save space with a reference citing a page number in a book, a class handout, a url, etc, just be precise when you cite such a reference).

  At the same time, be (reasonably) concise rather than wordy to the extent possible. There is certainly some trade-off between detail and concision, and it is not easy to be concise yet precise, however, it's an important life skill and career skill: for the rest of your post-college life, you will very frequently be given the challenging dual tasks of making your reports both specific and containing enough detail (and as in this class, mathematically precise) and also at the same time concise. (For example, in the future you may try to publish a paper, or a grant proposal, or you you may write a report as part of your job, and be asked to revise it to include both more information, and to trim its length a bit) This is not easy, but a skill you can master. I am happy to look over a draft and give you pointers. Keep in mind you do not need to be exhaustive: no need to cover or describe every concept and detail discussed, or done in HW that week. You can be selective. Do cover the main "Big Ideas", perhaps focusing on one or two in greater detail, and depth, another concept in moderate detail, and mentioning briefly (or skipping) the rest. You will be evaluated on the total amount of (and this is key) thoughtful detail you give. Again, I'm happy to discuss or review drafts in person.