Lab Writeups

Lab writeups are intended to be short exercises. You should not spend more than an hour on a lab writeup! If you're stuck on a problem, make a note of your difficulty and go on. Come talk to me (or email me) about the problem, even if it's after the writeup is due.

As you have no doubt observed, laboratory exercises form the core of the constructivist approach to learning we use in this course. This emphasis on the labs means that it is particularly important that you do and understand the labs. (We do our best to design labs that can be completed during the course period by the average student. We admit that we don't always succeed.)

To help encourage you to think carefully about the labs, about once a week I will note that you will need to write up the current lab. I will also indicate that a lab is to be written up before you begin work on that lab. So that you have opportunity to ask questions, the writeup is due the class period after the class period following the lab. That is, you work on the lab in one class period. You can ask additional questions in the next class period. You then turn in the writeup on the subsequent class period.

Please send your writeup as the body of an email to rebelsky@grinnell.edu. The subject of the email should be CSC 151.01: Lab Writeup N: Title of Lab.

In most cases, your write-up should include your solution to each exercise in the lab. In some cases, I will only assign a subsect of the exercises. You should not copy the text from the lab into the writeup; your answer suffices. However, you should include the problem number for each exercise. but you should include the problem number for each exercise.

If an exercise directs you to write Scheme code, include your Scheme code (copied and pasted into the writeup). If the exercise directs you to find out what the output of some expression is, copy and paste your command and the output from the MediaScript console. If the exercise asks a question or asks you to explain something, write an answer in English. If you are not able to answer an exercise, you can earn full credit by explaining where you got stuck and coming to talk to me.

My grading scheme for lab writeups is different than that for homework assignments. I will still use a check-based grading scale. However, earning checks on every writeup will earn you an A on the lab writeup component of the course. Every responsible student should therefore earn full credit for lab writeups.