History of Mathematics

• Make sure you understand what you are writing about.
• Here you have two excellent papers.
• Here you can find good guidelines about citing.
• If you have any doubts about writing, make an appointment to discuss your paper in the Writing Center
• The goal of the paper assignment is help you exercise independent reflection based on recognized scientific sources. It is not about presenting your own ideas, as in an essay, but about establishing relationships to existing scholarly texts and developing and justifying your perspectives from them.
• A good strategy consist in choosing a question about your topic, and focus in finding an answer. In the body of the paper, you have to list and weight arguments for and against
• Make sure that you explain clearly any non-standard word that you introduce. Note that you have to understand the meaning of the word in order to explain it. (By "non standard" I mean that it is a word that you learned (possibly in a course) after finishing the first calculus sequences in Stony Brook. For instance "Fourier sequence" is non-standard)

Paper rubric - Checklist

		Points
Bibliography and citations	The bibliography contained a relevant book, an appropriate primary source and an appropriate secondary sources. All these sources are used in the paper. There a secondary source different from the one you were assigned.	6
Bibliography and citations	All references are from peer reviewed journals, primary sources or relevant books.	5
Bibliography and citations	All information that is not common knowledge is appropriately cited (see here https://libguides.mit.edu/citing for more about citing. )	5
Bibliography and citations	All diagrams, figures and tables are referenced in the body of the paper.	2
Math Content	The information given reflects deep understanding and effective summarization. The paper is addressed to an audience who are not necessarily mathematicians, rather somebody who know some mathematics (say, sophomore Math major, at Stony Brook who know what a proof is.)	2
Math Content	Your paper has mathematical content and this mathematical content is understandable, correct and relevant. The math point is clear and well explained. There is at least one relevant example related to the math point. All steps in the math point are fully justified.	6
Historical content	Your paper contains a relevant historical frame of the ideas you are explaining. Timelines are recommended.	4
Content	Your paper has a good introduction, briefly explaining the the content section by section, and why the topic is interesting or relevant.	3
Content	Your paper displays creativity, originality, and a personal point of view.	3
Content	Your writing is clear, with no grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. Ideas are arranged logically and flow smoothly.	4
Format	The word count of the body of your paper is between 2500 and 3500 words. (Note: the body of the paper does not include the bibliography, outline and abstract).	2
Format	The first page (s) of the paper contains the title of the paper, your name, the outline, math point, the abstract, book, primary source, secondary source and word count (counted excluding the bibliography, outline and abstract). Your paper is in PDF form and is written in an easily readable font (like Times New Roman or Cambria), size 12 pts. The paragraphs are double spaced and have their first line indented.	3
Format	Your paper contains at least three figures, diagrams or tables, which are credited and clearly captioned. You are encouraged to create your own illustrations.	3
Format	Your paper is divided into sections (possibly the ones you listed in the outline)	1