# Posting Homework Problems

I'm currently working through Larson's Calculus 10e textbook. I recently finished the book's AP Exam section for Chapter 1, but can't find the answers to them anywhere (not even the odd ones). I was wondering if it's okay (in terms of this site's policies and copy right reasons) to photocopy and print the page (by PDF-ing it) here along with my work.

Post-Edit: Thanks for the suggestions and comments. Given everyone's opinions, I don't think I'll do what I was asking up here. I'll still post my question, but it will be more thought-provoking.

• What would the purpose of including the entire page be? If you're already including your work in your question, what need is there for a picture of the page? Would your question be asking verification for all the answers in the exam section? – user61527 Jun 8 '14 at 21:08
• For the original questions. Can't verify my work without the questions. So I take it it's not okay? – Astro Jun 9 '14 at 0:41
• But can't you type in the question, along with your work? I don't see the issue here, unless you're talking about asking for verification on several questions at a time - in this case, you should break it up into multiple questions regardless. Can you clarify exactly why you would need to include a picture of the book? – user61527 Jun 9 '14 at 0:43
• If you post a long list of questions and your computations, asking for all of them to be checked... I suspect the reception will be negative. (One by one should be okay). Have you considered using a Computer Algebra System (such as Wolfram Alpha) to check the computations? – user147263 Jun 9 '14 at 0:44
• @words that end in GRY Thanks for tip! I'll take a look at it. I know symbolab is useful. – Astro Jun 9 '14 at 0:50
• I don't like the idea of photocopying/scanning and posting images, but I give you a $\large{+1}$ for asking about the appropriateness in advance. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jun 9 '14 at 7:22

Here are some guidelines, and a process, that should ensure that you are posting properly to the site for this particular type of question:

1. Choose one, and only one, of the problems. Use Wolfram Alpha, and any other tools that you have to see if you can verify your solution. If you can verify your solution, then do not post that problem. Choose another problem.
2. Once you have the problem that cannot be easily verified with commonly available CAS systems, choose a descriptive title for this one problem and research for the proper available tags in our list of tags.
3. You should predicate your post by very briefly indicating where the problem comes from, and your motivation. Everyone likes well written brief context.
4. Now you can write your problem statement using the MathJax typesetting system. It is basically $\LaTeX$ for the web browser. If you must use an image for graphics, please be sure that it is modestly sized and properly cropped, with attribution to the source if you are simply copying it from a book.
5. Next post your proposed solution. Include all of your work in a clear manner, and be sure to do this using proper MathJax typeset. If you need typesetting help here that you cannot find online, just ask.
6. Be sure to have a question mark somewhere clearly indicating your question. In this particular case, I suppose at minimum "Is this the correct approach?", or something like that might be appropriate. We really need a question that invokes a proper answer here.

Now to me this seems like a good way to post these particular sorts of questions. If the post demands particularly constructive and useful responses, then I expect it will be very accepted by the community. If the post turns out to only admit the answer "Yes", or "Correct", with no other room for detail like "but consider this...", then while it may be an excellent question on your part, and you will have received your confirmation, it may get mixed opinion on closure. You can of course post your own self answer in the end. This might prevent that.

• +1 for point $1$. I rather dislike questions that boil down to something that could be typed into google or WA. – user61527 Jun 9 '14 at 4:02
• Agree with most (+1). Not sure I would insist on everything being LaTeXed. I do realize that a moderately complicated calculus problem will benefit greatly from clear typesetting, but ... we managed with just ASCII in the era of Usenet :-) – Jyrki Lahtonen Jun 9 '14 at 6:43
• @JyrkiLahtonen And there's almost always people who will come and Latex reasonable questions, so it works out anyways. – user61527 Jun 9 '14 at 7:18
• Thanks for the guidelines. Still new here and want to figure out the community policies. Also, big +1 for the MathJax address. Haven't been able to figure out how to use symbols. Now I can – Astro Jun 9 '14 at 10:59
• @JyrkiLahtonen I guess you managed with just ASCII partially because people were used to reading raw LaTex code. – Michael Greinecker Jun 9 '14 at 11:04
• @Michael: That admittedly played a big role. PseudoTeX (sans dollar signs and backslashes) was all over the place. Variants of frac were usually typeset in-line. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jun 9 '14 at 11:31
• +1 for posting only one question at a time... – GEdgar Jun 9 '14 at 12:38
• @MichaelGreinecker It was rare that LaTeX code was posted in sci.math. But plain-text math forums did quite well even so. Of course it is much nicer to have real typesetting (vs. imaginary). – Bill Dubuque Jun 9 '14 at 21:46
• @BillDubuque But you would have to admit that Latex can be somewhat complex :) – user61527 Jun 10 '14 at 2:23

Consider asking a question about strategies for about verifying your work, rather than asking someone else to do it for you. The ability to check your own work is a very useful skill, and is unfortunately rather underappreciated!

• Thanks for the suggestion. I agree with you. Wish my high school did more of that. – Astro Jun 10 '14 at 0:01
• From one point of view, solution-verification questions are the worst junk on the site, despite all of the "work and effort" that they display so verbosely. But from another point of view, there is no problem once the questions are tagged. Then anyone who hates the check-my-work posts can hide them automatically. – zyx Jun 10 '14 at 15:41

Please do not post image files as the main content of a question, state the question in plain text and TeX code (MathJax, explained in the how-to-post FAQ).

Images interfere with the automatic identification of Related questions (side column of links) and possible duplicates (the menu when posting), and with searches (box on top right of screen). All those are based on keywords in the text. It also interferes with search engine indexing if the image has content not readable by OCR.

Please do post the reference information such as textbook name, author, edition and problem number. That will help others who use the same book find things with a search engine.

If the question fits in the category of or please consider using those tags.

It is totally optional whether to indicate that a question is homework, but if you provide that information, please do it by using the tag and not by writing phrases with the word "homework" in the question and title. Generally, tags add value, but writing anything that could be a tag as text, subtracts value.

• Thanks for the tag suggestion. I didn't know they had a homework tag; that's good to know :) – Astro Jun 10 '14 at 16:38