Guidelines for written work in this class

You should use technical typesetting software. The standard software is LaTeX; I have written a Guide to Typesetting Mathematics to help preparing your written work.

Per the syllabus, it is strictly forbidden to use any AI assistance (including LLMs) in generating the content proper of any work submitted for a grade; however, AI-assisted typesetting (i.e., automatic aid in formatting or converting your authored content for LaTeX typesetting) is allowed. The best LLMs for this purpose (as of spring 2026) are:

  • Anthropic’s Claude,
  • Google’s Gemini,
  • OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and
  • Microsoft’s Copilot, which is a service included under UTSA’s Office365 campus license.

Written work not substantially following the guidelines will be returned without grading.

Required Reading

  • Mathematics style guidelines and “What Not To Do”, by Prof. Ethan Bloch (Bard College) in section §2.6 of his book “Proofs and Fundamentals”.

  • Read the first section (§1, pp. 1–6) of “Mathematical Writing”, by Donald Knuth, Tracy Larrabee, and Paul M. Roberts. (Don Knuth, creator of the TeX typesetting system, is a pre-eminent computer scientist and world leader in technical writing.)

Supplementary Reading

  • The entire document “Mathematical Writing” above has 43 sections (§1–§43) and is over 100 pp. long. Read —and reread— portions of it little bits at a time.

  • Basic advice on writing mathematics proofs by Prof. Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College. (The advice in this document is very basic, so I recommended it mostly to students taking their very first proof-based course.)