Standards of English Proficiency Papers

    1. The Goal is that our graduates will be adequately proficient in expressing ideas accurately, and succintly in all their writings that discuss about mathematics and/or computer science.

    2. General Standards. The following standards seem reasonable:

    Your targetted readers are typical magazines readers community, e.g., College Math Magazine or PC Magazine, and so we want their levels of English fluency and readability as our paradigm.

    Your style can be a little informal, but your English must be fluent, free of spelling and grammatical errors. Spell-checker software should be used. There must be consistency in using past tenses or present tenses. Sentences must not be too long, because readability is most important. First person singular pronouns should not be used. Slangs such as "you know", or misspelled slangs such as "I dunno" must not be used, unless it is a worthwhile quote from some source.

    3. Conciseness is important. Here are some examples of what you should never do:
    "In order to understand the Y2K bug we must first determine what it is." This is nonsense, or shallow altruism. It is just a way to waste paper.
    This is amusing: "Consumer panic could be further fueled if and mission critical systems cease to operate on January 1st. According to new data revealed by astrological scientists, the earth could also be experiencing solar flair around the time of the New Year." Mistakes: (1) "if and mission critical..." is ungrammatical. (2) "mission critical" is a made-up modern term, hence must be hyphenated. (3) "According to new data ..." is merely rumours and hearsay, and unworthy of being included into a Biola student's essay, unless there is a reference numeral plus a footnote/bibliography detailing the source of quote. (4) If "astrological" and "flair" do not make you roll on the floor with giggles, you should be punished to copy their dictionary definitions 100 times.
    "With already slumping profits from Y2K repair, a company that loses half its investors due to a millennium panic and production is slowed or halted because of foreign trade problems, will have little change of making it into the next millenium." Mistakes: (1) "is slowed" and "will have" are two verbs that must not have the same subject, unless there is an "and" after the comma. (2) Sentence is too long. (3) The first occurence of the word "millennium" seems to indicate that year 2000 is the millenium year of the second thousand years of the calendar, but then the last phrase "next millenium" refers to the next 1000 years, that cannot begin on year 2000 because the year 2000 is the last, not the first year of a 1000-year period. In otherwords, the author is not consistent in his use of the word "millenium".

    3. Extras for Computer Essays.

    Computer jargons. The industry has its own peculiar high standards. "Data" is singular, "database" is one word. Logon should be "log-on", because many readers are not happy with such computerese. However, the main trouble is acronymns and computer terminology. Most students essays are sort of cut-and-paste collages of whatever they read from journals and magazines,without understanding what the mumble jumble is all about. Such essays are annoying to read because the constant introduction of unexplained and undefined terms at every 3 lines or so tortures and taxes the readers' minds. Therefore we want to establish the following standards:

    Every new term in an essay must be in Italics when it appears the first time, with any acronymn put in parentheses. It must be explained, so that we know that the essay author, i.e., a Biola student, knows what he/she is reporting. If the explanation takes a whole paragraph, the first time the term appears in that paragraph it should be italized also.

    Diagrams are a must. (Note: "Diagrams" is plural, hence " are" is plural, but "a" is singular, and this is correct.) If you disagree, just look at the percentages of articles in PC Magazine that has no diagrams. Every computer essay must have at least one diagram, to organize all the 20 or 40 new terms to be introduced, in a coherent fashion. For example, when describing the Windows NT system with this and that module, then each module having some features, and modules communicate with each others via "objects", "queues", etc. It is easy to draw a simple chart or diagram.

    Computer essays must put paragraphs into sections, and each section must have headings in bold font. There must be an Introduction section, a Conclusion, a Bibliography. We all hate computer textbooks that have sections within sections, with larger or smaller font for their titles, yet without a decimal system for the headings. Therefore, whenever useful, every section must have a decimal number.

    Another pitfall to avoid is computer ignorance. Sometimes students would say "Windows NT use modular design to achieve flexibility and anticipation for future growth." and talk of it as if it were something new with Windows NT. No, No, No! Ideas of software engineering and modular design, layers of virtual machines, etc. are old ideas already explored to the full during the design of Unix and other main frame machines operating systems 30 years ago. Even object-oriented programming is only a means to achieve those old goals. So students should beware of magazine articles hyped up by ignorant or deliberately enthusiastic authors with ulterior motives.

    To discourage plagiarism in future, students must have the topics of their essays pre-approved by the professors.

    4. Extras for Math Essays. Math essays should be mostly English, and there should be no formal proofs of any theorems in textbook language. Essays should be done with Microsoft Word, where mathematical formulas can be built with their "Equation Editor". (Mistake! "Equation" is the wrong term for formulas.) Papers done in web-page format, using HTML, are acceptable.
    Equations should stand alone on separate lines, unless quoted with double quotes in the text.
    Whenever possible, include diagrams or even photos of historical mathematicians.