Welcome to <sci.math>. These suggestions may help you. [39]




  These notes are not official in any way, but if you are new to
this group you may find them helpful.

1.    Messages posted to <sci.math> may be about mathematics at any
level.  Please don't post OT (off-topic) messages about other things.

Be cautious about cross-posting (posting the same message to more than
one news group) - see section 6 below.

Some questions may have better luck in a more specialized news group
such as <sci.stat.math>, <sci.logic> or <sci.math.num-analysis>.

2.    Your subject heading should show what sort of mathematics is in
your message.  For example, "Differentiating trig functions" is a good
subject, but "Help!" is a bad subject.

3.    Include the text of your question in your message itself, even if
you also refer to a Web page for a good diagram.

4.    Type mathematical formulae in the ordinary ASCII characters on
your keyboard.

Use  ^  for powers, for example  aaaa = a^4 .

You will rarely need * for multiplication, but use plenty of
brackets/parentheses.  For example,  e^2x/5  could mean  
(e^2)x/5  or  (e^(2x))/5  or  e^(2x/5).

Use plenty of spaces.  For example,   2x + 5y = 12   is easier to read
than   2x+5y=12.

5.    This news group is open to everybody.  Some people have bad
manners, and some cranks stubbornly claim to know more mathematics than
they really do.  You may be wise to ignore their messages.  There are
plenty of users who want to discuss mathematics without rude arguments.  
I hope you enjoy being one of them.

6.    You may want more information.

If you are struggling with Google Groups or Math Forum, some better news
servers and other helpful ideas are in William Elliot's message
<http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/2ac5e052b3919868>.

Some good general advice about news groups, cross-posting, not
multi-posting or top-posting, etc. is Stan Brown's "Playing Nice on
Usenet" web site
<http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/unice.htm>.

For mathematical news groups there are detailed FAQ at  
<http://aah.ryan-usa.com/>  and the older  
<http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/math-faq.html>.

In particular, more details about typing formulae are at  
<http://aah.ryan-usa.com/node15.html>.


        Ken Pledger.


[Suggestions for shortening or clarifying these notes are welcome.]
.



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