M 311                                           Spring 2004
                                                                                
                HOMEWORK SUMMARY REPORT
                                                                                
                                                                                
Chapter number: 7
                                                                                
Section number: 1
                                                                                
Exercise number: 11
                                                                                
Number of papers received: 2
                                                                                
Reviewing committee: Iota
                                                                                
List all participating committee members:
    Kathryn Nicole Clark,
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
Author(s) of paper(s) chosen for publication:
Chris Glaser
                                                                                
                                                                                
Comments:

Both papers correctly answered the problem, but I found Chris Glasers' to
be much easier to understand and follow.  One thing I liked in both
papers was the use of example matrices to demonstrate the pattern; this
was especially helpful because both used matrices that gave determinants
of the same magnitude, and this further helped to show that the pattern
lay in the sign of the determinant.  I did not see any errors in either
paper, and thought both authors did a good job.
                                                                                
GRADER'S COMMENT:  Proving things just with examples is prone to error.  
The theorem can be proved in general by counting the number of row and 
column interchanges needed to put the numbers into the familiar order.