Filthy Ditty

Procedure: I dumped all of the syllabi from Dan Cohen's corpus, flattened the HTML to plain text (using Beautiful Soup) and found lines containing both the word "student" and one of "must," "expected," or "responsible," along with one or two lines of surrounding context. I sorted these lines alphabetically and removed duplicate lines. I passed that file into a program I wrote to create poems in a form I'm calling a "gaussian sonnet." An explanation of the form (with source code) follows the cut. (Thanks to Tim Szetela for alerting me to the existence of Cohen's corpus.)

"A paraphrase is not"

Components: Students must
update their personal information including current e-mail address in the
conduct in a seminar format, therefore all students MUST
unquestioningly the interpretations advanced in lectures; rather, they

set forth in the School of Public Policys academic catalog.
of students, as that of young men responsible to themselves, striving after
See the semester calendar for the due dates of each module
of the second full week of the quarter

Remember to post at least
Out of respect for all students, cell phones and pagers must be turned
Remember, a paraphrase is not
paper on some topic related to Environmental Psychology and approved

so, to synthesize these elements into a whole perspective on the domestic and
significant amount of additional work

"To write competent book"

Those students who are doing poorly should make
Papers must be handed in either before or on their due date;
those students will all be responsible for discussing the topic in class.
participate fully having read the set materials

Please consult with me on a topic.
The Code is found here
plagiarism, a students writing that uses publications or other sources must
The college policy on attendance (see Catalog) is in effect

students are expected to fulfill all of the above and
faculty in the department
Students are expected to demonstrate ability to write competent book
familiar with the material for each week by the Tuesday morning class

a family member, friend, church member, colleague, or employer on one of
A list of all student e-mail addresses

"Self-directed learning"

to discuss intelligently what they have read
All students must have a CSUN network
to complete the majority of this work outside of class
All students must complete the final exam.

students will not be expected to "know" details which appear only
New students applying for the doctoral program in history must be admitted to
Students will use KidPix in class and will be expected
NEIU or an e-mail service) and must check their e-mail at least twice weekly.

reading assignments before class begins
11:30 am- 1:18 pm in Mendenhall Lab 125)
Reading Journals: Students must keep a journal
2 Students must complete English 101 with a grade of C or better in order

self-directed learning
selected in consultation with the instructor

"Their own, original work"

to discuss the weekly assignments
Students must participate to show
To encourage students to read it, it must be in student language and have
Students must produce their own, original work for this course

know the material and are prepared to discuss it
for checkout on an overnight basis only; students must arrange for this by
its nature, requirements, and mechanics
for at least two (2) posts to the list

As in RECR 250, I expect that you will attend
beyond the allotted one absence will result in a "plus"/"minus"
Arriving late, leaving early, or dozing off will count as an unexcused
both, students must follow the lectures closely and keep up with the reading

subject is recommended
successfully complete NUND 222

"Desire accomodations"

variety of online forums
only can determine just how applicable any activity could be.
Vancouver Student Handbook, students are, Expected to show due respect
Only legitimate excuses

Careful reading of the text is required.
must be completed on time.
C+=2.33, C= 2.00, C-=1.67, D+=1.33, D=1.00, F=0.00
Moreover, the course is designed for two possible audiences:

All students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end
to complete projects and participate in the course
All students must have a CSUN network
to become familiar with using the following: (1) the reserve reading desk

developing a one-page evaluation sheet to be administered to their classmates
desire accommodations

"Word-processors with spell-checkers"

International students on F-1 visas must maintain a full course
To that end students must read five articles from the optional
is not completely clear or where important issues are overlooked, and to
to select one of the recommended books and write a 5 to 7-page critique

Your class grade will be based on your participation and
All students are expected to have active e-mail accounts and basic Internet
[Graduate students taking this class for credit must select this option.]
All students are expected to use word-processors with spell-checkers.

Exam III and any other examination
assignments have been scheduled
faculty in the department
assignments and will be held accountable for this material on the examinations.

Students are fully responsible for all housing
Students are invited to share their views on ancient history and historians,

"Rules against plagiarism"

volunteer in a nonprofit organization in either a consulting or service
essential course requirements
week after the scheduled exam
evaluation: Students must complete

the instructor within one week of the original exam
a research paper or complete an alternative project, which you should
the instructor--two weeks in advance before the assignment is due.
4) Students will be responsible for familiarizing themselves with

If you do not know what a secondary source is, or
University rules against plagiarism
If you dont have one go immediately to the
two writing assignments, both of which will be 3-6 pages in length

with the registrar and checked by the student
will result in a grade of zero for the lab

A gaussian sonnet is composed of fourteen lines, drawn from a larger corpus of lines that have been sorted in alphabetical order. Lines are arranged (by procedure) in an ABABCDCDEFEFGG pattern. Each line is chosen from the corpus by choosing a random number i from 1 to j (where j is the number of lines in the corpus); the "rhyming" line is chosen by finding a random integer k by means of normal distribution where i is the mean. (The standard deviation is determined beforehand by the person running the program.) Source code for my implementation is below. (Requires you to feed input in the expected format on standard input.)

https://gist.github.com/936874