CS 5970 — Technical Paper Assignments

NOTE: With a few exceptions (noted below in italics), each part of this assignment, like other assignments in this class, is due at the beginning of the class period. This means that if you are even a minute late, you lose 20%. If you are worried about potentially being late, turn in your completed assignment ahead of time. Do this by submitting it to me during office hours or by sliding it under my office door. Do not send assignments to me through email or leave them in my departmental mail box.

Each student will do a collection of interrelated assignments related to a single topic. These assignments include choosing a topic, writing a paragraph describing that topic, doing a literature search and turning in a list of references, informally proposing a research project, writing reviews of research papers on that topic, presenting research papers on that topic, writing a formal research proposal on that topic, writing a research report on that topic, and presenting your work on that topic.

Topic Paragraph

The first step in this assignment is to determine your topic. The topic may be any topic related to computer science research, including interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research that involves or encompasses computer science research. (However, this does not cover research in other fields that merely uses computers but does not advance the state of knowledge within computer science.) Please consult with me if you are unsure about your topic choice.

Once you have decided on a topic, you are to write a paragraph describing, in your own words, the topic you have selected. (If you are unclear as to what it means to described something "in your own words," please read the University's web pages on academic integrity, particularly the documents related to plagiarism.) The point of your writing this paragraph is to ensure that you have looked at your proposed topic in enough depth to make a topic selection appropriate for your work in this course.

Your topic paragraph should be approximately 100-200 words in length. (This is a guideline range. Values somewhat outside this range are acceptable. However, if you go much over 200 words, I may take off points for being excessively verbose.) You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. You should submit an electronic copy of your topic paragraph before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, September 23

References

The second step in this assignment is to conduct a literature search to find at least four publications describing research on the topic you have chosen. (Actually, you could conduct part or all of this literature search while determining your topic. However, you are not required to turn in your list of references until after you have turned in your topic paragraph, so you may conduct the literature search second.) These publications should be distinct enough from one another that a person generally interested in your research topic would be likely to want to read all four (or hear presentations on all four). If the overlap is such that a person generally interested in your topic is likely to find some of the publications excessively redundant, you should look to find more distinct publications.

Note that, due to page restrictions, individual publications may not be entirely comprehensible on their own. If you discover that a publication you have chosen is insufficient for you to understand on its own, then you'll need to find supporting publications that help you to understand your original publication or select another publication to use for the following assignments.

The publications you use must be refereed technical publications (whether published in print or on the web). These include conference papers, journal articles, and refereed magazine articles (such as those published in IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine) but not popular sources such as non-refereed magazine articles (such as those published in Discover Magazine) or non-refereed sources (such as most web sites, even for departments or labs).

Moreover, conferences or journals used should be professional conferences or journals, rather than student conferences or journals. It is okay if some or all of the authors of your selected publications are students—they often are in professional publications! However, the conference or journal should be one in which professionals regularly publish.

If you are in doubt about a possible source, you should check with me before using it.

Turn in complete citations for these four publications and any supporting publications you have identified. Here are guidelines for what a complete citation includes.

• For journals, a complete citation must include:
  • article title,
  • author name(s),
  • name of journal,
  • pages, and
  • year.
  If available, the following should also be included:
  • volume,
  • number and/or month,
  • URL and access date, and
  • DOI.
• For conference, symposium, or workshop proceedings, a complete citation must include:
  • article title,
  • author name(s),
  • conference title,
  • pages, and
  • year.
  If available, DOI should also be included.
  If available, the following may also be included:
  • editor,
  • volume or number,
  • month,
  • location of the conference,
  • primary sponsoring organization(s)
  • publisher,
  • URL and access date.
  How much of this optional information you include for a proceedings is a judgment call. You should make this decision based on the well-known the event is. If you don’t know how well-known an event is, err on the side of providing too much information, rather than too little. In general, provide as much information as possible for workshops as well as for conferences and symposia in their first few years.

You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it.

You should submit an electronic copy of your references before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, October 23.

Note that you may later change the publications you have selected and submitted. However, you should get approval for the new publications before using them in the following assignments.

Draft Reviews

You will write reviews for two of the four publications you have selected. Each review will follow the same guidelines.

• Approach Summary. You are to write a summary that includes the main ideas of the publication. This summary does not need to compare this publication to any other, although it may do so if it helps to describe the ideas found in this publication. This summary should be detailed enough that a reader familiar with different publications on the same topic should be able to recognize that the publication you are summarizing is, in fact, different.

  The publication summary will include these points:

  1. The domain/application.
  2. The research type (theoretical/mathematical, engineering, and/or scientific).
  3. The problem(s) to be solved and/or question(s) to be answered.
  4. The motivation(s) for solving each problem and/or answering each question.
  5. The hypothesis, if appropriate.
  6. The approach and methodology.
  7. The results.
  8. The conclusions.
  9. Future work.

  Please Note: Taking the first line or two from each paragraph in a paper, stringing them together, and changing around a few words here or there to make things read better, is NOT a summary. It is plagiarism—a form of academic misconduct. Any time you quote a source, you must include the quotation in quotation marks and clearly indicate the source of the quotation. If you find yourself with more than a couple of brief quotes in each summary, then you are quoting too much. To summarize a paper, you need to (1) read it, (2) understand it, and (3) briefly relate its main points in your own words. If you don't have your own words to describe the approach, that probably means that you don't understand the paper—you'll need to go back to steps 1 and 2 and visit me during office hours as needed to help you with step 2. (I don't expect most students to have problems understanding the difference between a summary and plagiarism. This message is for those few who do.) Again, if you don't understand what it means to describe something "in your own words," please read the University’s web pages on academic integrity, particularly the documents related to plagiarism.)

  The summary should run from 3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line, 25 lines per page. You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. (Again, this is a guideline range. Values somewhat outside this range are acceptable. However, if you go much over 4 pages, I may take off points for being excessively verbose.)

• Critical Evaluation. Once you have summarized the approach, you should give a critical evaluation of it. The term 'critical' here does not mean negative. Rather, it means, like any good critic, you should thoroughly evaluate the approach, in a principled way, and give your best judgment as to its strengths and weaknesses. The critical evaluation is worth half of the review points and should be extensive.

  The critical evaluation should run from 3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line, 25 lines per page. You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. (Again, this is a guideline range.)

You should submit an electronic copy of your draft reviews before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Draft Review One Due: Wednesday, October 30. Draft Review Two Due: Wednesday, November 6.

Final Reviews

The final reviews will consist of all the same elements as the draft reviews. However, because you will have received feedback based on your draft reviews, the final reviews should be of higher quality. You should submit an electronic copy of your final review before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Final Review One Due: Wednesday, November 13. Final Review Two Due: Wednesday, November 20. When you submit your paper copy of each final review, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your corresponding draft review.

Draft Technical Presentation Slides

You will give presentations to the class of two of the four publications you have selected. These will be the two publications for which you did not write reviews. Each of these presentations will be follow the same guidelines.

• Your presentation will be 12 minutes long with a discussion period of up to 3 minutes.
• You should use no more than 12 slides during your talk (although you may prepare additional slides for use during the discussion period).
• The review presentation will cover these points:
  1. The domain/application.
  2. The research type (theoretical/mathematical, engineering, and/or scientific).
  3. The problem(s) to be solved or question(s) to be answered.
  4. The motivation(s) for solving each problem and/or answering each question.
  5. The hypothesis, if appropriate.
  6. The approach and methodology.
  7. The results.
  8. The conclusions.
  9. Future work.
• Make the slides high-contrast. (No white letters on a pink background or vice versa.)
• Keep each slide simple. Limit each slide to a few list items, one equation (or two very simple equations), a simple figure, or a table with very few columns and rows. There is no need to try to put your entire paper on a slide or to try to spell everything out in great detail. You will be talking and can provide sufficient detail with what you say. The slides should be for main points only. Allowing the slides to ramble on and on, or to contain excessive repetition, or other similar problems, will only detract from their usefulness. While I am grading you on your slides, I don't need them to explain the whole of your paper to me. I have your paper for that. The purpose of your slides is to support your talk. Blah, blah, blah. Do you get the feeling this is getting longer and longer but not saying anything more? Well, okay then; do not make your slides like this paragraph. Make them like the opening sentence or two, which had all of the points without all of the words.
• Have an overview slide near the start of your talk and a review or summary slide near the end.
• If you use colors, use them for important points only. They should not distract your audience.
• For additional ideas on how to give a good presentation, see my presentation on how to give a good technical presentation.

You should submit an electronic copy of your draft slides before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Draft Slides One Due: Monday, November 4. Draft Slides Two Due: Monday, November 11.

Final Technical Presentation Slides

I will provide you with feedback on your draft slides to aid you with your revisions. You should submit an electronic copy of your final slides before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Final Slides One Due: Monday, November 18, 4:00 pm. Final Slides Two Due: Monday, December 2, 4:00 pm. When you submit your paper copy of each final set of slides, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your corresponding draft slides.

Technical Review Presentations

You must also actually present each set of review slides to the class. The presentation dates are Monday, November 18 and Wednesday, November 20 for Presentation One and Monday, December 2 and Wednesday, December 4 for Presentation Two. As stated previously, each presentation will be 12 minutes long with up to 3 minutes for questions and answers. I may call on you to give your presentation on any of the scheduled presentation days. I will not announce the exact presentation schedule ahead of time. This means that you will need to attend class all of these days and be ready to present when called on. You will not be graded on your actual speaking (except that you will lose points if you fail to give a presentation). The presentation grading will be for the slides. As stated above (under "Final Technical Presentation Slides"), you will need to turn in the final draft of your slides for grading. During the presentations, you will be listening to the current presenter and will fill out a form for each presenter (counted as a homework assignment).

Research Report

Some students are working on research outside of this course. If you are one of those students, you may use your existing research to write your research report. If you are not one of those students (or your outside research is not yet to a publishable stage), you will need to write a research report mockup. This mockup will be structured like a research report but with placeholders for some of the content (such as research results) that cannot be obtained without actually conducting the research. In the description below, I will note where a mockup report will differ from an actual research report with comments in square brackets []. If no difference is noted, the mockup report should contain the same content as a real report. Note that constructing a mockup before conducting the research can be a good way to firm up in your own mind what you are trying to accomplish with your research and therefore how your research should be conducted. Of course, once the research is conducted, you will need to edit the mockup to match the actual findings of the research before publication. To ensure that placeholder material is not mistaken for actual report material, all placeholder material should be clearly marked "placeholder."

You will submit both a draft and final research report. Both versions have the same required contents. The draft report will be graded on a ✓+ / ✓ / ✓– (check-plus/check/check-minus) scheme only and is intended primarily to allow me to provide you with feedback that you can use to improve the quality of your final report. The final report will be point graded.

Your report will be modeled on a technical report that might be published by a laboratory. This will have the same basic structure as a conference paper or journal article but without the fancy formatting or severe page limits. Your report will have the following components:

• Title Self explanatory.

• Author Self explanatory.

• Abstract The abstract gives an overview of the entire work. It should state the purpose or central question of the research, state why it is important, give a brief statement of what was done [should be done], a brief statement of what was found [anticipated findings], and a brief statement of what was concluded [expected conclusions]. It should be understandable without the reader needing to read the entire report. One good structure is to have five sentences, covering the following:

  1. The problem or question addressed.
  2. The reason(s) the problem or question is interesting and/or worth studying.
  3. The approach taken [planned].
  4. The solution to the problem or answer to the question that you found [expect to find].
  5. Conclusions that follow from what was found [you expect to find].

• Introduction The introduction covers the motivation, nature, and scope of the report. It also introduces the approach in broad terms, gives a broad overview of the results [anticipated results], and outlines key conclusions [expected conclusions]. It should include discussion of pertinent literature to help readers understand these elements. (How is your research similar to and different from other research in motivation, nature, scope, results [anticipated results], etc.?)

  Note that the introduction only introduces related work, your approach, your results [anticipated results], and your conclusions [expected conclusions]. You should cover these topics in greater depth later in your report.

• Approach/Methods

You need to clearly state your approach starting broadly and then filling in details until your entire methodology becomes clear. This may include text, equations, figures, pseudo-code, or some combination of all of these. The level of detail should be sufficient for other researchers to reproduce your results and carry out your analyses without needing to look at or make use of your actual code. (Note that you will be submitting both electronic and paper copies of your code, if you have code. However, the code itself does not belong in the approach/methodology section of your report. It could be included as an appendix, which would mean that you would not need to turn in a separate paper copy of the code.)

• Results [Anticipated Results] You need to summarize results [anticipated results] from your experiments in your report. These should be thorough, so that your readers can analyze them and come to their own conclusions based on them. At the same time, these results [anticipated results] should not be exhaustive. That is, they should not be the raw data but appropriate summaries of that data, such as medians, means, standard deviations, and results of statistical hypothesis tests run on the data. Tables and graphs are often appropriate ways to present summarized data but other summaries, such as text descriptions, may also be appropriate. Raw data may be included in an appendix.

• Discussion You need to discuss the results you have found [results you anticipate finding]. This includes comparing your data sets to one another, comparing your results [anticipated results] to results published in the literature, and commenting on likely reasons for similarities and differences found [anticipated].

• Conclusions You need to decide what is reasonable to conclude from your results [anticipated results] and clearly state all such conclusions and the bases on which they rest.

• Future Work You need to suggest appropriate ways that your work could be built upon (by you or others). This could be anything from more experiments to help validate the conclusions to radical changes in approach.

• Bibliography You need to present a full set of citations for all works cited in your report. Do not include other related work that is not discussed in your report.

• Appendices If there is important information that you would like to include in your report that would impede the normal flow of the report if included elsewhere, it may be included in one or more appendices. In particular, code and/or raw data may be included in appendices or they may be submitted separately. Do not make duplicate submissions of these items, however.

Note that while all of the components above must be included in your report, they do not necessarily need to be organized into sections this same way. For example, if your approach combines ideas from multiple prior approaches, you might describe the approach in a single section with multiple subsections or, alternately, in multiple sections. As a second example, you might choose to combine your discussion and conclusions into one section or to combine your conclusions and future work into one section. However, deviations from the expected order and division of the document should be justifiable, not gratuitous.

You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. To conserve paper, you should print all of your documents for this class on both sides of each sheet of paper when practical and should make an extra effort to do so with this large document.

You should submit an electronic copy of your report before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Draft Report Due: Tuesday, November 26. Final Report Due: Wednesday, December 4. When you submit your paper copy of your final report, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your draft report.

Research Poster

You will give a poster presentation as part of the School of Computer Science / Computer Science Graduate Student Association Annual Fall Computer Science Research Conference on Friday, December 6, 2:30-4:30 pm. Your poster will cover the same material as your report. As such, it will have the same components as your report. However, your poster is not meant to be a self-contained document like your report. Instead, like slides for your presentations, your poster is meant to be supporting material that you may refer to while explaining your work to people in your presence. As such, you will want to keep the words to a minimum, using phrases or bullet points rather than long paragraphs of text and include diagrams, graphs, and other figures that are difficult to convey through spoken words.

You will be provided with an easel and a poster board on which to mount your poster. The poster board is 30" by 40". You may choose the orientation. Typically, posters have title and author information across the top and the remainder of the poster is then divided into columns. Material typically flows (in the same order as in a report or a slide presentation) down each column, with the columns themselves ordered left to right. This would results in the abstract in the upper left and the bibliography in the lower right. The middle of the poster is then dominated by figures that help to explain the approach/methods and the results. Note that this is a typical layout only and students are free to choose other layouts that support their presentation of the research material.

You should submit an electronic copy of your poster before the Conference through D2L and turn in your printed poster at the conclusion of the poster session on Friday afterooon. There are poster printing facilities in the Rawl Engineering Practice Facility and their prices are much lower than typical commercial rates. Please be sure to leave sufficient time to print your poster.