Assignments

Week 10

• All students that have not had their pre-proposal accepted by an advisor must submit an updated pre-proposal and presentation slides. The presentation should be at most five minutes long.
• Students that do not have their pre-proposal accepted by Monday of Week 11 will receive a grade of incomplete (I) in the course.

Week 9

• Submit an updated pre-proposal through MyCourses, along with slides for your presentation (5 minutes). Students in Group II will present their pre-proposals; both the pre-proposal and presentation will be graded.
• Make sure to start speaking with your advisor about revising your pre-proposal so that is ready for approval before the end of Week 10.
• Note: students whose advisor does not email the instructor by the end of Week 11 will receive a grade of Incomplete (I) for the course.

Week 8

• Submit an updated pre-proposal through MyCourses, along with slides for your presentation (5 minutes). Students in Group I will present their pre-proposals next week; both the pre-proposal and presentation will be graded.
• Read Zobel Ch. 6, on using Graphs and Figures in technical writing.

Week 7

• Bring a draft of your project/thesis pre-proposal to class; we will be completing our second peer-review in-class.
• Submit your updated annotated bibliography before class. It should contain a minimum of 8 references (including the four references submitted for Week 4).
• Assigned Reading: Writing research papers/documents (Ch. 9, pp. 137-155). Those students presenting the assigned reading should upload their slides as a .pdf file through MyCourses.

Week 6

1. Students presenting the assigned reading on Algorithms (Ch. 7) should submit their presentation slides through MyCourses as a .pdf file.
2. Students in Group I will present their updated pre-proposals in class next week, and should submit their slides through MyCourses as a .pdf file.
3. Add papers to your annotated bibliography; you will be submitting your annotated bibliography containing a minimum of 8 references in Week 7 (this includes the four references submitted for Week 4).

Week 5

1. We will discuss material from the assigned reading on experiments (remainder of Ch. 11).
2. The two students who are presenting the assigned reading should submit their slides through MyCourses.
3. Students in Group II will present their updated pre-proposal drafts, and need to upload the slides for their presentations through MyCourses.
4. Also read the paper "Record Keeping for Computer Science Research," available through MyCourses. We will discuss this in class.

Week 4

1. Bring a printed copy of your first preproposal draft with you to class. We will be doing a peer-review exercise in-class.
2. Submit your annotated bibliography (containing both citations and your annotations (notes)) through MyCourses. You should have at least four references.
3. Read Zobel material on experiments, pp. 185-197, as well as the paper "Should Computer Scientists Experiment More?," which is avaiable under "Content" on MyCourses. We will discuss these in class - students leading the presentation should upload their slides to the "Reading Discussion Slides" Dropbox in MyCourses.
4. Here is a fun and informative video: Richard Feynman discussing the scientific method.

Week 3

1. Read Zobel material on Hypotheses and Research Areas (169-182). Like last week, the two students presenting on this topic and leading the discussion should submit their presentation slides through MyCourses.
2. For those who do not have an advisor, meet with faculty to discuss possible research problems for your project/thesis, and related literature.
3. Add at least two papers to your annotated bibliography related to your research interests (Note: you will submit your annotated bibliography in Week 4).

Week 2

1. Read Zobel text material on giving effective presentations (Ch. 14), and 'Doing Research' (p. 157-169)
2. For the team leading class discussion of the reading (M. Thill and A. Krishna), please upload your slides as a .pdf file through the Dropbox in MyCourses.
3. For those students in Group I (see above), prepare a five minute presentation summarizing possible topics for your MSc project or thesis, and identify two faculty members in the Computer Science Department working on related problems. For each faculty member provide:
   • The specific research problems that they work on.
   • A citation for one of their recent research papers in proper IEEE or ACM format, along with a 1-2 sentence summary of the paper abstract.
   Submit your presentation slides as a .pdf file in the Dropbox for Week 2.