CMPT 880/890 Assignments

CMPT 880/890: Course Work

The course work for the term will consist of the following components, which are decribed below in more detail.

Policy on late assignments

Late writing assignments will not be accepted. For your project and paper review, the late policy will be set by your advisor.

Notes on handing in


Term Project

The 880 term project is carried out in second term (January to April 2010), and the results are presented at the annual Graduate Symposium in April. The term project is negotiated between each student and their research supervisor. All projects, however, should fit into the following framework:

Paper Review

Together with your research supervisor, choose a conference-sized paper in your research area for review. The review is intended to be a peer review such as would be done for a conference in your area.

We will discuss how to do reviews in class (see the schedule for more information and readings).

Here is the review form for your review.

The evaluation will be done according to these guidelines.

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Writing Assignments

Breakdown of the 25% given to writing assignments

Notes on handing in


Writing assignments

The writing assignments take three forms.
  1. Paper summaries
  2. Rhetoric and grammar exercises
  3. Presentation
  4. Two-page paper

Paper Summaries

Each Friday following a Wednesday where we discuss papers, you will write and hand in a two-page summary of the readings. The goals of these assignments are to provide general practice in writing clearly and correctly, and to provide practice in identifying the arguments and contributions in others' writing.

A summary of a paper should include:

Summaries should be written in prose, not point form. You are limited to a maximum of two pages (12-point Times Roman font, 1.5 spacing).
An
example summary.

Presentation

To allow you to practice and experiemtn with giving a talk, you will prepare a 10 minute talk about a subject of your choosing. You can talk about research you have done, apaper you have read, or a hobby you have. The point is to practice preparing a talk, and giving a talk, and to get some feedback about how you perform. More details can be found here.

Rhetoric and Grammar Exercises

These will be small practice exercises to be determined during the term. More information will be given during the Friday lectures. Here's the first exercise: Exercise 1.

Two-Page Paper

  • Due December 4

    Write a two-page paper describing a research project. The research does not have to be yours. The goal of the assignment is for you to communicate research clearly, argue well, and present your work in a standard format. Following Simon Peyton-Jones' guidelines, include the following parts in your paper:

    Other points: How you will be marked: There are many good examples of two-page conference papers in the ACM Digital Library. Try to find examples that fit the type of paper you are planning to write.

    A further note on plagiarism: Although you are allowed in this assignment to present someone else's research results, you are not allowed to copy sentences or figures from published work. Any instances of plagiarism will be forwarded to the Department's Academic Honesty committee.


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