Guidelines for Reports Basic Concepts & Algorithms in CP CSCE 896-004, Fall 2009 www.cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F09-896-004/ Berthe Y. Choueiry (Shu-we-ri) Avery Hall, 360 choueiry@cse.unl.edu Tel: +1(402)472-5444 Guidelines for reports

Guidelines for reports Outline Writing a critical summary Committing to a project Writing a progress report About your final report Guidelines for reports

Writing a Critical Summary This generic template is provided as an aid but is not mandatory PART I: your understanding of the paper PART II: your opinion of the paper Guidelines for reports

Guidelines for reports PART I: The paper What: Context of the paper problem the authors claim to address (i.e., motivation) assumptions they make solution they claim to provide How: Short Description of proposed technique basic algorithmic steps optimizations, if any evaluation: empirical/theoretical Impact: Comparison to previous techniques if provided, how? can you identify/propose some other? What next: Directions for future research Guidelines for reports

Guidelines for reports PART II: Your opinion Is the paper a ‘real’ advancement of the state of the art? Is it useful for the theory? for practice? Can you identify other uses of the proposed technique(s)? What are the shortcomings? Can you identify more? can you propose a fix? Any issues swept-under-the-carpet? Can you identify other directions for future research? Guidelines for reports

Guidelines for reports Outline Writing a critical summary Committing to a project Writing a progress report About your final report Guidelines for reports

Committing to a Project By Tue, Sep 29th, you must commit to a project Submit to handin a short report (up to 1 page) stating: Project title, your name, & SSN A justification for your choice A clear work-plan listing main tasks, approximate dates, and expected outcomes A bibliography, if applicable Clearly state whether you are collaborating with colleagues and/or with a research assistant One proposal per team is sufficient. Teams are reminded that each member will have to provide a full evaluation of the performance of each other team member, listing both good and bad aspects. This is a requirement for collaboration. Guidelines for reports

Guidelines for reports Outline Writing a critical summary Committing to a project Writing a progress report About your final report Guidelines for reports

Progress report: format In your report, you discuss your progress on the work-plan you had set to yourself in the proposal you submitted. Be as concise as possible but do not be bothered by a limitation on the number of pages. Thus, there is no requirement concerning the number of pages (could take from 1 page to whatever is needed), shorter reports are welcome . If you have finished your project, this could be your draft for your final report. Guidelines for reports

Progress report: content Document what you did so far Comment on what you accomplished with respect to what you promised you would State whether you are early/late and why Explain in case you have changed your plans and explain why Report any difficulties, breakthroughs Discuss anything else you feel is appropriate Guidelines for reports

Progress Report: Intent Imagine you are a professional hired to carry out some investigations for a client. The client is paying you for the number of hours and for the quality of service/result you are providing. It is time to re-evaluate the contract. You need to update your client on your progress. How would rate your performance? how much would you charge? are able to finish the task? if so how and when? if not, will you keep the contract? drop it (a penalty is involved)? Guidelines for reports

Guidelines for reports Outline Writing a critical summary Committing to a project Writing a progress report About your final report Guidelines for reports

Your Final Report (1): Content Given the variety of the projects, it is difficult to give general guidelines on the content of the report Please discuss them with me on an individual basis Include What you accomplished The problems you encountered Your findings Guidelines for reports

Final Report (2): Typical Structure Title, Course Number, Your Name , Date Abstract Table of Contents. In LaTeX: \tableofcontents Introduction, motivation, roadmap (Section 2, Section 3, etc.) Contributions Experiments Experiments set-up, data sets Results Discussions Conclusions & future work Bibliography Guidelines for reports

Final Report (3): Advice Format: Use a one column format (not two columns) Have as many figures as possible (including all those you are going to use in your slides): a picture is worth a million word.. Include all your pseudo code (if any) In your figures/plots, do not rely on color but use different line styles Also, you may want to check my Golden Check to avoid annoying common mistakes http://csce.unl.edu/~choueiry/Advising/BeforeYouSubmitaReport.txt The length of the report is not an issue. The shorter the better, but you should use any number of pages as you need. Guidelines for reports