CS 451/551 Summer 2010

Course Term Paper Requirements

Term Paper Proposal

You must submit to me by 18 May a proposal for the term paper in this course. I prefer that the proposal be submitted electronically. It will consist of the following clearly labelled parts:
  1. Title of the paper: Be specific as possible.
  2. Description of the paper: What is the paper going to be about? What are you going to do: report, compare, criticize, apply, etc.?
  3. Motivation: Why are you interested in doing this (help you at work, etc.)? Why should anyone bother to read what you write?
  4. References: At least three are required (the text is excluded) that you know you can acquire. The reference should include author, title, journal name or publisher, and where you personally know you can get access to this item. Note: in the actual paper you may make reference to material from other sources than those you list here.
  5. Communication information: Your name, status (graduate or undergraduate), and email and/or snail mail address.

Failure to submit a complete proposal on time will result in points being deducted from your paper grade. I must approve all proposals.

Term Paper Submission

The 20 page (double speced) term paper is due to me by Jun 15th. You have quite a bit of freedom in what you do for a term paper. Ideally, both you and I will learn something from it. The following are some of the generic things you can do but you are not limited to these:
  1. Apply some concepts of the course to something in your own experience.
  2. Report in depth on an issue not (much) covered in the course.
  3. Clarify and explain in detail some technical concept.
  4. Argue against some commonly held position.

No matter what you do, your paper must contain a preface which will contain the following:

  1. The word PREFACE is to be centered on a line by itself.
  2. A one sentence statement is to be next telling me what you do in the paper.
  3. Lastly, you are to include a paragraph telling me what I should notice about your paper that should induce me to give you a good grade on it. If you won't speak up for your paper, why should I?

Updated 4/29/2010

G. Hill Price