You have already studied a paper in its context, and prepared a short talk about it. In this exercise, you will write a summary of the paper's key ideas, and relate them to the other papers you have read. Your goal is to write a short article suitable for your fellow students, which will enable them to quickly learn about the topic.
This exercise is in several parts, each with its own deadline.
Write a first draft of your summary, to be submitted on 30 September at the latest. Take part in a writing workshop at which your first draft will be discussed in a small group (2, 3 or 4 October).
Revise your summary in the light of the writing workshop. Submit this on 14 October at the latest.
Peer review: read and review the summaries written by two other students. Your reviews will be sent to the other students to provide additional feedback. Your reviews are due on 19 October. You should also receive two reviews of your own summary on that day.
Revise your own summary in the light of the reviews you received. Submit the final version on 26 October at the latest.
Start by watching the following two excellent videos on writing a paper:
They are each around 30 minutes: it will be time very well spent! You'll notice they do not entirely agree - you will need to make your own choice as to whose advice you follow.
Read Peter Damashke's guide to avoiding frequent trivial writing mistakes.
One good source for detailed writing guidelines is Joseph Williams' book:
The material in Chapters 1-7 is particularly important - a brief overview was given in the lecture. You should obtain a copy of this book if you have not already done so, and read those Chapters in parallel with writing your first draft. (You should not delay starting writing until you have finished Chapter 7; however, you will find the material immensely helpful as you write, so you should aim to finish Chapter 7 during the next week).
Write a summary of the papers you have read. The title of your summary should be "A Summary of <main paper's title> by <authors of the main paper>". Make sure you include your name and e-mail address in the title part of your summary. Your summary should be aimed at your fellow students (so, an audience generally knowledgeable about data science, but not this speciality), and you should make sure to explain clearly:
Try to illustrate your points with examples.
You have a page limit of four pages, plus references. This means that all your text, excluding the "References" section at the end of the paper, must fit within four pages. Page limits are common in paper-writing, although four pages is very short - and almost certainly much shorter than the paper you are summarizing. This will force you to be selective, and make sure you choose the most important material to include.
Your submission for this exercise is a first draft - that is, we expect you to revise it in the light of feedback. As such, it's OK if some parts are incomplete - but then you should clearly indicate what is missing, by writing something such as "The final version will contain a discussion of the relationship to [4] at this point". Try to make your first draft as complete as possible - even if the writing is rough in places - so that you get feedback on as much of the document as possible.
We recommend using LaTeX to prepare your document (although this is just a recommendation, not a requirement). You will find plenty of information about how to use LaTeX online, and you will find ways to install it under virtually any operating system. However, if you are not familiar with LaTeX yet, then you might like to use this template as a starting point.
Your first draft is due on 30 September, and should be submitted through the Fire system. Only PDF files can be submitted.
You should attend a writing workshop, at which your first draft will be discussed with a teacher and a group of your fellow students. You should attend the entire two hour slot that you book; around 20 minutes will be spent discussing your own writing, and you should expect to spend the remaining time reading other students' summaries and making helpful suggestions. Please bring enough copies of your draft on paper for everyone at the workshop to have a copy to read.
You should submit a second draft of your summary on or before 14 October, and on 15 October you should receive two other students' summaries by e-mail. Your task is to read each summary, and write a review for the author, following the structure and advice covered in the lecture. Your reviews may be submitted either as a text file (with extension .txt), or as a PDF.
The deadline for your reviews is 19 October. You should submit your reviews using the Fire system, and send a copy of your review by e-mail to each summary author at the same time (their e-mail address ought to be given at the top of their summary).
On the day your own reviews are due, you ought to receive two reviews of your own draft summary from your fellow students. Now it's time to polish your summary into its final form, taking into account the feedback you have received. Don't forget that your final summary should not only explain the key idea in the main paper you chose to work with, but also explain why it is important with reference to the papers that came before and after. Check your list of references: are at least three papers listed there? If not, you're not done!
Your final version is due on the 26 October. Note that this is a different exercise in the Fire system - it's not a resubmission of the first draft or the second draft. So make sure you submit to the correct exercise!