foundations of constraint processing, csce421/821 guidelines for reports1 problem solving with...

Foundations of Constraint Processing, CSCE421/821

Guidelines for reports 1

Problem Solving with Constraints

CSCE421/821, Fall 2015www.cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F15-421-821

Berthe Y. Choueiry (Shu-we-ri)Avery Hall, 360

Guidelines for Reports



Outline

• Writing a critical summary

• Committing to a project

• Writing a progress report

• About your final report



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



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



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?



Outline







Committing to a Project• By Wednesday, October 29, you must commit to a project• Submit to handin a short report (up to 1 page) stating:

– Project title, your name– A short 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.



Outline







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



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



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)?



Outline






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



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



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 mistakeshttp://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.


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