The deliverables in this class consist of 5 reports on (five) lectures. Here we describe what we expect them to contain and in what format.
In broader terms, they are a method for demonstrating and further developing your understanding (of the takeaway) of the talks.

Note that we have provided a significant amount of freedom and room for interpretation to accommodate different presenter styles and student backgrounds regarding the content of the documents, but standardized their format.

Formatting

We expect the submissions to be written in latex, as it is the standard for writing mathematical documents. We do not expect you to read and understand research papers that are referred to during the talks in depth. However, we strongly suggest you cite them, and other relevant sources, especially if you use them when writing your submissions.

Each submission should be 2-3 pages long, excluding the references, and follow the provided template (see left tab on mycourses). This template is a modification of the example project of overleaf, which we recommend using (overleaf -> "new project" -> "upload project" -> pick "template.zip" from tab on the left tab).

Content

A report can be any of the following four types of documents (described in more detail below):

  • Talk summary
  • Deep dive
  • Research proposal
  • Interdisciplinary connection

However, we expect your (five) submissions to contain at least one of each type.

Talk Summary

This is the most straightforward type of document and reports on both the scientific content and the presentation of the talk.

We expect more than half of the submission to describe the content of the talk. In a research talk, this includes, for example, the motivation, questions, approaches, and results of the presented work.
A smaller yet significant amount of attention should be given to the style and structure of the presentation. For instance, it could describe how the speaker motivated their standpoint through a set of examples or, instead, taught a topic by providing an overview and then delving into details.

Deep Dive

Here your submission provides a more detailed look at a part of the talk chosen by yourself. For example, if the talk described several related works, the assignment could pick one of them and discuss it in more detail than would otherwise be possible in a more general summary.

In this submission, we expect at least a brief description of the whole talk to set the context of the deep dive. Additionally, it may be necessary to refer to external sources for further information and details.

Research Proposal

This type of document argues for a particular (research) proposal. The proposal may be about future work that the presenter mentioned, as well as about research of which the results have been presented. For example, if the talk discussed previous research work and concluded with interesting future directions, then it is possible to either write a document that "proposes" to do the research that was discussed, but it is also possible to write a document that proposes one of the future directions.

In this submission, we expect at least a brief description of the whole talk to set the context of the research proposal. Additionally, it may be necessary to refer to external sources for further information and details.

Interdisciplinary Connection

This type of document discusses a (potential) connection, or relationship, between the presentation topics and your own (academic) background and interests. For example, you can discuss how knowledge presented in the talk can be applied in your field. If you struggle, you could also consider writing why there is no such interdisciplinary relationship (this should be rare!).

In this submission, we expect at least a brief description of the whole talk and your background to set the context of the document. However, we expect at least half of the content to discuss the connection.

Last modified: Monday, 3 June 2024, 4:34 PM