CSCE 410/810

Term Paper Assignment

November 20 2003

Problem

Write a paper on issues related to Information Retrieval.

Your term paper must NOT be merely a summary or rewording of any single paper. However, it is okay to write a summary of several papers with a clear discussion objective such as “to discuss the pros and cons of various similarity measures,” “to survey the research issues and solutions in interactive search,” etc.

You are encouraged to base your term paper on the paper that you will present in the class. And you are required to read at least 5 other papers to support your discussions. You may download papers from the Web or use the papers found in the collections for your Presentation Assignment.

The goal of this assignment is to provide an exercise in scientific writing and research.

This counts 10% towards your grade in the class.

Requirements

You must adhere to the following format for your term paper. The font size is 12. The paper size is the regular 8.5” x 11”. All margins are 1 inch. The document must be set at 1.5 line space. The term paper must have a title, your name, and the following five sections:

(1) Introduction – describe what your term paper is about

(2) Description– describe/summarize the methodologies/approaches/concepts/formats of the systems/tools/products/datasets/experiments that you want to talk about

(3) Critiques – describe your thoughts about the papers that you have read and included in this term paper. Are the approaches good? Or bad? Why do you think so? If they are bad or weak, what remedies do you think can be of help? Can you come up with possible extensions to their work? Insights. And so on.

(4) Conclusions – conclude your term paper.

(5) References – Reference clearly and responsibly all articles/papers that you refer to in your discussion. References should include the items (author names, title of article, etc.) that have been outlined in Homework Assignment #1.

For undergraduates, you are required to write a term paper between 5 and 10 pages long. For graduates, you are required to write a term paper between 8 and 13 pages long. Papers shorter or longer than the requirements will be penalized. Each term paper must have at least 6 references. You may have figures in your term paper, but put them at the end of the paper and they will not be counted towards the number of pages of your term paper. You may also add your own sections.

You must work on this assignment on your own—teams are not allowed.

Hand In

Turn in your paper (in either PS or PDF format only) using the cse410 handin account.

The assignment is due 8:00 a.m. December 18th, 2003. The following table specifies the penalties for late homework.

Time Turned In	Penalty
8:00 a.m. (12/18/2003)	None
Later than 8:00 a.m. (12/18/2003)	Not accepted

Grading

(1) 15% Requirements (Paper length, format, references, etc.)

(2) 20% Presentation and Organization (Introduction, Description, Critiques, Conclusions, References)

(3) 30% Description (Section 2)

(4) 20% Critiques (Section 3)

(5) 15% Spelling and Grammars