Princeton University Computer Science Dept.

Computer Science SRT Senior Thesis Research ***A.B. Candidates Only*** Tom Funkhouser

Spring 2000

Description:

Two-semester sequence of courses during which AB candidates research and write their senior thesis. Topics may be selected from suggestions by faculty members or proposed by the student. A list of independent research topics, including each professor's research area, is available here, or from the Undergraduate Secretary in Room 410, Computer Science Building. The final choice of topics must be approved by the faculty advisor.

Prerequisites:

A.B. CANDIDATES and BSE THESIS CANDIDATES ONLY (BSE Candidates not doing a thesis: please see the CS498 home page).
AB candidates are implicitly registered for independent research every semester of their last two years.
B.S.E. candidates who do independent work must register explicitly.

Coursework:

Students enrolled for independent work this semester must attend occasional class meetings where they will be advised about how to do independent work, how to prepare an oral presentation, how to write the final report, etc.

The student is expected to average at least 10-15 hours per week and to make regular progress reports to his/her faculty advisor. A written report must be submitted at the end of the semester.

Answers to frequently asked questions about independent work.

Schedule

• Tuesday, February 15:

Deadline to choose a second reader for your thesis.
Send email to Tina McCoy (tmhill@cs) with the name of the professor
that has agreed to be your second reader.  Meet at least
once (and hopefully more) with your second reader during February
and March.
 
• Monday, April 3:

First draft of thesis written reports are due.
By this time you should have all of your experimental results.
Give copies to both your advisor and your second reader.
 
• Monday, May 1:

Final draft of thesis written reports are due at 5PM.
Please hand-in four copies, as follows:
(1) one bound copy to your advisor,
(2) one bound copy to your second reader,
(3) two unbound copies to Tina McCoy in room 410.
 
• Wednesday, May 10 & Thursday, May 11:

Thesis "defence" presentations.
SIGN UP FOR A TIME SLOT ON THE SHEETS HANGING OUTSIDE ROOM 410.
BE SURE TO PICK A SLOT WHEN YOUR ADVISOR IS AVAILABLE.

Thesis Written Reports
Due Monday, May 1 at 5PM.

The thesis written report should contain descriptions of the goals, challenges, implementation, results, and conclusions of your project.  You should include a review of previous work with appropriate citations from the literature.  You should write detailed descriptions of the approach you've chosen, the implementation hurdles you've encountered, the features you've implemented, and the results you've generated.  Please do not be vague in your written descriptions.  Final reports from previous semesters are available on the shelves in CS401.  Following is a sample outline ...

• Abstract
• Introduction
• What problem are you trying to solve?
• What are the potential applications for a solution to the problem?
• Why is the problem challenging?
• Briefly motivate/describe your key insight/contribution (one paragraph)
• Give a brief overview of your paper (a one paragraph executive summary)
• Previous Work
• What researcher first identified and worked on your problem?
• What other researchers have worked on it?  What approaches did they try?
• For each previous approach: what was the key insight? Under what conditions does it fail/succeed?
• What is the gap you are trying to fill?
• Approach
• What approach did I try?
• What is the key insight that differentiates it from previous work?
• Under what circumstances do I think it should work well?
• Why do I think it should work well under those circumstances?
• Methodology
• What pieces had to be implemented to execute my approach?
• For each piece ...
• Were there several possible implementations?
• If there were several possibilities, what were the advantages/disadvantages of each?
• Which implementation(s) did I do?  Why?
• What did I implement?   <== Include detailed descriptions
• What didn't I implement? Why not?
• Results
• What was I trying to test?
• What experiments did I execute?
• What different approaches/parameters did I vary in these experiments?
• What objective measure of success did I use?
• Provide quantitative results.
• What do my results indicate?
• Discussion
• Overall, is the approach I took promising?
• What different approach or variant of this approach is better?
• What follow-up work should be done next?
• What did I learn by doing this project?
• Conclusion
• Summarize
• Draw conclusions
• References
• Follow the guidelines in:
• James Thorpe, Literary Scholarship, Chapter III, Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1964, pages 63-88.
• The MLA Handbook, 2nd Edition, Modern Language Association of America, New York, 1984.
• A Manual of Style, 13th Edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982.

Thesis Defence Presentations
Wednesday, May 10 & Thursday, May 11.

SIGN UP FOR A TIME SLOT ON THE SHEETS HANGING OUTSIDE ROOM 410.
BE SURE TO PICK A SLOT WHEN YOUR ADVISOR IS AVAILABLE.

Each student will give a 15 minute talk to present the results of his/her thesis project.
AB talks will be followed by 10-15 minutes of questions (which comprise the "departmental exam").

You probably want to use around 10 slides for your talk.  For instance, ...

  1.Problem description (1 slide)
         What is the goal of my project?
         What problem am I trying to solve?
         What applications are there if I succeed?
         Why is the problem hard?
         How will I measure success?
  2.Previous Work (1 slide)
         What approaches have others tried?
         Under what conditions have they suceeded and failed?
  3.Overview of Approach (1 slide)
         What approach am I trying?
         What motivated me to try this approach?
         What is the key idea behind what I am doing?
  4.Methodology (3 slides)
         What components have I implemented?
         What issues have I resolved?
         For each issue ...
            - What options were there?
            - Which of the options did I implement?
         What issues remain?
  5.Results (1-3 slides)
         How have I tested my work?
         For each issue resolved so far, which of the options was best?
         Present data indicating whether or not you are meeting your goal.
  6.Conclusion (1 slide)
         Summarize your key points, so everybody gets it

You are encouraged to use either a laptop or transparencies in your talk. A laptop and projector will be provided.  To print transparencies on printers in the department see here for instructions. Use of gimmicks, props, ... anything you can think of to make your talk more interesting is encouraged.  So, be creative!

People

• Instructor: Tom Funkhouser, office hours are 3PM on Thursdays, Room 422, CS Bldg., funk@cs.princeton.edu
• CS undergrad secretary: Ms. T. McCoy, Room 410 CS Bldg. tmhill@cs.princeton.edu.

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