Date: 17 Dec 2003 19:04:24 -0500
From: Randolph Wang <rywang@CS.Princeton.EDU>
To:  randy_class2@CS.Princeton.EDU, cbavor@princeton.edu, tbrooks@princeton.edu, mdinitz@princeton.edu, ehuang@princeton.edu, ykoman@princeton.edu, jlevinso@princeton.edu, conall@princeton.edu, orecchia@princeton.edu, awible@princeton.edu, dbengali@princeton.edu, rsimmons@princeton.edu, fbattagl@princeton.edu, achatwan@princeton.edu, jge@princeton.edu, akoren@princeton.edu, eunsill@princeton.edu, tmelo@princeton.edu, wmorton@princeton.edu, mparpari@princeton.edu, dsemaya@princeton.edu, dsilver@princeton.edu, atagert@princeton.edu, rteising@princeton.edu, btsang@princeton.edu, tventimi@princeton.edu, eyanchuk@princeton.edu, jzana@princeton.edu, jbarilla@princeton.edu, rcarneva@princeton.edu, costow@princeton.edu, heinberg@princeton.edu, wkiefer@princeton.edu, fkwak@princeton.edu, jlange@princeton.edu, pyatakov@princeton.edu, ssubrama@princeton.edu, jvance@princeton.edu, mstanton@princeton.edu
CC: tmmccoy@cs
Subject: end-of-semester reports
Reply-to: rywang@cs.princeton.edu


Dear CS independent project participants,

Now that you are done with your project presentations, the next todo
item is the end-of-semester report.  Just a couple of notes about the
requirement of the reports.

(1) Your advisors have the final say in terms of what they are looking
    for in the report.  You may wish to discuss that with your
    advisors.  I personally don't have specific requirements such as
    page count constraints.  There are some general advices about a
    typical template of a computer science research paper on the
    course web site.

(2) People who are working on a 2-semester thesis are also required to
    turn in an end-of-semester report.  Again, I'm leaving the
    specific requirements to the advisors.  There were a couple cases
    of mumbling about this from some students from two years ago who
    thought this was wasting their time.  Here're my responses:

    (a) Some possible content of this report may go directly into the
        final thesis.  These may include background, related work, the
        problem statement, etc.  So it's hardly a waste.  The least we
        should have understood by now is the problem statement and the
        background info.

    (b) This is a good time to summarize what you have done/learned in
        the past semester.

    (c) If extensive writing about the work itself is deemed premature
        at this stage, the advisor and the student can come to a
        mutual agreement in terms of how much writing is expected.  It
        can be brief, for example, but a writeup is still required.

    I will solicit grades and feedback from the advisors about this
    intermediate report just as I did for the checkpoint.

(3) Deadlines.

    Your end-of-semester reports are due on 1/5.

    If you're working on a single-semester IW, you need permission
    from a dean if you need an extension.  Check with Tina
    (tmmccoy@cs) if you need help on this.  One hard copy is due to
    your advisor, one is due to Tina, and an electronic copy is to be
    submitted online (under the "report" category).

    If you're working on a two-semester thesis, One hard copy of your
    progress report is due to your advisor, and an electronic copy is
    to be submitted online (under the "drafts" category).

(4) I have enjoyed your talks: in almost all cases, you guys are doing
    awesome stuff! :)

Cheers,
Randy