Paper Reading
Overview
The goals of paper reading sessions are to develop the skills of critical reading, discussion, and presentation skills. In each reading session, we will go through a certain number of research papers related to a topic. During the session, students will play different roles derived from a style of paper reading for seminars that allows each participant to bring different perspectives. Some of the different roles include:
Author-style Presenter
A presenter will prepare a presentation in the style of the author that is a maximum of 15 minutes. CS 589 students must be presenter for one paper during the quarter. In your presentation,
- Explain the problem and the approach of the paper briefly. Give a big picture view of the paper to the class.
- Highlight the most interesting contributions of the paper, especially the parts that are difficult to follow. Include examples wherever possible for illustrating the details.
- Present briefly any relevant related work which the paper is based on.
- Highlight the methodology and results.
- Discuss the impacts/takeaways from the paper.
Some useful resources on giving research talks:
- How to give a technical presentation (how to give a scientific talk) by Michael Ernst - Excellent and comprehensive.
- How to Give a Great Research Talk by Simon Peyton Jones - This video gives great guidelines and practical advice.
Reviewer
A reviewer should prepare a review in the following format. For more details, refer to the slides on How to read/review a paper.
- Title of the paper
- Summary of the paper in 3-4 lines.
- 3 strengths of the paper
- 3 weaknesses/areas of improvement of the paper
- Other comments about the paper (e.g., related work, presentation style)
The reviews should be submitted before the discussion. After the paper discussion, update the reviews as necessary and submit them under the relevant Canvas assignment.
Quiz designer
A quiz designer reviews the presentation slides as well as the research paper and prepares questions that will be used in the quiz for that topic.
Historian
A historian must determine where this paper sits in the context of previous and subsequent work. Find and report on one older paper cited within the current paper that substantially influenced the current paper and one newer paper that cites this current paper.
Award Committee member
As a committee member, you are required to determine what is the impact of the paper. Evaluate how this paper self-assesses its (likely positive) impact on the world (or potentially negative impact on the world). Where does this go next? Propose an imaginary follow-up project not just based on the current but only possible due to the existence and success of the current paper.
Paper assignments
The paper for each reading session will be available after the first lecture corresponding to that topic. Students can sign up for the different roles using Google sheets. Any conflicts regarding the assignment of papers will be resolved by the instructor.
Participation
During in-class discussions we will
- Identify any disagreements in the understanding of the paper.
- Resolve any conflicts in the final rating of the paper.
- Come up with ideas for extending the approach or results presented in the paper.
- Present the takeaways from the discussion.
Grading
Grade will be based on paper presentation, paper reviews, discussion participation, and leading paper discussions.
This document is inspired by similar approaches to paper discussion in other classes such as 1, and 2.