Guidelines for Participation

3 points at each of the 7 presentations
9 points at instructor's lectures


Guidelines for Presentation

10 points on comprehensibility
10 points on depth
10 points on answers to questions
5 points on technical writing & timing


Guidelines for Term Paper (max. 7,500 words)

15 points on comprehensibility
15 points on depth
5 points on technical writing

  1. Summarise, in your own words, the technique you presented, taking into account the feedback you received during your presentation. If you can't avoid copying (or if you do not succeed in paraphrasing) a passage from a paper you read, then quote and reference: otherwise it is plagiarism!
  2. Classify, according to the criteria of the course, the technique you presented.
  3. Criticise it, and compare it to the related techniques presented by your classmates.
  4. Synthesise, either by hand or using an implementation (where available), a new program / algorithm for at least one of the sample informal specifications given in the course.
  5. Develop a small, but non-trivial, extension / improvement / partial implementation of your technique. Propose your idea to me first, or ask me for ideas if you have trouble finding one.
Pretend your paper is being submitted to a conference or journal: this means, among others, that it  should be self-contained. It also must comply with minimal quality standards in terms of technical writing and type-setting: you must either use LaTeX or use a WYSIWYG system in a structured way, you must use a spelling checker, proofread, ask others to proofread, and be consistent in your style, notations, layout, and conventions. You may follow the bogus paper on the Isabelle system in order to structure your own writing; all ideas tackled in that paper must somewhere appear in yours.

Papers will be returned ungraded for revision (with a 1 point penalty each time) after I encounter the 10th serious technical writing flaw (such as spelling mistakes).

Papers must be revised according to my comments, within 2 weeks after I have graded them, so as to further simulate a conference setting.

Term papers, and their revisions, may be submitted later than their announced deadlines, but a penalty of 1 point is levied for each started delay of 12 hours.