CS 110 Winter 2010 Syllabus

Basic information Course description Course goals Prerequisites Teaching methods Expectations Texts Grading Academic honor Student needs Additional support Course schedule

Basic information

Instructor: Tom Cormen
Office: 204 Sudikoff
Email: thc@cs.dartmouth.edu
Office phone: 646-2417
Office hours: January 4 through March 9
        Tuesday 1:00–3:00 pm (1:00–2:00 pm on January 19 and February 23)
        Friday 10:00 am–12:00 noon
        In addition, you may schedule appointments with me as necessary
Class time: 2 (1:45–2:50 pm Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
x-hours: We will use x-hours occasionally; see the course schedule for specific dates

Course description

Here's the ORC description of CS 110:

Students will learn how to write technical papers in computer science, how to present technical papers in a conference-talk setting, and how program committees and journal editors evaluate technical papers. Writing topics include the proper use of technical typesetting software, organization of technical papers, and English usage. Students will write technical papers, produce official course notes, and give oral presentations.

We'll focus mostly on writing. Some of the writing issues we cover will be specific to computer science or mathematics, whereas some will be material that you should have learned in your freshman writing course, but probably did not.

Second in prominence will be how to give talks. Each enrolled student will give a 20-minute (conference-length) technical talk.

We'll spend the least time on how reviewers evaluate papers. We need to cover this angle, however, since every paper you submit to a conference or journal will be reviewed. You should have an idea of what your readers are looking for.

Course goals

To be a successful researcher, you need to do more than just obtain results. You need to communicate your results to your research community. In order to do so, you need to write papers that are accepted to conferences and journals. Although poorly written papers are sometimes accepted (too often, in my humble opinion), the odds of a paper being accepted increase if the paper is well written. Moreover, the odds of a paper being cited are much higher if the paper is well written.

Alas, most of us did not choose computer science because we love to write English prose. Indeed, most of us seldom wrote prose during our undergraduate years. You might be rusty as a writer, and you almost certainly need to learn how to write technical papers. This course will teach you how and give you practice in doing so.

We will cover the following writing topics:

Style: How to construct sentences and paragraphs that are clear and concise.
Usage: Which words apply in which situations.
Paper organization: What sections to put in a paper, and what to put in each section.
Figures: How to design illustrations that are simple, accurate, and effective.
LaTeX: How to typeset your work using LaTeX correctly.

As a computer-science researcher, you will occasionally give technical talks. Some talk-giving skills apply to any form of public speaking, but others are specific to our field. This course will teach you how to give technical talks. You will give one, and you will critique talks given by others.

Prerequisites

From the ORC:

Each student must submit a short expository piece to be evaluated by the instructor at the start of the course; only those students meeting a required level of competence will be permitted to take the course for a grade. Students should also have a Computer Science background sufficient to understand research papers.

I have posted guidelines for the expository piece. I need it by 5:00 pm on Tuesday, January 5. You will know by class time on Wednesday, January 6 whether you have passed the writing test.

Teaching methods

We will use a combination of lectures and discussion. For the writing topics, I'll present some material, then we'll discuss. Then I'll present more material, then we'll discuss, and so on. For the segment on giving talks, we'll talk about elements of good and bad talks, then I'll present two talks—one intentionally bad and the other not intentionally bad—and I'll ask you to critique them. Then each member of the class will present a talk, which the rest of the class will critique.

We'll be running this course on the scribe system. For each class meeting that includes lecture or discussion, one student will be the official scribe. That student will take careful notes and write them up beautifully in LaTeX. Once the notes pass my muster, I'll post them on the course website. Depending on the enrollment, each student will scribe somewhere between one and three times. Auditors might be asked to take a turn scribing.

Expectations

Part of your grade will depend on class participation, and so I expect you to attend classes. Of course, you will occasionally have to miss class for a good reason, such as attending a conference. In order to have good discussions, we need discussants. I'm good at talking to myself, but I'd much rather have you there.

The workload in this course will be moderate. I'll ask you to read a bit, but the reading will be about writing, rather than technical. We'll have a few homework assignments. And you'll have to write a technical paper, with a draft due near the end of the term and the final version due at the end of the term.

I will alter the course schedule as needed. Among other things, it depends on how many students end up registered for the course.

Texts

I have selected the following books:

Leslie Lamport, LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, second edition. Required. Although better LaTeX tutorials might be out there, Lamport's book is to LaTeX as K&R is to C.
Lyn Dupré, Bugs in Writing. Required. A good usage reference, geared toward computer scientists. You'll enjoy reading it all the more if you happen to like cats.
Joseph M. Williams, Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace, third edition. Required. The best book on writing style I've ever seen. This book tells you how to diagnose and repair sentences that are grammatically correct and even make sense semantically, yet somehow seem off. It has greatly altered the way I write.
Justin Zobel, Writing for Computer Science, second edition. Required. I don't agree with everything that Zobel writes, but I agree with much of it. This book will serve as a good starting point for discussion.
William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth edition. Recommended. The classic, though a bit musty by now. I prefer Williams as a style book and Dupré as a usage book.

In addition, we will use your writing as text. I will ask each of you to submit some writing, and the entire class will critique some of the submitted writing. Lest you think that I'm asking you to do something I wouldn't submit myself to, fear not: you'll be critiquing my writing before you critique your classmates' writing.

Here are other books that you might find useful and possibly even enjoy:

Nicolas J. Higham, Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences. It has a little that's specific to writing mathematics, a little on usage, and a lot on the process of writing a paper.
Donald E. Knuth, The TeXbook. Like Lamport's book, this book is to TeX as K&R is to C. I find this book a bit difficult to use, however, and the index is a quintessential example of TMI.
Patricia T. O'Conner, Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English. Julie Sussman, the World's Best Technical Copyeditor, is a big fan of this book.
William Safire, Fumblerules. Safire's list of grammar and usage rules, each of which violates itself. Example: "The passive voice should never be used."
Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. If you were as fixated on your research as Truss is on punctuation, you would have graduated by now.
Bill Bryson. Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer's Guide to Getting It Right. The most complete usage reference I've ever seen. A true labor of love and cantankerousness.
Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. This book was an instant classic. I don't agree with all of it, but it's certainly thought provoking. We'll discuss many of its positions when we talk about figures.

Grading

Your grade will be a weighted combination of the assignments, presentation, paper, and class participation.

Academic honor

The principle of academic honor applies in this course as in any other course. Work you submit must be your own, subject to requirements that I state in each assignment. If you need to work with someone else, you must fully attribute with whom you worked.

Believe it or not, I have had an academic honor violation come up in a past version of this course. I will not hesitate to bring any suspected violations to the attention of the Dean of Graduate Studies, and violators can expect to be suspended for some number of terms. If you have any question about whether you are in danger of violating the principle of academic honor, please check with me before you do something you'll regret.

Student needs

Students with disabilities enrolled in this course and who may need disability-related classroom accommodations are encouraged to make an appointment to see me before the end of the second week of the term. All discussions will remain confidential, although the Student Accessibility Services office may be consulted to discuss appropriate implementation of any accommodation requested.

Additional support

In addition to my office hours, you can get help at RWIT, the Student Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology, located in 183 Berry Library, a few feet south of the Reference Desk on the main floor of Berry. The RWIT tutors are trained to help you in all phases of the composition process, including preparing talks. Back when I directed the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, I was indirectly in charge of RWIT. Not every RWIT tutor will be able to help you with your specific problems, but most of them will be able to help you in some way. The RWIT service is free. You may either schedule an appointment or walk in. See http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rwit/ for information and scheduling.

Course schedule

Subject to change with minimal notice.

Week 1: January 4, 6, 8: Course overview. Paper organization.
Reading: Zobel, Chapters 1 and 9.
Week 2: January 11, 13, 14, 15: Paper organization. Style.
Reading: Williams, especially Lessons 1–6; Strunk and White, Chapter II; Zobel, Chapters 2 and 3.
Week 3: January 20, 21 (x-hour), 22: Figure design. Mathematical writing. Usage.
Reading: Zobel, Chapters 5 and 6; Dupré, Segments 15, 23, 29, 43, 47, 49, 50, 57, 75, 77, 104, 118, 126, 139.
Week 4: January 27, 28, 29: Usage.
Dupré, Segments 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, 41, 61, 64, 66, 73, 80, 92, 99, 115, 116, 119, 129, 135.
Week 5: February 1, 3, 5: Critique student writing. The review process.
Reading: Zobel, Chapter 12.
Week 6: February 8, 10, 11 (x-hour), no class February 12 due to Winter Carnival: How to give talks.
Reading: Zobel, Chapter 14; Dupré, Segment 122.
Week 7: February 15, 17, 19: LaTeX.
Reading: Lamport
Week 8: February 22, 24, 26: Student presentations.
Week 9: March 1, 3, 5: Student presentations.
Week 10: March 8: Student presentations.

Thomas H. Cormen <thc@cs.dartmouth.edu>

Last modified: Sun Feb 14 21:33:02 2010