This schedule has several deadlines.  It is your responsibility to be aware of these deadlines and to meet them.  Work will be accepted late but a percentage will be subtracted from your score as a consequence.

The most important assignment for CSE 190 is to write a paper of about 5000 words that summarizes and analyzes the arguments and conclusions of one of the books that you have chosen.  The due dates for this paper are as follows:

• Monday May 1: outline
• Monday May 15: first draft
• Monday May 29: second draft
• Wednesday June 7: final version.

You will make a presentation in class based on your paper and your readings.  We will discuss in class how to give a good presentation, and the instructor will help each student prepare individually.  One quarter of your grade will be based on this presentation.

Some students will have to give their presentations in early May.  If you can volunteer to work on your paper and presentation in the first half of the quarter, please do so.  If it will be impossible for you to give your presentation on certain class days, you must tell the instructor which days are impossible for you by email on April 18 or before.

The final 1/4 of your grade for CSE 190 will be based on class participation.  All students are expected to take part actively in class discussions.  Your participation should be spontaneous.  That is, the instructor should not have to repeatedly ask you for your opinion.  Instead, you should volunteer articulate, well-informed opinions as an equal contributor to most class meetings.
 
 

WRITING YOUR OUTLINE

• The outline should reveal your main claims and your point of view, in addition to your topics and subtopics.
• Each item in the outline should be a whole sentence or a whole phrase that makes a clear statement, not just a few words mentioning a topic.
• The outline should show the organization of your paper, which should be logical and coherent.
• The outline should make clear what your main conclusions are likely to be.

WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT

Your draft should be organized well, written well, and formatted well.  As an exercise in following "ready for publication" instructions, your paper should be formatted following the AAAI Formatting Instructions for Authors.  Macros and templates for Microsoft Word and for LaTeX are available.  Papers should be printed on standard 8.5 inch by 11 inch paper using a laser printer or a high-quality inkjet printer, and stapled together securely.  Papers assembled with paper clips or other insecure bindings will be rejected.  Do not use any plastic or cardboard binders or sleeves.

Organize your paper clearly, with sections, subsections, and paragraphs.  Each main section should have a title that is informative about what the section contains.  Use diagrams, charts, and tables if they are useful.  Always provide labels and/or legends for diagrams, charts, and tables.  For footnotes, citations, and all other questions of style, follow the AAAI Instructions for Authors.
 
 

HELP WITH WRITING

If you are not confident that you know how to write a good papers, then you should seek help and advice.  The instructor is available to assist you.  However you should also use other resources.  In particular you should use the UCSD Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services for help with writing.  According to their web page:

"The Writing Center offers the UCSD community FREE one-to-one conferences on any kind of writing project ... Various workshops are offered, including ... essay writing ... The OASIS writing test assesses your strengths and weaknesses in writing and editing academic papers. ... Individual tutorial services are available to students whose first language is not English."

USEFUL LINKS ON WRITING

After you have mastered the mechanics of writing, the next challenge is to develop a sense of style.  The book Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose by Francis-Noel Thomas and Mark Turner is a wonderful treatise on the topic of writing style.  Be sure to explore the authors' online guide to good writing.

The CSE 190 term paper is not technical writing, strictly speaking.  However you may find the following report useful for CSE 190, and you will certainly find it useful for work outside CSE 190. Although the report is protected by copyright law, it is available for viewing on the web.

Technical Writing for Computer Engineers and Computer Scientists by Kevin Karplus and Dan Scripture.

From the report: "This document contains course notes and exercises for a course in technical writing. The course is intended for third-year computer engineering majors, and emphasizes technical documentation directed to engineers, engineering managers, technical writers, and other specialized audiences. Exercises include job applications and résumés, memos, electronic correspondence, algorithm description, in-program documentation, naive-user documentation, survey articles, recommendation letters, proposal writing, document specification, progress reports, formal technical reports, and an oral presentation."

REFERENCES

• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• The Financial Times of London

• The Economist of London
• The New York Review of Books
• The Atlantic Monthly

The principles of academic honesty will be vigorously enforced in CSE 190, following the UCSD Policy on Integrity of Scholarship.  If you ever have any doubt about what is permitted, you must ask the instructor.

You should do all the work for CSE 190 by yourself, but you may ask for assistance from other people, including other students.  However, any non-trivial help that you receive from anyone else must be described briefly and acknowledged in writing at the end of your term paper.

Any type or amount of plagiarism is a very serious violation.  You may not steal phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or figures from books, published or unpublished papers, web pages, or any other source.  Plagiarism includes so-called "mosaic plagiarism," where you paraphrase the writing of one or more other people by mixing phrases taken from their work with your own phrases and sentences.  For an example of software for detecting plagiarism automatically, see www.findsame.com.

If you quote anything authored by anyone else, you must indicate very clearly that it is a quotation, and you must provide a precise citation immediately before or after the borrowed text or figure.  Quotations should be at most a very minor part of a report:  almost all the writing in your report should be your own work.  To indicate that text is borrowed, use quotation marks and/or indentation, in addition to a citation.  Citations and bibliographies should follow AAAI instructions.