Section 3: Robots, Autonomous Systems, and Humans

Grading

See the home page for grading information.

You will find expectations for each category at these links:

• Reading Assignments
• Discussion Participation
• Research Paper Presentations
• Final Paper

Reading Assignments

When you are not presenting, you are expected to: read the listed article(s) and complete the questionnaire (due the day before the presentation).

Discussion Participation

All students are expected to participate in discussions after (and sometimes during) each presentation. I will update your participate grade on gradescope after each presentation.

Presentations

For each presentation you must:

1. Read your assigned paper.
2. Prepare a set of draft slides for your presentation.
3. Schedule a pre-presentation meeting with me.
4. Give your presentation.
   • Pair presentations are expected to take from 25 to 30 minutes.
   • Solo presentations are expected to take from 15 to 20 minutes.
   • All presentations should include two to three discussion questions at the end.
5. Submit your presentation reflection.

You’ll find additional presentation information in the following sections.

• Before you present
• Presentation rubric
• After you present
• Presentation Advice
• Presentation Structure

Before you present

Here are some thing to consider before you present. We will discuss these items when we meet prior to your presentation.

• Who is your audience? (peers, business, academics, investors, teaching, etc.). This will help you choose appropriate attire, mannerisms, formalisms, and engagements.

• What methods will you use to calm your nerves? Bodies are funny; you can trick them into thinking that anxiety is excitement. We often produce excess adrenaline and epinephrine prior to presenting. These chemicals make us want to move. I recommend having a brisk walk prior to your presentation, learning some calming breathing techniques, and having a quick restroom break before you start.

• How will you prepare your space? You should test your setup (laptop, dongle, projector) before you present. At a conference you should do so prior to the start of your session (not just before your present). I also like having something to drink on hand (water normally).

• How will you reset your brain if you stumble? Have some idea of what you’ll do if you flub up a sentence. Maybe just take a longer drink of water to reset yourself.

• What questions do you expect to receive? It will help you feel better prepared if you try to predict the questions you’ll receive.

• How are you going to practice? The best forms of practice include some pressure and reviewing a recording of yourself.

• How long will you each present? Try to stay on pace. Nobody likes it when a presenter rambles, and you’ll often get cutoff if you do so!

Presentation rubric

Here are the concepts on which I will provide feedback.

• Presentation is clear and follows a coherent story.
• Presentation media is easy to understand.
• Teammates present equitably.
• Presenters are poised and lively.
• Presenters are prepared to answer questions.
• Presentation duration is within the expected range.
• Presentation includes three discussion questions.

If you are looking for additional information, I recommend taking a look at these more formal/complete rubrics.

• Rubric for Formal Oral Communication
• Oral Presentation Rubric
• Multimedia Presentation Rubric | Pomona College in Claremont, California - Pomona College

After you present

We will record all presentations, and you will review your recorded presentation with a CSWIM speaking partner after your presentation. You will also respond to the reflection prompts on gradescope. The key is to make mistakes, but not the same mistake twice! Receiving feedback is an emotional process. Don’t let your emotions get in the way of improving.

Presentation Advice

• I do not have a preference for your presentation format. Common methods include:

  • Slides (including Pecha Kucha)
  • Live typing (similar content to slides) (example)
  • Live diagramming (for example on a whiteboard)
  • Live demos (this one is harder to do in our setting)

• The Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast (here is a specific recommendation: Mindset Matters: How to Embrace the Benefits of Stress) is a good listen. You might as well start week 1!

• If you are using slides, try to have a good mixture variety and mixture of text and graphics-only slides.

• You should foreshadow and sign-post your presentations. But not necessarily by using an “outline” slide.

• This is not a professional research talk. I would like to be informed, but it is also OK for you to also entertain.

• It does not need to follow the same format/flow as the article(s) you present. A presentation is just an advertisement for the article.

• Don’t memorize your “script,” but you can memorize transitions. If you over rehearse it will be difficult to recover from a mistake and it will come across as robotic.

• Know how are you being “evaluated.” Is this a job talk (evaluated on ability to contribute to team)? Graduation keynote (people want to be inspired and enjoy the process)? For a grade (what is the rubric)? Informative (make sure you are credible)?

• Presentations can come in any format. Here are a couple of great descriptions of how to craft a compelling presentation:

  • Simon Peyton Jones’ advice on How to give a great research talk.
  • How to Make a Pecha Kucha - YouTube

I HIGHLY recommend watching the 7 minute How to Make a Pecha Kucha video above. More information here Pecha Kucha 20x20: Discover Pecha Kucha presentations, stories, ideas, examples, and videos that will inspire.

Presentation Structure

Most presentations will follow this structure/outline:

• Introduction
  • Have a solid initial prompt (question, story, bold statement, statistic, quiz, benefit)
  • Tell the audience why should they should care
  • Tell the audience what will they learn
  • Provide some form of preview or demo of final result
• Body
  • Provide the research context (some topics appear in many fields, but are discussed differently)
  • Discuss the approach and how is it novel or of interest
  • Show results and the corresponding experiments to show credibility
• Ending
  • Summarize the key contributions
  • Give a call to action
  • Acknowledge contributors
  • Prompt for questions and feedback

Papers

General Writing Advice

Some quick tips from me:

• Clearly state your thesis.
• Provide clear evidence supporting your thesis.
• Write a bold beginning.
• Write a provocative ending.
• Vary sentence and paragraph length.
• Check for sentence and paragraph transitions.
• Maintain a consistent tense and voice.
• Get into a writing routine. Write a small amount (20 to 30 minutes) three days a week for the entire semester.
• Jot down disparate sentences and combine them together as is useful.
• Outline sections headings and then write the first sentence of each paragraph for each section.
• Use present tense.
• Esthetics are important.
  • Use descending font sizes for headings, subheadings, etc.
  • Use bold, italics, underlining to draw attention to important points (use consistently).
  • Add figures and tables to summarize and break-up text.

Here are some tips from Some “Tips from a Pulitzer prizewinner” (US novelist Cormac McCarthy) written up by Van Savage and Pamela Yeh:

• Use minimalism to achieve clarity.
• Decide on your paper’s theme and two or three points you want every reader to remember.
• Limit each paragraph to a single message.
• Keep sentences short, simply constructed, and direct.
• Don’t slow the reader down.
• Don’t over-elaborate.
• Don’t worry too much about reads who want to find a way to argue about every tangential point and list all possible qualifications for every statement.
• Spoken language and common sense are generally better guides for a first draft than rule books.
• Commas denote a pause in speaking.
• Dashes should emphasize the clauses you consider most important—without using bold or italics—and not only for defining terms.
• Inject questions and less-formal language to break up tone and maintain a friendly feeling.
• Choose concrete language and examples.
• Avoid placing equations in the middle of sentences.
• Red your work aloud to yourself or a friend.

How to Find Articles

I recommend the following approach for finding research papers:

1. Write a short list of search terms and synonyms.
2. Search for these terms using Google Scholar.
   • Look for “recent” papers (for deep learning I’d look for things published in the past two or three years)
   • Focus on papers with higher citation counts, but don’t eliminate a paper just due to the number of citations
   • Look for “survey” and “review” articles, and then click on the “Cited by DDD” link to find recent papers that cite the survey/review article
   • If you find a particularly good article, you can also look at the papers it references (found at the end of the paper)
3. Search with the same terms using your search engine of choice. You can frequently find related blog posts or videos on the authors’ websites
4. Use a tool like Connected Papers to find related articles.

For other types of work (blog posts, etc.) use your normal searching skills (DDG, YouTube, etc.).

How to Read Articles

Keep the following in mind when reading any research article:

• Who are the authors? The authors are the only people with the full context needed to understand a paper. Many authors are not native English writers, so don’t let lower-quality writing prevent you from understanding what could be an important takeaway.

• What is the venue? Every venue will have its own requirements and expectations. Keep this in mind when thinking about what the authors left out (due to space requirements) or didn’t include (due to the media).

• Who is the audience? You are likely not the intended audience for most research papers. The intended audience is probably some niche sub-field of researchers from around the world. Every group of researchers has its own jargon and informal (not codified) rules and conventions.

In general, I only gripe about grammar and style when reviewing (providing feedback prior to publication) an article, and not when reading an article or reviewing a research proposal. In the latter cases, do your best to look past writing characteristics (good or bad) and focus on contributions.

Once you find a research article (or research heavy blog post), I recommend the following technique:

1. Skip the abstract
2. Read the first sentence of every paragraph in the paper
3. Come up with two or three questions you would ask the author
4. Summarize paper’s main points in one to three sentences
5. Read the abstract and compare it to your summary
6. Read the paper again, but now without skipping any sections.

In general, you only need to read in more detail if you need to understand something in more detail (for example, if you are trying to replicate their work). You should not expect to understand every part of a paper. You do not have the same background or context as the author(s). You will often want to read a paper several times if you are trying to recreate something the authors discovered.

How to Write an Introduction

You do not have to write your introduction in any specific format, but you might find Dr. Stirewalt’s 5-paragraph rule for writing Introductions helpful:

1. Introductory paragraph: What is the problem and why is it relevant to the audience attending THIS AUDIENCE? Moreover, why is the problem hard, and what is your solution? You must be brief here. This forces you to boil down your contribution to its bare essence and communicate it directly.

2. Background paragraph: Elaborate on why the problem is hard, critically examining prior work, trying to tease out one or two central shortcomings that your solution overcomes.

3. Transition paragraph: What keen insight did you apply to overcome the shortcomings of other approaches? Structure this paragraph like a syllogism: Whereas P and P =  > Q, infer Q.

4. Details paragraph: What technical challenges did you have to overcome and what kinds of validation did you perform?

5. Assessment paragraph: Assess your results and briefly state the broadly interesting conclusions that these results support. This may only take a couple of sentences. I usually then follow these sentences by an optional overview of the structure of the paper with interleaved section callouts.

How to Write a Survey Paper

Most of you will decide to write a survey paper. So, what is a “survey paper”?

“A survey article … should provide a comprehensive review of developments in a selected area, covering its development from its inception to its current state and beyond, and illustrating its development through liberal citations from the literature.”

– IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials

“A survey article assumes a general knowledge of the area; it emphasizes the classification of the existing literature, developing a perspective on the area, and evaluating trends.

Long Survey Paper: A paper that summarizes and organizes recent research results in a novel way that integrates and adds understanding to work in the field. A survey article assumes a general knowledge of the area; it emphasizes the classification of the existing literature, developing a perspective on the area, and evaluating trends.

Short Survey paper: Short survey papers are perspective pieces/essays that are well-focused and written by a leader in the field that usually presents a personal point of view critiquing widespread notions pertaining to a field. A perspective piece can be a review of a concept or a few related concepts.

Tutorial Paper: A paper that organises and introduces work in the field. A tutorial paper assumes its audience is inexpert; it emphasizes the basic concepts of the field and provides concrete example that embody these concepts.”

– ACM Computing Surveys

Here are two recent survey papers that you can use an example:

• A Review on Fairness in Machine Learning | ACM Computing Surveys.
• A Survey of Machine Learning for Computer Architecture and Systems | ACM Computing Surveys

I will look for the following in your survey paper:

1. Abstract (see How to write a good abstract for a scientific paper or conference presentation - PMC)
2. An introduction (see section section How to Write an Introduction)
   • Discuss the significance and topic motivation
3. A body including one to five sections (however you see fit to organize and discuss the topic)
   • Provide a view and categorization of existing work
   • Include your own commentary and assessments
4. A discussion (and possibly separate conclusion)
   • Provide your personal perspective on the topic
   • Include a discussion on future directions for the field

Survey papers will often include definitions and figures copied from other papers (cited, of course). As you read the articles you’ve accumulated, you should start organizing them into areas. The Research Paper Rubric will give you a good idea regarding how I will evaluate your report.

If you want more information, then it won’t hurt to skim through Procedures for Performing Systematic Reviews by Barbara Kitchenham.

How to Outline a Technical Report

Writing your technical report will be much easier if you start with an outline. Outlining will help you

• organize your thoughts
• order your arguments and supporting evidence
• develop relationships between your topics
• direct your background reading

An outline will typically follow this format:

1. Title
2. Introduction
   1. Introductory sentence
   2. Supporting paragraphs (e.g., citation or quote)
   3. Thesis
3. First body section
   1. Topic related to first point of thesis
   2. Supporting paragraphs
4. Second body section
   1. Topic related to second point of thesis
   2. Supporting paragraphs
5. Third body section
   1. Topic related to third point of thesis
   2. Supporting paragraphs
6. Conclusion
   1. Restated thesis
   2. Highlighted points
   3. Future work and additional questions

Here is a more concrete example from Indeed’s advice on writing a research paper outline:

1. Why Schools Should Use Technology for Educational Purposes
2. Introduction
   1. The increasing role of technology in careers
   2. The need for technologically literate citizens
   3. The role of educators to prepare students must include technology literacy
   4. The benefits of technology for students include:
      1. Allows for new types of assignments
      2. Allows for remote learning
      3. Reflects modern careers
3. Body paragraph 1
   1. Technology allows for simulations, games, and programming
   2. Examples of simulation
   3. Examples of games
   4. Examples of programming
4. Body paragraph 2
   1. Technology allows for distance learning
   2. Examples of remote learning
   3. Example of hybrid learning (Students at school and at home)
   4. Examples of remote collaborations (Across cities, states, districts)
5. Body paragraph 3
   1. Technology is an important part of many careers
   2. Technology prevalence in work (cite Johnson, et. al., 2018)
   3. Examples of school projects that mimic work projects (STEM Camp, Boulder Schools, 2012)
   4. Examples of schools using technology for problem-solving
6. Conclusion
   1. Three reasons to encourage technology in school
      1. Problem-solving
      2. Remote learning
      3. Preparation for careers
   2. Summary of innovative uses of technology
   3. Summary of support for using technology in schools
      1. Belcher (2016) found increased technology use led to better math scores on PSAT
   4. Ideas for future research
      1. More studies on the effect of technology and test scores
      2. Using technology as an intervention for struggling students

Here are three more sources for advice on how to outline a technical report:

• Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates
• How to Create a Structured Research Paper Outline | Example
• Outlining - Writing a Paper - Academic Guides at Walden University

Peer-Review Process

We’ll perform peer reviews during two lecture periods. They will follow this format:

1. Read a peer’s current draft.
2. Answer review prompts on gradescope.
3. Share your feedback with the author.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 with different peer some number of times.
5. Answer feedback prompts on gradescope.

Note the following while reading your classmates’ reports (you should take notes on gradescope).

• What is their topic?
• Did they outline their entire report?
• Does the introduction help you understand the topic and its importance?
• Does the introduction help you understand the topic’s categorizations?
• What did you find most confusing about their report?
• What is a one sentence summary of their report?

You can be brief in your note-taking.

Thesis Structure

Here is a senior thesis structure:

• Abstract (problem statement, methodology, main finding, main conclusion)
• Introduction (broad territory, your niche/questions, foreshadowing)
• Literature review (broken down by topic areas)
• Methodology (processes and techniques used for collection and analysis)
• Results
• Discussion (layout claim, state implications, provide recommendations)
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• References

LaTeX Exercise

For this exercise you will use 𝐿𝐴𝑇𝐸𝑋 to create a “short autobiography.” Your autobiography can focus on whatever you’d like (it can be fiction if you’d like). You do not have any word or page count requirements, but you do need to include each of the features listed below.

𝐿𝐴𝑇𝐸𝑋 Advice

Some general advice before you get started:

• Read the documentation to learn how to install 𝐿𝐴𝑇𝐸𝑋
• Peruse some example documents
  • Overleaf Templates
  • TeX showcase
  • LaTeX Showcase
  • LaTeX Typesetting
• Use the Visual Studio Code extension called LaTeX Workshop (assuming you write in VS Code)

Requirements

Your document must at minimum include the following:

• A document title including \title, \author, and \date (see Your first LaTeX document)
• An \abstract (see formatting abstracts)
• At least two \sections (see paragraphs and sections)
• At least one figure (see figures tutorial)
• At least one table (see tables tutorial, Small Guide to Making Nice Tables, and Clear Off the Table)
• At least one list (see lists tutorial)
• Text that references (~\ref) each of your figures, tables, and lists (see Cross referencing sections, equations and floats)
• At least four bibliographical references (see bibliography in LaTeX)
  • You must use a separate .bib file
  • You must cite (~\cite) each reference in text

This GitHub Repository has quite a few tricks that you should consider if you are writing a larger document.

𝐿𝐴𝑇𝐸𝑋 Packages

Here are some of my favorite (personally required) packages:

• BibLaTeX
• booktabs
• hyperref
• lmodern
• microtype
• siunitx
• subcaption

I use many of these in my proposal and cover letter templates.

Submission Instructions

Submit to gradescope.