Paper Summaries

An important component of this class will be the careful reading and analysis of the papers to be presented. You are required to write a summary of each paper, which will be due at 11:00 AM on the day the paper is to be presented (1/2 hour before class time). The summaries are to be written on a web-based form; there is a link from the course calendar to the summary form for each paper.

Unfortunately, due to the number of people in the class, it isn't practical for me to grade all of the summaries. I will grade the first three, so you can get an idea of what I'm looking for early. I will grade an addition twelve, to be picked randomly throughout the semester. In the case of reviews that cannot be graded, I will keep track of whether they were turned in.

In filling out the summaries, here's what I'm looking for on the form:

(1 point) What is the topic of this paper?

What is the paper about? For instance, "this paper discusses the Linux Second Extended File System." I have actually added this question a few semesters ago as a result of the number of people who answered the next question with something more appropriate to this question.

(2 points) What is the problem the author is trying to solve?

What, specifically, is the problem being addressed by the author? An example would be, "existing Linux file systems were severely limited by maximum file name length, file size, and file system size. They also didn't support full Unix file system semantics (particularly regarding time stamps) and had low performance" Note: a frequent mistake is answering this question with something of the form, "the author is writing a paper about...." I want to know about the work here, not the paper.

(2 points) Why is this problem important?

Who cares? Why did anybody feel like they should address the problem? This can vary from commercial reasons (a frequent reason for new processors in CS 573), to purely theoretical issues.

(3 points) What is the author's basic approach?

Here is the core of the summary: how did the author approach the problem? What are the essential features of the solution?

And again, I don't want an outline of the paper here. I want you tell me about the research.

(1 point) Is this approach successful?

Time to evaluate: does the work meet the author's stated goals?

(1 point) Where should this research go next?

Time to be original: does this paper end up suggesting anything to you regarding future work? I prefer answers that don't come out the the "Future Work" section of the paper.

The remaining questions are more for my curiosity, as I refine the selection of papers every semester.