CSCE 121 Culture Reports

• Culture Report 1 due Wed, 9/15 CSCE 121 Culture Report 1
• Culture Report 2 due Wed, 10/6 CSCE 121 Culture Report 2
• Culture Report 3 due Wed, 10/20 CSCE 121 Culture Report 3
• Culture Report 4 due Wed, 11/10 CSCE 121 Culture Report 4
• Culture Report 5 due Wed, 12/1 CSCE 121 Culture Report 5

There is a lot more to Computer Science than you will be exposed to through your normal coursework. The purpose of the culture activities is to give you an opportunity to learn about current events related to computing. Keeping up with trends and learning to evaluate critically what you hear and read are valuable professional skills.

Each report is to be one to two pages long, typed, and is to cover some current aspect (new products, new research results, etc.) of computer science. Your source of information can be either an article or a presentation. The Useful Links section of this webpage has some links to helpful information about technical writing, which you should apply.

Articles in the following two journals are recommended, as usually being at about the right level: Communications of the ACM and IEEE Computer. If you are behind the TAMU firewall (either because you are on campus or are using VPN), you can access these on-line. Each article must have been published after April 2010 and must be at least 5 pages long.

Acceptable seminars include those in the following series (check with the instructor if you would like to use one from a different series):

• Distinguished Lectures
• Departmental Graduate Seminars (CPSC 681)
• Parasol Seminars

What to turn in

1. Cover Page
2. For a paper: complete bibliographic reference (author(s), title, name of journal, volume, number, pages, date)
3. For a seminar: title, name of speaker, date
4. Summary of the paper/talk
5. your critique: your assessment of the paper/talk, any questions it raised your mind, etc. Make sure your critique is clearly marked!

Tips for getting full points on your culture reports

• TURN IT IN ON TIME.
• Include the cover sheet.
• Ideally you should learn something from the seminar/article. If the seminar turns out to be too technical (or not well presented), just do the best you can, and feel free to point out what confused you or what you thought could have been done better. If you are summarizing an article, be sure to choose an appropriate level article. It should have a reasonable level of technical depth (relating to computing) and be of reasonable length. An editorial full of jokes is too easy; a 30 page paper from a highly technical journal full of proofs is probably too hard. You should be able to learn something from the article.
• Don't be too skimpy on your summary.
• Clearly mark your own comments and critical evaluation. Say something at least mildly insightful. "I learned a lot/it made me think" is not enough. What did you like and why? Is there a flaw in the paper? How does it relate to something else you may be aware of? Etc.
• Include the required information about the seminar/paper in your summary.
• Use a spell-checker and grammar checker.

The culture report due dates are posted in the Calendar section and summarized here. Each report is due at 5:00 PM on the due date; you can turn it in during class that day or bring it to my office.