Paper Reviews

Due: Wednesday 12/9 in Dropbox folder before class

Your project group has been assigned a project paper from another group. In addition, we have assigned you one project paper and you will choose a third project paper.

Your homework is to hand in three one-page reviews of these project papers. The one page review for the project group may be written jointly. The other two will be from you alone.

Your goal is to provide constructive feedback to your classmates. The form of the review should be as follows.

• one paragraph on a very short summary of the main points of the work, and the contribution of this particular project
• list of "major points" and "minor points"
• major points will include the following:
  • is this work technically sound?
  • are the data appropriately QC'd? Are outliers controlled for? Are features reasonably developed?
  • are the model assumptions appropriate for the analysis?
  • were the results what you would expect? If not, why not? Was FDR evaluated in a reasonable way? Were statements quantified properly?
  • are the conclusions warranted from the results?
  • is this work original?
  • I take a very liberal view of what original means.
  • each paper should certainly have related, state-of-the-art methods included in a few paragraphs, and in a methods comparison.
  • each paper should have a paragraph clearly stating the contribution of this paper to the problem at hand without over- or underselling.
  • each paper should carefully describe how the data and problems motivated the method choice. Blindly selecting hammers for nails is not original. Carefully matching the hammer to the nail is original.
  • manuscipt presentation and layout
  • Is the paper well written and understandable? Is technical jargon explained?
  • is the flow natural and logical?
  • are figures and tables being used well? Are they labeled correctly?
  • are equations well defined, including all variables? Is notation consistent throughout the paper?
  • is the structure of the paper appropriate? Are sections missing? Does essential information get presented in the proper order?
  • are any claims not supported with clear evidence?
  • are essential proofs missing?
  • what community is the presentation targeting? who is the audience?

Not all reviews will include all of these points, but these are some ideas to consider when reading and giving feedback on project write ups.