Preparing for Paper Reading
Believe it or not, we're nearing the end of the "traditional lectures and lessons" part of CS 159!
We've got two more weeks of regular lecture and online lessons (Weeks 6 and 7), then fall break followed by our fun wrap-up lecture about LLMs.
After the midterm, we transition fully to paper discussions and the final project!
After the midterm, CS 159 really becomes your class! We'll be spending a few weeks on student-led paper discussions, where you'll present on recent research papers in NLP.
Yay, finally! I love reading research papers!
I'm scared...I've never read a research paper before...
I think I read a research paper once, but I found it super dense and hard to follow.
Reading research papers is a skill, and one that not every student comes into CS 159 with. So, in preparation for our transition to paper discussions, we'd like you to read a short tutorial on how to read research papers. This tutorial doesn't come from us; it was written many years ago by S. Keshav at the University of Waterloo, and it's been passed down over the years.
Prof Chang once read this very same tutorial back when he was a student at Mudd!
Please click below to read the tutorial (it's short, only 2 pages long), then come back to reflect.
We hope that this helps you get mentally prepared for the class' shift in direction post-midterm!
As always, we're happy to answer any questions you may have.
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