Essay topics
Guidelines, topics Attach:Algorithmics_Essay_2013.pdf , ( docx )
Please mark your selected topics in here
Some points:
1) Author and affiliation was totally missing in one case.
2) Affiliation (Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu) was missing in many
3) Long sentences are bad. Split them in shorter ones. English allows to do that easily.
4) Despite of me stressing several times on adding figures and illustrations - many did not use this opportunity
5) Some had totally missing references.
6) Structure: Abstract, Introduction, Sections, Conclusions, References. Several missed conclusions.
7) Many of you chose the same article on k-d trees. However, if the title promises clustering and content does not - then you could have mentioned that. Only one did. And your 2-page overview can always also discuss 3-4 other key concepts/articles of related work
8) Often the intuition was missing from the papers. E.g. on multi-armed bandits. What's the use of formulas unless you explain what is the key strategy in trying to choose the next arm/coin.
9) Bitcoin - many did not calculate the actual cost of mining bitcoins that was in the title. Again - if title is not fulfilled by content, then this is really bad. And even if most concluded that mining bitcoins does not pay off without specialised hardware, you could still buy and sell coins. Risking that some specialised hardware owners could devalue bitcoins too much.
10) Citations (whichever stule) are within the sentences, alwways followed by a period (Author et al 1999). Never after the sentence. [3]
11) The key in writing is to make it readable & understandable by reader. Often reading the paper out loud helps in this. You spot the cases where sentences do not make sense in oral presentation.
12) Figures, algorithms, sections are references should be cited as Figure 1, Algorithm 2, etc. I.e. these concrete references within the text are capitalised.
Please everyone, try to practice writing as much as possible. This skill is very much needed in whichever job you will choose later.
One of the nice advices is - read the text, try to understand it. Then, next day just write it out completely in your own wording.
Cheers,
-Jaak
Ps. I am really surprised by 10, since I have never seen guides that would tell you do this.