P1. Pick a Topic to Write About

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In the course you will write a couple of “mock” abstracts that may follow the structure of an empirical research paper (a study requiring formulating hypotheses, designing a comparative experiment, obtaining and presenting empirical data). We call them “mock” because you'll actually not write full papers, and thus we must make some assumptions about the structure of that paper when writing them (for instance, there are likely no results to report, so we must pretend they exist).

Your first assignment for the writing project is to pick a topic: Decide on a topic to write a paper on. Ideally you should pick something of some interest to you, or something that you're currently working on, i.e. a topic you'd like to explore that fits the empirical paradigm. You should describe the topic in one or two sentences, in the form of a question or a set of questions, and perhaps also as a proposed title you might choose for a paper that you might write in the future on that topic might have.

PROPOSE SOME IDEAS ON CANVAS, IN THE FORM OF A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF A TOPIC AND TENTATIVE TITLE (OR SOME ALTERNATIVES THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO PICK FROM). Put your thoughts on “Course Q&A Discussions” on Canvas (on the menu in Canvas, and also the second item on under “modules” on Canvas). It's ok to start with a broad area and then narrow it down.

When teacher has accepted it you hand in your title + short description in Canvas. Once that is approved by the teacher you are ready to do the first writing Assignment.

• Exploring variability in wireless signal receptions - describes an experiment to answer a question about variability that interferes with the quality of wireless signals.
• Comparison of three different malware detection techniques - describes an experiment comparing three algorithms.
• Applying machine learning to load balancing - experiment proposes to test the hypothesis that a particular kind of machine learning can load balance better than humans.
• Comparison of unigram, trigram and five-gram language models in speech recognition - experimental comparison of three methods for doing speech recognition.
• Using AI for detecting and preventing hacker attacks - experimental comparison of three approaches.

Note: Choose wisely - once you have decided you are “locked in”, because changing topic will mean that you must re-do prior work.

Of the areas, questions, and suggested topics you indicate, the teacher will help you pick the best option. The topic must be approved by the teacher – not all topics are equally well suited for the purpose of learning how to write scientific papers. The paper's focus can be selected by proposing tentative titles – ideas for what the final title could or might be. Keep this in mind: The eventual title of a scientific paper should be as descriptive as possible and as short as possible. The tentative version may be longer, for the purpose of helping you stay focused on the topic at hand as your writing progresses.

Note: Topic and tentative title must be approved by the teacher. No submissions of further assignments are allowed until the tentative title and topic have been approved. (See further down on this page the status of your topic selection.)

When your topic has been approved you may want to polish the tentative title – but it can also be honed as the paper progresses.