P10. Full Paper Review
In this exercise you will review your fellow student's full paper. The assignments will be done in-class; note that you will be doing your fellow student a disfavor if you do not show up, so please try to be present.
Read the below instructions carefully!
The exercise will proceed as follows:
As an author: Once you are ready to have your paper reviewed, save the current version using the “Versions” button at the top of the Overleaf interface (this is necessary so that differences between your original and reviewed version can be seen). You can now share a link to your full paper with your assigned reviewer (randomly assigned by the instructor in class), so that they may insert comments on this version into your text. Please do not make changes to your paper on Overleaf until your reviewer is done with it. If you want to work on your paper during this time, you should make a copy.
As reviewer: When you receive the link to your assigned paper you can start your review. Do your best as to provide the author with useful, truthful, and appropriately detailed feedback on any and all aspects of the paper that you feel requires his/her attention for improving it. You will give the paper a grade (list this along with your hand-in in MySchool marked 'Grade: x,x'). When you are done with your review, make sure you save a version of the paper using the “Versions” button at the top of the Overleaf interface. By the deadline (see due date of P9 assignment in MySchool) you will hand in a link (in MySchool) for me to see your edits in Overleaf. Please do not edit or change the paper until I have given the review a grade.
If you do a good job you may receive up to 5% “bonus points” for this exercise (as determined by the instructor based on the quality of your review) - over and above the 100% that the other assignments in the class count. Note: Only those who show up for class are eligible to receive a bonus.
(Note that while the assignment is listed as 0% in MySchool, I will manually update your grade with the extra points earned for the final score in the class.)
Guidelines for Reviewing Papers
- Typically you lay out the categories that matter in your review, even before you start.
- Categories often used are:
- Clarity and ease of reading (including structure, figures, explanations, etc.)
- Quality of the written English (grammar, spelling, and related)
- Novelty - how much of an advance on current state of the art is the work (this should only play a minor role in your review here, since the assignment does not emphasize this factor)
- Impact - potential for the work to have impact, both scientific, technological, and business wise
- It is useful to have a category called “minor comments” or “other comments” where you put general points, spelling suggestions, questions about grammar, etc., because it is often easiest for the author to do a pass on these separately from deeper concerns about the content of the paper, structure, and other issues having to do with the content and that generally take much more time to fix.
- Do at least two read-through passes - especially to ensure that your early comments are coherent and consistent with those made later (often you see e.g. a better place to make a comment than the initial place you mentioned it)
- You should take notes while you read, some of which will probably change in a second pass
- Keep these questions in mind at all times: What are the most important things for the author to address? What is the most useful way for me to explain what these issues are?
EOF