Course Purpose
To teach about, encourage, and give students time for research. Also to establish vertical cohorts among students interested in the same subfield.
Course Organization
There are six constituencies who will not be treated exactly equally in the course because their needs are different:
- first-year students: need general context and help on first research projects and first-year papers;
- second-year students: need feedback on the research they have done, prepare for further research, and write second-year papers;
- third-year students: need to write their Qualifying Papers (QP), write grant proposals;
- post-candidacy pre-proposal students: need to write and present their dissertation proposals;
- post-candidacy dissertation students: need to write dissertations, get feedback;
- students from other departments: needs will vary. NOTE that this course is designed to provide support and necessary foundations to research in Computational Linguistics, rather than an overview of research topics. You are expected to carry out one research project throughout the semester.
Course Components
- Research seminar: Topics and readings will be given under schedule.
- Discussion of ongoing student research:
- Round-table: short updates or discussion of blockers.
- Longer presentations of ongoing research.
- Practice talks for conference presentations.
Expectation and Requirements:
- Participation in discussions and talks.
- Give at least one long presentation during semester on research.
At the end of each semester:
- First-year students:
First semester, submit literature discussion or work towards first-year paper.
Second semester, submit first-year paper.
- Second-year students:
First semester, submit research discussion paper.
Second semester, submit second-year paper.
- Third-year students:
First semester, submit QP progress report.
Second semester, submit QP.
- Students from other departments: a course project, with a final report (~8 pages).
Schedule
Each week, unless noted otherwise, we use the first part of the class to discuss the topic of the week, and we use the second part for a round-table discussing people’s research.
- Week 1, 1/12
- Plan for the semester: Which topics to focus on, who gives talks where.
- Extended round table: Research results and research/publication plans for the spring.
- Week 2, 1/19 (MLK Day, no class)
- Week 3, 1/26
- Week 4, 2/2
- Week 5, 2/9
- Week 6, 2/16
- Week 7, 2/23
- Week 8, 3/2
- Week 9, 3/9
- Week 10, 3/16 (Spring break, no class)
- Week 11, 3/23
- Week 12, 3/30
- Week 13, 4/6
- Week 14, 4/13
- Week 15, 4/20
- Week 16, 4/27
- Extended roundtable, and plans for next semester.
- Final paper deadline: TBA