Reading commentaries
Most weeks include a set of reading requirements. These materials include a mix of news articles and academic conference papers. We have chosen these materials to illustrate key course concepts that we will be discussing during classes. After reading a paper, you will be asked to write a commentary describing your takeaways from the papers. Commentaries will be due 48 hours before the discussion section.
All submissions will be due on Canvas
Commentary guidelines
The goal of reading commentaries is to get you to think critically about the research that a set of papers present and why that research is important. The goal is not to summarize each paper — everyone reading your commentary will have already read the papers.
Some appropriate topics to address in a commentary are:
- Future research directions that the papers inspire for you.
- Why the papers do/don’t seem important?
- Observations of novel methodology or methodology that seems suspect.
- Why the papers are/aren't effective at getting their message across?
- How the papers have changed your opinion or outlook on a topic?
An excellent way to structure your commentary is to discuss two "positive" topics and one "criticism" for each paper (or two "I like"s and one "I wish"). Each topic should be a short paragraph (about 4 sentences in length).
Commentaries are due on Canvas at 1:30pm two days (48 hours) before their corresponding discussion session. After 1:30pm, your commentary will be made available to discussion leaders (we will discuss who discussion leaders are in the next section) so that the discussant can begin work on their metacommentary. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Commentaries will be graded on a check-minus/check/check-plus scale. The rubric will be:
- Check-minus: Surface-level engagement with the readings, or a repeat of a style of critique that the staff told the class to avoid. Examples of surface-level engagement include: comments about whether the commenter likes or would use the technology, a summary of the paper rather than a reflections on the ideas, or critiques that engage only obliquely with the paper or indicate that the commenter didn't fully read it. Incomplete submissions also earn a check-minus.
- Check: Effective engagement with the readings. Example commentaries involving check grades often indicate that they understand the main ideas of the papers, and the reflections are reasonably nontrivial observations worth discussing.
- Check-plus: Excellent engagement with the readings. Check-plus grades are reserved for rare instances where a commentary really hits on an interesting, unique, and insightful point of view worth sharing. Generally only a few submissions in each session earn a check-plus.
Discussion guidelines
Inspired by Alec Jacobson and Colin Raffel, we will be discussing papers in the many-to-many role-playing format.
Roles and their descriptions can be found here, though we will make the following modifications:
- Added role: discussion leader. This role will be able to see all the submitted commentaries submitted 48 hours before the discussion. They will be responsible for providing a short 8 minute summary of the papers, students' responses, and spur in-class discussion. They will be the first role to present.
- Modified role: The scientific peer reviewer has been split into two roles, a positive peer reviewer (advocate) and a negative peer reviewer (skeptic).
Logistics will work as follows:
- At least 1 week before each discussion sesson, please start a group message with your team (if your role has multiple students) on Slack (create a new channel if you need to).
- At least 2 hours before each discussion session (11:30am on Monday or Wednesday), upload your slides to the shared google slides and decide who will be presenting.
- All roles will have 4 minutes to present which will be followed by a 4 minute discussion, except the discussion leader who will have 8.