Reading Summaries

At regular intervals, you will be assigned to read articles and excerpts related to the course material. You must turn in a written summary of each reading in class on the due date. The summary should be typed. It should occupy no more than one page (expected length: approximately 1/2-2/3 page). Assume that the reader of your summary is a competent computer scientist who has not read the article before.

Each summary should contain the following:

• a topic sentence that states the name, author, and chapter(s)/section(s) (if applicable) of the reading
• at least three additional sentences containing the main idea and several important supporting points and ideas from the reading
• at least one sentence about how this material relates to what has been covered so far in class or in your project
• at least two sentences of your own analysis of the paper (Does the author present valid points? Do you agree with the paper? What criticisms do you have, or what changes would you make?)

The summaries will be graded on the following four-point scale:

• 4: All main concepts and skills mastered and all major questions answered, with only minor errors.
• 3: Important points made, but contains some significant omissions or errors.
• 2: Substantial missing concepts or errors.
• 1: Effort shown, but not a significant amount of relevant or correct content.
• 0: Not turned in, or almost no effort or understanding demonstrated.

A sample summary, written by Marty Stepp, is available to give you an idea of the format to use.