CSE 447: Natural Language Processing, Autumn 2026

MWF 3:30–4:20 PM, MGH 389

Announcements

Summary

This course covers methods for designing systems that intelligently process natural language text data. Topics include language models, text categorization, syntactic and semantic analysis, and machine translation, with an emphasis on algorithms and data-driven methods. The course is hands-on and project-based, focusing on building and evaluating practical NLP systems.

Prerequisites
CSE 312 and CSE 332; recommended: MATH 208. CSE 446 is recommended before or concurrently.

Calendar

The schedule is subject to change.

Resources

• Readings
  • J&M III: Speech and Language Processing (Dan Jurafsky and James H. Martin)
  • Additional readings will be released weekly.

Course Policy

Please note that the quizzes are mandatory to be taken from the classroom in person only. Quizzes taken from home won’t be graded. Quizzes are closed-book: you are not allowed to refer to your notes, the textbook, or any AI tools during the quiz. Please let us know in advance if there are any DRS-related accommodations to be made for you. Students are expected to attend all classes in person. While we will try our best to have recordings available for the class, in-person attendance is expected.

You are encouraged to use AI for general questions and for brainstorming, clarification, and refinement on course work, but you may not use AI to substantially create the work for you. AI can be helpful for exploring ideas and improving drafts, provided your submitted work remains your own. We highly recommend going through UW’s vice provost for AI shares what every UW student should know about AI to learn how to make thoughtful judgments about when and how to use AI.

We will have oral exams after assignment submissions that will test your knowledge of your submitted solutions. A grade for an assignment will be awarded only if you pass its oral exam.

Note to Students

Take care of yourself! As a student, you may experience a range of challenges that can interfere with learning, such as strained relationships, increased anxiety, substance use, feeling down, difficulty concentrating and/or lack of motivation. All of us benefit from support during times of struggle. There are many helpful resources available on campus and an important part of having a healthy life is learning how to ask for help. Asking for support sooner rather than later is almost always helpful. UW services are available, and treatment does work. You can learn more about confidential mental health services available on campus here. Crisis services are available from the counseling center 24/7 by phone at +1 (866) 743-7732 (more details here).