As discussed in the Class Format section, on Discussion days we will have students give presentations on a choice of the papers listed in the spreadsheet for that day. To sign up for a particular day, add your name and the paper you would like to present to the spreadsheet. On certain days (such as 10/1), certain papers (such as the InstructGPT paper) have been pre-selected, because it’s important that we cover them in class.
Each paper presentation will be 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions specific to that paper. We will then split into groups to discuss all the papers for that day, including the themes connecting them and related research directions. You will be expected to help lead a discussion group as an expert on your paper.
The goal of the paper presentation is to provide enough information for other students in the class to fully grasp the concepts and contributions of the paper, such that we can have an informed and engaging discussion about it afterwards. Note that presenting the paper is worth 10% of your final grade. Your presentation slides are due by 11:59pm two days before the class you signed up to present; by this time, add a link to your slides into the spreadsheet. You may continue to edit the slides after submitting them.
Note that there are exactly 39 paper presentation slots and 39 students registered in the course. Some days we will have more presentations than others, so we will shorten the discussion period accordingly. If someone drops the class, we will use that time for a longer discussion.
Guidelines for making effective paper presentations:
Do not assume that all the other students in the class have read the paper that you are presenting. Therefore, we are counting on you to make a great presentation so we can have an interesting discussion about your paper! Your goal should be to clearly and concisely present the technical details needed for others to understand the paper, as well as why it is worth reading, and where it fits in the literature. Try to answer: