Schedule

BCS 310: Syllabus

Spring 2013

Time & Location

Mondays, 9:00-10:50 AM, Meliora 366

Personnel

Instructor: Florian Jaeger

Office: Meliora Hall 418, but I am usually in the lab, Meliora 123
Office Hours: by appointment

Course Description & Objectives

This course is required for all senior BCS majors who do not enter the Honors Program. (Students in the Honors Program take BCS 311 instead – please talk to the instructor about requirements) The main purpose of the course is to provide students with experience in reading, evaluating, and discussing primary research papers. Evaluation and discussion will happen both in class and in form of review papers (as a way to provide experience with academic writing).

Read: Each student will choose a topic of particular interest, gain familiarity with the literature on that topic, and will select one classic research article (see below) on that topic, and one recent research article that has cited the classic article (see below for how to do a cited reference search).
Present: You will lead discussion on these articles by giving a 30-45 minute powerpoint presentation. The purpose of this assignment is to 1) consider where this field began and where it is now; 2) to present the materials in a way that highlights why the work you've chosen to review is of interest to cognitive scientists; and 3) to learn how give an academic presentation.
Participate: The class will read the articles assigned by the presenters and participate in the discussion during your presentation. By Saturday 4pm each week, everyone needs to post one discussion question each about the articles assigned for that week on Blackboard. Before coming to class on Monday, make sure to have read the posted questions (and it doesn't hurt to think about some answers ;).
Review: After the class discussion, the students who presented the articles submits a written evaluation of at least one of the articles as though providing a formal peer review for a journal.
Review-the-Review: The instructor and at least one other student will provide written comments on the student's review.
Rewrite your Review: Upon receiving comments on your review from the students and instructor, rewrite your review to incorporate the comments.
Optional extensions:
- Discussion of ethics in the sciences / your responsibility as researchers
- How to write a good abstract (e.g. for a conference or a BA thesis).
- Topics you suggest.

Course Requirements

Read: Each class will have two presentations about two articles. You need to read at least one article for each presentation. Articles are posted on BlackBoard.

Each presentation will be associated with a thread on the discussion board and you should post at least one question or comment on each of the articles you're reading. Simply repeating or asking about parts in the abstract of the paper is not sufficient. The point of this exercise is to make sure that your read the papers and come to class prepared.

Instead of posting questions about the articles, you can also try to answer other people's questions or to comment on their comments. Feel free to upload (do not link) relevant articles, but be sure to provide the full references in your post.

Present: Prior to the start of classes (by January 13, 2013), you must obtain approval from the instructor concerning your TWO ARTICLES (one classic and one recent) to insure that they are (a) in the field, (b) substantial and in a "good" journal, and (c) one "classic" that has stood the test of time and one recent "hot topic" article that has generated recent interest. Please provide the instructor with an electronic copy of the articles you are proposing to review. The instructor will then put the articles on Blackboard for the class to access. The guidelines for choosing two articles are described in the file "BCS310_articles.doc".

No later than one whole week before you presentation you must create a comment thread on the discussion board on BB where you post the recent paper (the classic papers are all already posted to BB under the "Reserves (COURSE READINGS)" link). The thread should be called "MONTH/DAY – Topic (presenter)". The month and day should be the date of the presentation, e.g. "2/7 – Memory and Testimonies (Tom Thompson)". This posts should link the recent article the following information about both the recent and the classic article:

Full reference in APA format
Impact factor of journal
Citations on Google Scholar or on ISI Web of Science
Instructions about which sections to read or to skip, if any

Here's an example of a full citation with the required information:

Samuelson, L. K. (2002). Statistical regularities in vocabulary guide language acquisition in connectionist models and 15-20-month-olds. Developmental Psychology, 38(6), 1016-1037.
Impact factor: 3.555
Citations on Google Scholar: 73
I won't be discussing the computational simulations, so you can feel free to skip over that part of the article (pg. 1019-1026).
Samuelson 2002.pdf (412.207 KB)

Posting your topic in a timely fashion and with the required information will form part of your presentation score.

Then when it's time for your presentation, you will lead the class discussion of your TWO articles (30-35 minutes plus 15 minutes of discussion) by addressing the following issues:

Classic paper:

Background: what question was addressed and what other research on this topic is directly relevant to addressing it? Why do cognitive scientists care about the questions raised in this article? (possibly even why should society care? Although the payoff of scientific work is not always immediately obvious). What else was happening in the research community at the time?
Method: what general and specific methods were used? Make sure to describe the methods to your audience prior to providing a critique of the methods.
Results: what was observed (measured)? It’s always a good idea to have some graphs (your own or copied from the paper with adequate citations) to illustrate the results to your audience.
Conclusion: what was the main conclusion, what logic and/or assumptions were used to reach that conclusion, and was the conclusion convincing? How justified is their conclusion?
News: what was new or important about the findings?
Implications: what are the broader implications of this article?
Impact: How influential was this paper? See the file "BCS310_assessImpact.doc" under class materials on Blackboard.
What do you think of the paper? What's good about it? What's bad about it?

Recent paper:

What has changed in terms of theory or methods from the classic to the recent article?
How does the recent paper build off of the classic paper?
What do you think of the paper? What's good about it? What's bad about it?
What are the remaining questions in this area? Do you feel the field has advanced? If so in what way (reformulation of questions, question answered, etc.)

Review: Pick AT LEAST ONE of your two articles to review (either classic or recent or both). No later than one week after your class presentation, submit an electronic copy of your review to the instructor. The instructor will then forward that review to student reviewers. It's ok to draw on other literature (but cite). Initial reviews should be 4-6 pages long and follow the APA guidelines (see the file BCS310_review.doc under class materials). The final review can be up to 8 pages long since often it takes more space to incorporate your reviewers' comments.

Before you write the review, make sure to read below according to what criteria your review will be reviewed! I have also uploaded guideline papers about how to write a good review to BlackBoard.

Review-the-Review: Within one week of receiving another student's draft review, submit an electronic copy of your review-of-the-review to the instructor. It will then be forwarded back to the presenting student. Address the following in your comments:

Were the reviewer's criticisms substantive, accurate, and constructive?
How could the review have been improved?
Was the format, style, and content of the review appropriate?
If you had been the author of the original paper, would the review have been constructive and helpful in revising the paper? (Keep this in mind in writing your own review).

The review-of-the-review should be 1-2 pages long. Additionally, the review-of-the-review should include detailed comments about spelling and grammar written directly on the original review. Structure your review-of-the-review at least into the following sections: (a) overall overview: what’s the review about? (b) major strengths and major weaknesses; (c) suggestions for restructuring; (d) suggestions for additional clarification; and (e) typos and grammar/orthography.

Rewrite the Review: Within one week of receiving the review-of-the-review, rewrite your review. Your rewrite will be assessed based on how thoroughly you addressed the comments of the instructor and student reviewer.

Participate: Participate actively in class discussions when you are not the presenter. You are expected to bring a copy of the paper being discussed to class (or view an electronic version). Presenters should expect everyone in the audience to be able to look at tables or figures in the papers and audience members should be prepared to raise questions, comments or concerns regarding the papers being discussed.

Your participation will be determined by your preparedness (i.e., bringing in the articles being discussed, ability to answer questions posed by presenter, instructor, or other students), asking questions, and providing comments during the presentation. Although you may feel that you have little to say about any given paper, if you ask yourself why you have nothing to say, you might discover questions or opinions that you didn't know you had.

Attendance is required for this class. If you know that you cannot make it to class or are ill, let the instructor know BEFORE class to arrange a makeup assignment. Additionally, it is disruptive to class if you come late. For each time you are 5-10 min late, you will lose 2 percentage points from your participation grade (e.g., if you are late twice, your participation grade would be 96% of 20 points toward your final grade). For each time you are more than 10 min late, you will lose 4 percentage points from your participation grade.

Evaluation

Presentation/leading the class discussion of your article: 35%
Draft written review of your article: 10%
Final written review of your article: 35%
Review-of-review: 10%
Participation in class discussions: 20% (including discussion board and small assignment)

Presentation Evaluation: Your class presentation is worth 35% of your final grade. The distribution of points is as follows:

Timely and adequate posting of presentations information on BlackBoard (5%): See syllabus for directions.
Relevant background for understanding paper (20%): Should include necessary information about the conceptual and experimental issues addressed. In some cases, it may necessitate a brief introduction to a type of methodology, if this methodology is critical to the issue at hand (e.g., fMRI for non-invasive examination of brain activity). Should also include the hypotheses being tested.
Methods (15%): Should include a brief description of methods, including analyses. You may comment on the appropriateness of methods or analysis here or during your interpretation of the study.
Results (15%): Should discuss what was found, with relevant use of figures, tables, etc. provided in the paper. You may refer to those figures in the papers or you may draw or project them.
Interpretation (25%): Should include the authors’ interpretations of the results and the implications of these results, as related to the conceptual issues and hypotheses stated earlier. Also, give your own interpretations, especially regarding points (d)-(j) from the description given under “Course Requirements”.
Presentation skills and preparation (20%): You will be evaluated on how you lead your discussion. By having thorough preparation and understanding of what you want to say (which comes from practicing out loud), you will be less likely to stumble verbally during an oral presentation than if you try to give exact wording for everything that you say. When you project pictures/figures, be sure to show the audience explicitly what you want them to see, and describe it while you show them. Design is also critical for communicating all of the above components of the presentation. Use images, not text, whenever possible. Incorporate concrete examples that engage the audience and help you communicate your points. Tell a story, don’t just list facts. And prepare some “thought questions” for the audience to get a discussion going.

Late policy: Due to the nature of the course, late assignments will be heavily penalized. Once your presentation is scheduled, you cannot reschedule it unless you have a documented medical excuse. Failure to do your presentation on the scheduled day without an excuse will lead to a zero for the assignment. Turning in written assignments late will result in a 25% grade reduction per 24-hour period after the assignment is due.

Academic Honesty: You are expected to uphold the highest standards of academic honesty. Bottom line: don't cheat; don't plagiarize. Cases of suspected misconduct will not be evaluated directly by me, but will be referred to the College Board on Academic Honesty. The University of Rochester's policy on academic honesty is described in detail at: http://www.rochester.edu/College/honesty/

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