Human Computer Interaction

CSC 212/412, Fall 2012

(Monday and Wednesday, 3:25-4:40pm, Georgen 109)

Writing Reading Reports

The goal of the reading reports is twofold. First, it gives you the opportunity to read some papers in the field of HCI. This can help build your sense of what a contribution looks like in HCI. Second, it gives you practice reviewing the work of others -- in addition to doing research itself, a big part of a researcher's job is evaluating the work of others. You'll find that reading and thinking critically about the work other people have done will help you avoid problems in your own work.

Each of your reading reports should address the following. First, it should include a short summary of (i) the contribution of the paper (the new idea or approach it advocates), (ii) its claim or hypothesis (why the idea is a good one, or a scientific hypothesis about the world), and (iii) validation (the evidence provided to support the claim or hypothesis).

Finally, you should include at least two points that go beyond what is explicitly in the paper. These can include questions that remain after reading the paper, an attempt to place the work in a broader context (or within the present if the paper is more than a few years old), answers to other students' questions, targeted examples from your own experiences applicable to the claims in the paper, or points in the paper that you found particularly compelling (and generalizable).

You are responsible for submitting your reading reports before class on the Blackboard forum. You should write the first part of your report (contribution, claim, validation) before looking at the posts of other students (on your honor!). You can consider the responses of other students when writing the second part (your two points beyond what is in the paper).

Please email Jeffrey P. Bigham at jbigham@cs.rochester.edu with questions.

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