Writing Assignments and Resources
Paper Assignment 1
Assignment Goals
- Clearly and appropriately summarize research literature for an expert audience
- Write in the formal and technical style appropriate for a journal article
- Rewrite an existing proof in your own words
- Use "moves" to guide the reader through the document
- Appropriately cite references
Description
Pick a complexity class that we will not learn about in class. (You can do this either by looking through the Complexity Zoo, or by reading about classes that are mentioned briefly in the textbook.) You will write a survey article (also called a review article) about this class that introduces this class to an experienced computer science reader who is familiar with complexity classes, but not with the particular complexity class you are writing about.
The review paper should contain summaries, context, and proofs (all in your own words) of academic articles in computational complexity.
Your document should contain the following sections (unless you have discussed an alternate structure with me):
- Introduction
- Motivates why the class is important
- Summary of important known relationships to other complexity classes
- Preliminaries (aka Background)
- Mathematical background and notation needed to understand your proof
- Example Proof (at least one of the following)
- Prove a problem is in your class
- Prove a problem is hard for your class
- Prove containment from your complexity class to another
- Prove your complexity class contains another class
- Open questions related to your complexity class.
Here are some example surveys:
- Quantum NP
- Counting Complexity
- Algorithms for NP-Hard Problems
- Parameterized Computation and Complexity: A New Approach Dealing with NP-Hardness
Proposal
Your proposal for the paper should include the complexity class you want to write about, as well as your main references. Please briefly annotate each reference included.
Draft
Please turn in something that shows your thinking, organization, difficulties, so far.
Paper Assignment 2
Assignment Goals
- Clearly and appropriately summarize research for a non-expert audience
- Write in the approachable style of a popular science blog.
- Use "moves" to guide the reader through the document
- Appropriately cite references
Description
Write a blog post (in the style of a popular science article) about the same complexity class you write about in Assignment 1. Your goal should be to explain the same concepts as in Assignment 1, but to a fellow CS student who is not familiar with complexity classes.
Your document should contain the following sections (unless you have discussed an alternate structure with me):
- Hook that introduces a real world issue that will interest your audience and connects to your class.
- Description of your class
- Discuss properties and results realting to your class and explain why the reader should care
- Conclude by returning to the hook, with an expanded understanding/awareness of the issue brought about by your explanation and discussion of the class.
Here are some example blog posts/articles:
- Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve
- A Most Profound Math Problem
More details coming soon!
Proof Writing Resources
Coming soon!