Comp 681

Formal Methods

Spring 2020

Course Project

Milestone Deliverable Due Date
Project Propoisal Submit an initial project plan: 2-3 pages with at least 3 milestones. 1-30-20
Status Report 1 Produce a Bibliography with at least 8 relevant references. The bibliography should give at least 3-5 sentences briefly summarizing each cited work and/or explaining its relevance to your topic and research questions. 2-20-20
Status Report 2 Produce a detailed outline of your paper. The detailed outline builds on your collected bibliography by organizing citations into a coherent, logical narrative structure for organizing your literature review. 6-8 pages. 4-2-20
Literature Review Completed literature review. 8-10 pages, at least relevant 12 references. 5-4-20

Overview

The final project in the class is an individual literature review exploring the intersection between formal methods and a topic of your choice. For instance, you can explore the intersection between formal methods and: (1) cyber security, (2) unmanned ariel vechicles, or (3) cyber-physical systems. The project will have the following deliverables.

Writing a Proposal

Address the following within 2-3 pages:

  • Topic area: Clearly outline the outside field that you plan to explore in your literature review: (1) explain the topic area and (2) why it is worth while exploring how formal methods is (and can be) applied to this field.
  • Summary: Summarize work to be performed: what, why, how, and when.
  • Millestones: For project management, define a schedule of specific tasks to be completed en route to delivering the final term paper. The important part is demonstrating that you have thought about how to structure your work over the course of the semester and are prepared to manage your project.

Status Report 1

Produce a Bibliography with at least 8 relevant references. The bibliography should give at least 3-5 sentences briefly summarizing each cited work and/or explaining its relevance to your topic and research questions. As you read each source, you might keep an electronic document or paper notecard listing what it is from that source you wish to refer to, providing the “hard data” you will propagate up to your outline eventual term paper. There is no expectation to make connections between cited works in the bibliography. You are not required to keep all of these citations in your final paper, but doing so should help save wasted work.

Status Report 2

Produce a detailed outline of your paper. The detailed outline builds on your collected bibliography by organizing citations into a coherent, logical narrative structure for organizing your literature review:

  • Include an updated bibliography for all sources you currently plan to cite (even if you have kept all the same sources from your original bibliography, you will likely have added additional sources).
  • Every source should be cited in one or more places in your outline structure, showing how you will incorporate each source in your narrative structure and constructing your arguments. If you have only just discovered some new source and don't know where it fits yet, just indicate this somewhere.
  • Notes from each source that are germane to your topic can be moved to the appropriate place(s) in your outline structure where the source is citing, showing the purpose of the citation or detail from the source as it relates to the narrative structure at that point in your outline.
  • Your outline will ultimately progress from bullets to finer details and eventually to full sentences. Your detailed outline will lie somewhere in this transition, i.e. some parts of your narrative structure and arguments may still be in bullet form, while others are being more fleshed out into actual prose. In this way the paper can gradually evolve out of the outline. Maybe you work from start to end, maybe you hop back and forth as your ideas take shape. Whatever works.

Literature Review

You should consider the following points:

  • The choice of which works you choose to cite and the analysis you present of them represents a key and novel contribution of your literature review. Were sufficient references consulted and discussed in order to answer research questions posed? Consider the requisite number of citations above as a rough rule of thumb, with more or less being needed depending on the nature of research questions being asked and types of sources being consulted. How well was each cited work analyzed, both individually and in relation to other cited works? Comparing/contrasting perspectives and findings of different cited works (i.e., synthesizing ideas across readings) is critical. Do not fall into the trap of only discussing works individually without making such connections!
  • In terms of presentation, the most critical issue is clarity of exposition: the reader must be able to easily understand whatever it is you are trying to say. Of course if the reader cannot understand what you mean (due to poor grammar, spelling, incoherence or poor articulation, etc.), they will not be able to digest your ideas and arguments, let alone critically interpret and assess them. Furthermore, the reader should never have to struggle to understand what you are trying to say (they may need to reflect in depth on your arguments and assessing them, but not in trying to figure out what you argument even is). The harder you make it for the reader to read and follow your train of thought, the less likely you are to persuade them that you are knowledgeable about the topic you describe, and to agree with your train of thought and conclusions. Writing in a way others can easily read and understand what you mean is therefore a critical skill for professional success.