Overview

To prepare you for the exam, we will do an analysis of an actual research paper in a similar way as you'll have to do it during the exam. In order to make this exercise effective, it is essential that you spend significant time analysing the paper yourself prior to the lecture. Also, note that this is an actual exam paper from a previous year. Your learning benefit will be greatly reduced if you read the sample review before the lecture! But it's a good idea to read it afterwards.

General experience in reading research papers is very helpful for this. Therefore we have regularly provided links to relevant papers for each lecture. Those of you who followed the recommendation and have read some of these papers will have a head start.

General Preparation

The Number One preparation for the exam are the lectures! Experience shows that many students don't understand core aspects of a paper that directly related to the lecture material. I strongly suspect these students did not attend/watch the lectures, or just skimmed them. This is not a good idea, the lectures are there for a reason! Of course, not all lectures are relevant to each paper, and no-one knows which ones are until I pick the paper a few days before the exam. But if there are aspects of the paper which someone who followed and understood the lectures should understand, then I assume you will understand them. So, make sure you watch the lectures carefully and understand all the material.

Recommended Preparation

Carefully read the sample paper. Take notes as you are reading it, about what it is doing, but, more importantly, about any questions you have while reading. Some of these questions may indicate issues with the paper. They could be structural or presentational issues (paper doesn't explain things in the right order, or fail to explain things, leaving the reader guessing). Or they may indicate lack of general background knowledge, where you may want to do some more research. (Or they may indicate you've forgot things covered in lectures, or skipped lectures...)

When you are done, write a summary of what the paper is doing. Make sure you understand what they are doing, if not, re-read the relevant sections. Make sure you can explain what's going on.

Then go though your notes and see whether any of them point to actual issues with the paper. Summarise those issues. The questions listed on the exam page might help you with this.

Bring your summary and critique to class. Be prepared to talk about them.

Allow about half a day for this preparation! If you try to do a quick job on this, you'll likely pay for it during the exam. Also, it is probably best to do this no more than a week prior to the exam-preparation lecture, so details are still fresh in your mind.

Example Solution

Here is a (good but not perfect) exam submission done by a student in the actual exam for the sample paper. In your own interest, I strongly advise not to look at this until after the preparation session!