Reading papers, preparing presentations: the course will require you to (among other things) read papers, prepare a presentation, and engage in a course project, training your research skills. To prepare for these tasks, you should consult a number of online references on how to go about this (preparing a GOOD presentation or project report takes SUBSTANTIAL effort):

· A short sequence of PPT transparencies from Nitin Vaidya on how to read, write, and present papers (HTML document).

· IEEE Computer, September 2005, had an interesting article on Presentation Skills.

· Communications of the ACM, July 2016, had a practitioner article about Statistics for Engineers.

· Another useful reference is the website Advice on Research and Writing and the Graduate Study in the Computer and Mathematical Sciences: A Survival Manual website.

· On the other hand, avoid the pitfalls identified in How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia.

· A (tongue-in-cheek) dictionary of "useful" research phrases.

· A lengthy but very interesting talk by Richard Hamming on what it takes to be a great researcher.

· Finally, here is a book about 57 ways to screw up in grad school. University Affairs also published an interview with the authors of the book. Of course the position taken in this book also has its critics, see for example this opinion piece.

Plagiarism is unfortunately a not too infrequent problem in academia. I expect all submissions to clearly identify what sources/references have been used for what part of your submission. If you are unsure as to what constitutes plagiarism, please check this website.