Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Update syllabus for new semester
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
  • Loading branch information
@thomas--graf
thomas--graf committed Jan 17, 2018
1 parent 749742f commit e2e13f1
Showing 1 changed file with 22 additions and 53 deletions.
75 changes: 22 additions & 53 deletions tex/syllabus.tex
View file
Expand Up @@ -8,11 +8,11 @@ \chapter{Syllabus}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\textbf{Course:} Computational Linguistics 2&
\textbf{Name:} Thomas Graf\\
\textbf{Course\#:} Lin637 &
\textbf{Course\#:} LIN 637 &
\textbf{Email:} \href{mailto:lin637@thomasgraf.net}{lin637@thomasgraf.net}\\
\textbf{Time:} TR 10:00--11:20am &
\textbf{Time:} MW 2:30--3:50? &
\textbf{Office hours:} tba \\
\textbf{Location:} Humanities 2047 &
\textbf{Location:} CompLab SBS N250 &
\textbf{Office:} SBS N249\\
\textbf{Course Website:} \href{http://lin637.thomasgraf.net} {lin637.thomasgraf.net} &
\textbf{Personal Website:} \href{http://thomasgraf.net}{thomasgraf.net}
Expand All @@ -31,15 +31,14 @@ \subsection{Full Description}

This course serves a specific purpose in our program (see Fig.~\vref{fig:Syllabus_Program}):
it acts as the bridge from introductory courses in linguistics (Syntax 1, Phonology 1, Phonetics) and computational methods (Statistics, Mathematical Methods in Linguistics, Computational Linguistics 1) to advanced courses and seminars in computational\slash mathematical linguistics.
In contrast to the NLP courses offered by the department of computer science, our courses focus on studying the properties of natural language from a computationally informed perspective.
The question is not how computers can solve linguistic tasks, but how language can be conceptualized as a computational problem.
In contrast to the NLP courses offered by the department of computer science, this course focuses on studying the properties of natural language from a computationally informed perspective.
The question is not how computers can solve language-related tasks, but how language can be conceptualized as a computational problem.
This emphasis is also reflected in the selection of topics for this course.

\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{What this course is not about}
\begin{itemize}
\item Computer-assisted research methods in linguistics
\item Programming
\item Software development for natural language tasks
\end{itemize}
\item \textbf{What is not covered but benefits from what is covered}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -122,8 +121,8 @@ \subsection{Full Description}
\subsection{Prerequisites}

The only official prerequisite is Computational Linguistics 1 (Lin 537) or comparable programming skills in Python.
Python will be used to illustrate some formal concepts, and some of the homeworks will require you to implement an algorithm or procedure in Python.
Prior experience with git, markdown, and \LaTeX\ is useful for the homeworks but not required.
Python will be used to illustrate formal concepts, and some of the homeworks will require you to implement an algorithm or procedure in Python.
Prior experience with git and markdown is useful for the homeworks but not required.

It is also helpful to have some basic familiarity with linguistics (phonemes, phrase structure rules, syntactic trees) and mathematics (sets, functions, relations, and first-order logic as covered in Semantics 1, for instance).
You can take an online survey to identify weaknesses, and several introductory readings on these topics are available on the course website.
Expand All @@ -133,9 +132,7 @@ \subsection{Prerequisites}
\hspace{-.75em}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\textbf{Survey URL:} &
\href{https://testmoz.com/432409}{https://testmoz.com/432409}\\
\textbf{Password (if required):} &
CompLing2
\href{https://testmoz.com/432409}{https://testmoz.com/432409}
\end{tabular}

\section{Teaching Goals}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -163,7 +160,7 @@ \section{Grading}
\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{Homework}
\begin{itemize}
\item weekly exercises, programming assignments, or critical evaluations of assigned readings
\item exercises, programming assignments, or critical evaluations of assigned readings
\item Homework submission and grading is done via github.
\item No late hand-ins!
\item Collaboration on homework problems is encouraged as long as you write up the solutions by yourself, using your own words, examples, notation, and code.
Expand All @@ -175,21 +172,20 @@ \section{Grading}
\item you have to collaboratively write a summary for each reading in the course wiki
\end{itemize}
%
\item \textbf{Survey Squibs}
\item \textbf{Lecture Note Feedback}
\begin{itemize}
\item By the end of the course, the wiki should contain survey articles on a number of topics not covered in this course (or not covered at the same depth).
\item You have to pick a topic and write the corresponding survey article.
\item These articles should be succinct and simple enough that they are comprehensible to a researcher with little exposure to computational linguistics, yet at the same time include enough technical detail that the claims can be verified by somebody with the appropriate background.
(Why this weird requirement?
Because that's the recipe for writing a computational paper that can be published in a linguistics journal!)
\item I plan to publish the lecture notes as an open-access textbook with \emph{Language Science Press}.
\item This is the last time I teach the course before the submission deadline, so I want feedback.
\item Every week, you should file issues on Github for the relevant units, where you spot typos, suggest exercises, pictures, examples, etc.
\item This is a collaborative enterprise: comment on other student's suggestions if you (dis)approve, expand their ideas, and so on.
\end{itemize}
%
\item \textbf{Workload per Credits}
\begin{itemize}
\item \emph{3 credits}: homework, readings, squib
\item \emph{2 credits}: homework, readings
\item \emph{1 credit}: readings
\item \emph{0 credits}: none, but I highly recommend that you at least read the assigned papers as they will be important for following the lectures
\item \emph{1 credit}: readings
\item \emph{2 credits}: readings, feedback
\item \emph{3 credits}: homework, readings, feedback
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}

Expand All @@ -214,7 +210,8 @@ \section{Online Component}
\href{http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6188780/git-latex-workflow}{http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6188780/git-latex-workflow}

\emph{What you'll need:}
A github account (the free tier is enough) and a way of uploading your code to a github repository. Linux users can install git via the command line, whereas Windows and Mac users should download and install the github app, which comes with a nice GUI.
A github account (the free tier is enough) and a way of uploading your code to a github repository.
Linux users can install git via the command line, whereas Windows and Mac users should download and install the github app, which comes with a nice GUI.

\item \textbf{Homework Feedback and Discussion}\\
\emph{How it works:}
Expand All @@ -229,43 +226,16 @@ \section{Online Component}
\emph{What you'll need:}
Not much beyond the ability to navigate the github repos.

\item \textbf{Reading summaries}\\
\emph{How it works:}
Every week I create an empty page on the course wiki for each assigned reading.
Your job is to expand these articles into useful summaries.
The default syntax for the wiki entries is markdown, a very simple \emph{lingua franca} for writing plain text documents that can easily be converted into a variety of file formats (doc, pdf, html, and so on).

\emph{Why we do it:}
Wikis are frequently used for software documentation nowadays, so you have to know how to work with one.
You will also get to see the advantages of markdown, in particular for short documents that do not need a lot of fancy typesetting (this can even include your own website!).
Hopefully this will move you away from formats like doc, which
%
\begin{itemize*}
\item are proprietary, and
\item lack backwards compatibility, and
\item are tedious to index and search, and
\item fail to separate the content of a document from its presentation, thereby distracting you with unnecessary details.
\end{itemize*}
%
Also, learning markdown takes a lot less time than relearning the MS Office user interface with each new version.
If you find that markdown is too simple for your own purposes, you can also switch to a more expressive superset like \href{http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/}{pandoc}.

\emph{What you'll need:}
Nothing except the ability to read (and ideally write in) markdown.
The github editor makes this fairly easy with its built-in help, formatting buttons and dynamic preview.
You can also checkout this interactive markdown tutorial, which should take you about 15 minutes (yes, markdown is that easy!):
\href{http://markdowntutorial.com/}{http://markdowntutorial.com/}

\item \textbf{Class announcements}\\
\emph{How it works:}
Normal announcements (readings, due dates) are put on the course website, time-critical ones (i.e.\ class cancellations) are emailed out via Blackboard.

\emph{What you'll need:}
If you're not officially enrolled in the course, send me a message so I can add you to Blackboard.
If you're not officially enrolled in the course for at least 0 credits, send me a message so I can add you to Blackboard.

\item \textbf{Handouts}\\
\item \textbf{Lecture Notes}\\
\emph{How it works:}
Handouts are made available online Monday and Wednesday before 3pm.
The lecture notes are made available online Monday and Wednesday before 3pm.
You can look at them on your laptop\slash tablet or make a hardcopy before class.
I will not bring handouts to class unless I could not upload them on time the day before.

Expand All @@ -287,4 +257,3 @@ \subsection{Contacting me}
\end{itemize}

\input{./tex/blabla.tex}

0 comments on commit e2e13f1

Please sign in to comment.