Essay

Thesis review - gGraded essay in Theory of Science and Scientific Methods The purpose of this exercise is to give you training in scientific writing. and an opportunity to think through how the contents of the course may be applied in a degree project. You will practice both writing in a popular science style and writing in a more critical reviewscientific style. You will work with an old Master's thesis: project list¶ Your essay should be in two parts
* The first part will b.¶

The title of your essay is "What does a computer science degree project have to do with science?" and the intended readership is people interested in the education of CS masters. The essay should be two or three pages, starting with the following abstract.¶

"The degree project used to be mainly proof of vocational skills, in particular programming, but recently the focus has shifted to scientific writing and methods. With an old project thesis as an example, we discuss how the new requirements may be met."¶


* Your essay should include an easily readable summary of the thesis intended for a lay-person probably without deep knowledge of computer science. You should give a brief explanation of what the thesis is about and a discussion of its possible interest for a general public. This part should be at least half a page and at most one page long.

* Examples from University of Cambridge podcast site "The Naked Scientist"
* Popular science writing - a guide from Lund University
* The second part will be a critical review of the thesis. Some years ago, the requirements concerning scientific contents and format were different from current requirements. Your task is to review the thesis and give scientific comments that would help the author make the thesis comply with current standards. KTH has as yet not translated these standards to English but Anna-Karin Högfeldt at the ECE school has been kind enough to lend us the informal translations she uses in her course:
* Objectives and Criteria for Degree project within 120 hp Master (not formal translation)
* Objectives and Criteria for Degree project within 300 hp Civilingenjör (not formal translation)
You should analyze the thesis and try to identify the scientific methods, principles and concepts used in the thesis. You should also suggest improvements that could be made, for instance by writing a pragraph to be inserted into the text.You should comment on the following points

* References [quality, availability, relevance, etc. ]
* Research questions [clearly stated, hypotheses, etc.]
* Scientific theory [truth, explanation, bias, skepticism, ethics, etc.]
* Methodology [HD, statistics, experiments, etc.]
* Conclusions [justified, research questions answered, etc.]
This part should be four pages long.¶
¶ Formal requirements
* Your essay should be titled "Scientific comments on the Master's Thesis xxx by yyy. Reviewer: zzz."
* First part: one page
* Second part: four pages
* Next comes a section with general scientific considerations that come to mind in connection with the project. It may include historical references such as Occam or Galileo, philosophical terms such as anti-realism or the HD-method, statistical concepts such as correlation or null hypothesis, CS themes such as P vs NP and ethical issues. Try to make as much use of the course contents as possible while staying relevant to the topic.
* In the final section, you return to the project and give some suggestions about how it might have been carried out and reported with the requirements of today.
¶

Formal requirements
* Title page with your name
* First part: one page
* Second part: one page
* Third part: one page
* Font size 10pt
* Your essay must be submitted to KTH-Social no later than January 18, 2016. Upload your file as a pdf (other formats will not be accepted).
Grading The grading is A-F according to the following criteria.

E: The summary and review have the correct format, are written in clear English in an appropriate style. The reviewer shows clear understanding of the thesis and the course basics.

C: The reviewer also gives comments that show broad knowledge in scientific methods and suggests relevant improvements.

A: An interesting and thought-provoking summary followed by a discerning and creative review. Comments and improvements show deep insight in the theory of science.