Reading Memos

Due at the start of every lecture, either by email or by direct web annotation.

In order to make the most of limited lecture time, we expect you to prepare for each lecture by doing some reading in advance, and writing a short "reading memo" about what you read. Reading memos will count toward your class participation grade.

Readings

For the first part of the semester, the reading for each lecture will be a set of lecture notes. The notes will be posted on the 6.831 web site well in advance of the lecture. Each lecture's notes will generally consist of 20-30 PowerPoint slides with substantial commentary, formatted as HTML (for online reading and annotating) and PDF (for printing).

Later in the semester, when the lectures are about research topics instead of design and implementation techniques, you will be assigned a research paper for each lecture instead of lecture notes, but you will still be expected to write a reading memo.

Memos

For each reading, you should write a short memo responding to what you read. A paragraph or two is enough, but please don't exceed a page (about 5 paragraphs). Your response might include:

• Questions. Points in the notes that you didn't understand, didn't agree with, or that otherwise raised questions in your mind.
• More examples. Examples from your own experience that are related to the material of the lecture, such as hall of fame or shame examples.
• Lessons learned. Points in the notes that you found particularly compelling, surprising, or useful.

These memos are designed to serve several purposes. First, they will provide valuable feedback to the lecturer about the lecture -- which parts were clear, which parts need more explanation. You can use your memo to ask questions about the lecture without raising your hand in class, which can be hard sometimes. Please clearly mark questions and confusions that you'd like to have answered, using the key word question so that we don't miss them.

We will also use the memos to allocate class time better -- spending less time on straightforward facts and definitions, and more time on difficult concepts and examples. Finally, the memos are a forcing function to ensure the whole class actually reads the lecture notes before class, so that everyone will be up to speed.

Note that you aren't expected to understand everything you read. Reading memos are not a test of comprehension, and they will not be graded for correctness.

What to Hand In

You can submit your reading memo either of two ways:

• By web annotation directly on the HTML version of the reading. Sacha Zyto (a CSAIL grad student) has developed a prototype annotation tool (implemented as an extension for Firefox) that allows you to write your reading memos directly in your web browser, so that you can attach questions and comments directly to relevant paragraphs of the reading. You can also use this tool to keep your own private notes about the lecture, or make public comments that are unrelated to the web site. Install the annotation tool from http://web.mit.edu/~sacha/www/tutor/. To mark an annotation as part of your reading memo for a lecture, you should select Assignment in the editing pane, and then choose the lecture name in the other drop-down. You can make multiple annotations for each lecture, as long as you mark them all as the correct Assignment.
• By email to 6831handin@csail.mit.edu, including the lecture number in the subject line, formatted as L#. For example, your reading memo for lecture 2 should have L2 in the subject line. Your memo should simply be text in the body of the email; do not include any attachments.

You may submit your reading memos at any time, but no later than the start of the lecture (12 pm). Late reading memos will not be accepted.