Some guidelines regarding lecture guides

(Slightly edited version of email sent on February 5)

As lecture-guide preparation has begun, here are some points that are useful to keep in mind.

The overall goal is high-quality exposition of a topic, not a transcript of what happened in lecture. You should feel free to include material not included in lecture if you like or think it would improve your lecture guide; on the course website, for each lecture I provide some possible starting points for further exploration (as well as pointers to the papers that are mentioned). And, you may consult any material you find, such as textbooks (again, see course webpage for some recommendations), Wikipedia, course notes for other classes, or lecture guides from previous runnings of the course. After all, when you do research, you should draw from all useful sources!
That being said, previous experience suggests it is useful to remind students that you must always cite external sources pointing out their contributions; that is, you must give credit where credit is due. Clearly, word-for-word quotes must be placed between quotation marks with appropriate citations, whether this material comes from a published paper, unpublished paper, Wikipedia, a textbook, previous lecture notes, whatever. Ditto for paraphrases, except for the quotation marks. And, sources of ideas must also be credited. The document Acknowledging the Work of Others is a useful set of guidelines for this course and for all your writings.
Also, you should strive to put things in your own words rather than rely excessively on wording from other sources; I believe the process of explaining things in your own words enhances understanding.
Finally, your questions must be original; you should not just take an exercise from a textbook, say. Remember that the point is precisely that you should generate your own questions, since this is an important part of the research process.
If you think of ways to improve on lecture presentation, go for it! (If you change notation, it might be good to provide a translation table.) You can imagine that this could be a way to come up with the questions that are a required part of the lecture guide; for example, if you think of a better way to prove something or think about something, write up a question (and solution) to guide the user through your new idea.
Format: I don't particularly care. People have generally used a header of the following form:
```
  CS6740/INFO 6300: Advanced language technologies        Spring
  2010
        Lecture #?? --- [date of lecture, topic]

  Lecturer: [whoever, usually me]     Scribe(s): [your names here]
 
```
You can see http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs674/2007fa/ for some examples.

Last modified: Mon Feb 8 13:07:01 EST 2010