When Critiques Should be Submitted

All paper critiques are due by the begining of the class on the day of the corresponding sessions. Critiques should be handed in to the instructor at the beginning of the session. In those cases when you cannot attend the class, you can send your critique via e-mail. Late critiques will be accepted but the instructor reserves the right to reduce the mark by the number of percent equal to the number of minutes passed after the due time, e.g., critique handed in (over e-mail or in person) 9:15 AM will have its mark reduced by 15%. Time stamp put in the e-mail message by ECE e-mail server will be used to determine when the message with the critique has been submitted.

What Format Should Critiques Follow

Only first page will be read. All critiques should be submitted either on paper or sent over e-mail in PDF. Font size should be 10, 11, or 12 points. All margins should be one inch. The critique should contain the name of the critique author, date when the critique has been written, and the bibliographical reference of the critiqued paper in the format compliant with IEEE Transactions style.

Those who use LaTex for typing their critiques may use this suggested template template (remove the “.txt” extension).

Those who use MS-Word for typing their critiques may use this suggested template.

 

Questions to Answer in Your Critique

Unless otherwise specified, while critiquing each paper, you need to answer the following questions. Please read the paper by Alan Jay Smith on “The Task of the Referee” for more details and explanation on each of the questions.

1. Problem: What is the problem addressed by the paper? What did the author(s) do well in explaining the problem and what could have been improved?
2. Importance of the Problem: Is the addressed problem important? What are the strengths and weaknesses in the motivation of the problem?
3. Methodology Design: What is the methodology design? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology?
4. Research Execution: How was the methodology executed? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the execution?
5. Results: What are the results and do they seem correct?
6. Conclusions: What are the conclusions drawn from the results? What did the author(s) do well in drawing the conclusions and what could be improved?

Assessment Criteria

Mark	Aspects of the critique that deserves this mark
9-10	All of the above questions are answered, and The answers are specific, concrete, and sufficiently detailed, and The critique not only summarizes the corresponding aspects of the paper well, but also explains clearly and with support, for each of the above questions, what the authors did well and what can be improved, and It is clear from the answers that the author of the critique understood the paper very clearly, and All answers to the above questions are insightful, very clear and complete, and Text flows easily, and There are no spelling errors, and There is no more than one grammar error.
7-8	All of the above questions are answered The answers are specific, concrete, and sufficiently detailed The critique not only summarizes the corresponding aspects of the paper well but also explains clearly, for most of the above questions, what the authors did well and what can be improved It is clear from the answers that the author of the critique understood the paper very well but not completely, or All answers to the above questions are mostly insightful, mostly very clear and mostly complete, but they could be answered better, or Text flows mostly easily, however the reader is left few times somewhat confused about what exactly the text was supposed to mean, or There are two or more grammar errors.
5-6	Most (but not all) of the above questions are answered, or The answers are not sufficiently specific, concrete, or detailed, or The critique summarizes the corresponding aspects of the paper well but does not explain clearly for most of the above questions, what the authors did well and what can be improved, or It is not clear from the answers that the author of the critique understood the paper very well, or All answers to the above questions are somewhat insightful, somewhat clear and somewhat complete, but they need to be improved, or Text flows somewhat easily, however the reader is left a few times somewhat confused about what exactly the text was supposed to mean, or There are a few grammar errors, or There are few spelling errors.
3-4	Half or fewer of the above questions are answered, and the critique only summarizes the corresponding aspects of the paper does not explain what the authors did well and what can be improved, or It is not clear from the answers that the author of the critique understood the paper well, or Some of the answers to the above questions are not insightful, or unclear, or incomplete, or Text does not flow easily and the reader is left frequently confused about what exactly the text was supposed to mean, or There are frequent grammar errors, or There are a few spelling errors, or The critique does not contain the name of the critique author, or The critique does not contain date when it was written, or The critique does not contain the bibliographical reference of the critiqued paper in the format compliant with IEEE Transactions style.
1-2	Only few of the above questions are answered, or It is clear from the answers that the author of the critique has very little understanding of the paper, or Many of the answers to the above questions are not insightful, or unclear, or incomplete, or Text is difficult to read and the reader is left frequently confused about what exactly the text was supposed to mean, or There are too many grammar errors, or There are frequent spelling errors.
0	Almost none of the above questions are answered, or It is clear from the answers that the author of the critique did not understand the paper, or Almost all of the answers to the above questions are not insightful, or unclear, or incomplete, or Text is difficult to read and the reader could not understand what most of the text was supposed to mean, or There are too many spelling errors, or The critique looks very much like another critique by a different author.