Assignment 1: Find a paper

Before you begin

• Please review our AI Policy.

• Go over the module Skill: How to find research papers if you did not attend the lecture on Week 1.

Description

Your assignment this week is to simply find a research paper that you would like to read given your current research interests. While the intention of the assignment is to prepare a paper for when we move onto later modules (on skimming, reading, summarizing, presenting academic papers), this is not a binding commitment. If you are undecided, you can list multiple papers. For later assignments, we will have a smaller list of papers to choose from but that list is not fixed yet; the paper(s) that you find could end up on that list. And you can change your chosen paper, or even your topic of interest later in the class.

For each paper that you choose, collect or note down the following information:

• Title, authors, publication venue, year of the paper

• Upload a PDF file of the paper.

• How did you find the paper? 

  • Example answers: from the lab/personal webpage of XYZ; from a conference webpage; from Google Scholar/Semantic Scholar with keywords X, Y, Z

  • If you use AI to help you: explain how you used AI as a final step to your search process.

• Why did you choose this paper (versus others you encountered during your search)? 

  • Example answers: I'm interested in X, Y, Z; this was the most cited paper on topic X; it has a cool title; it looks easier to read

Permissible AI Use

Please search for papers yourself first using the suggested methods from lecture. As a final step, it is okay to ask AI to check your work and see if you missed any relevant papers (see the lecture slides for a suggested prompt). Note that students only need to find one paper for this assignment.

Submission

This assignment is due on October 13, 2026 Tuesday 11:59pm.

Please submit a text entry on GradeScope with your answers to the four bullets above for each paper that you find.