Syllabus

Scope and Spirit of the Seminar

ASTRO-589 is a graduate seminar on the study of the astronomical literature. It aims to introduce students to the study of technical astronomical papers on a broad range of subjects (i.e., papers outside of one’s immediate area of expertise). As a result, it will help students to broaden their knowledge and it will illustrate direct applications of the material covered in the two required graduate courses, ASTRO-501 and ASTRO-502. By virtue of its scope and structure, this seminar gives students an opportunity to prepare for the Astronomy and Astrophysics qualifying exam, which will be given after the end of the spring semester. As such, this seminar is appropriate for first-year graduate students.

During the seminar, the students will study about a dozen papers from the refereed astronomical literature on a wide variety of scientific topics. Some of the papers will be very recent, and some will be old but classic. A significant fraction of the papers will be those used in qualifying exams of the past few years. Most papers will be accompanied by a set of questions that promote but also examine the students’ understanding of the material and questions that ask for calculations related to or inspired by the topics of the paper. As the circumstances permit, members of past qualifying exam committees will act as guest instructors and discuss specific papers with the students. 

Upon successful completion of this course, the students will:

• have developed their own techniques for studying papers from the peer-reviewed astronomical literature (extracting the main point of a paper, qualitatively reproducing the methods used, and understanding the limitations of such methods),

• be able to apply the background they gained from the two required graduate courses (ASTRO-501, ASTRO-502) to understand calculations found in peer-reviewed papers and reproduce the simpler of these calculations

Materials, Expected Background, and Summary of Topics

The students are expected to have taken ASTRO-501 and ASTRO-502 in their first semester in the graduate program. The textbooks, notes, exercises, etc from those two courses will be extremely useful reference materials for doing the exercises in this seminar. 

The topics covered in this seminar will span a wide range, including, but not limited to, stellar astrophysics, galactic and extragalactic astronomy, cosmology, radiation processes, dynamics, the interstellar medium, exoplanets, solar system astronomy, etc. The unifying theme between the papers is that the fundamental principles are covered in ASTRO-501 and ASTRO-502. The details of the topics need not have been covered in these two courses. In other words, the papers will not necessarily be simple and straightforward applications of the course materials; instead they will provide the opportunity for students to extend, expand, and apply what they already know.

Organization, Logistics, and Web Sites

The seminar is taught jointly by Mike Eracleous and Donghui Jeong. Eracleous will be responsible for the first half of the semester (before spring break) and Jeong for the second half. The role of the instructors will be to

• lead and moderate the discussion of several papers themselves and invite guest instructors to lead and moderate the discussion of other papers.

• assign one or two students each week to give a five-minute summary (each) of the paper of the week at the beginning of the class period and summarize any challenges they found in understanding the content of the paper and answering the associated questions. 

• call on students in class to discuss their approach to answering questions associated with the paper of the week. 

• have the students submit complete, written responses to the questions for one of the papers from each half of the semester for credit.

On this web site you will find the vital logistical  information for the course (Home tab), the syllabus (Syllabus tab), which includes information about assignments, detailed guidance on the assignments (Tips & Advice tab )and official university policies and procedures (Policies tab). The Google calendar that appears on the Home tab will be updated regularly to indicate the due dates of assignments and other relevant events.

The Canvas site for this course will be used as a way of organizing course information and distributing documents and other materials. Papers, associated questions, solutions, etc., will be posted on Canvas. Canvas is also the means by which written assignments should be submitted. A very useful part of the Canvas site is the Schedule page, which can be reached via a link on the main page for the course (Home). The schedule page contains a detailed schedule for the semester that includes the paper of each week and the questions associated with it, the instructor(s), and other useful information. The Materials link on the main page takes you to a list of past qualifying exam papers that are not discussed in this seminar (with their questions and solutions).

Expectations, Assessed Work, and Basis for Grades

Students are expected to prepare for the seminar each week by studying the assigned paper and answering the associated questions. The questions may be challenging, especially if the paper is on an unfamiliar subject. However, everyone must make an effort to answer them, or at least, identify an approach that can be used to tackle the question. Studying the paper ahead of time and attempting the questions put one in a good position to participate in the discussion.

The assessed work for the seminar will consist of the preparation described above, participation in the discussions as described below, which implies attendance, and submitting a complete set of written answers to the questions associated with one paper in each half of the semester (that is, two papers in total). 

Here is the format and expectations in mode retail:

• One or two students will be assigned each week to give a short, 5-minute, summary of the essence of the paper of the week and identify challenges in the questions. 

• The instructors will call on other students in class and ask them to describe their thinking about particular questions. In answering questions in class, the students are not necessarily expected to have figured out the complete answer and provide it. But they are expected to have studied the questions and considered how to tackle them. 

• In each half of the semester, the students will be asked to pick one of the papers discussed by the primary instructor and write responses to the questions and turn them in for credit. The answers should be detailed and complete. The first set of answers will be due the week after thanksgiving and the second set the week of final exams. The official answers for the questions associated these particular papers will be released after the students have turned in their own written answers.

• In case the university is closed because of bad weather (or any other reason) and the closure affects office hours or class meetings, the instructors will send out instructions by email on how office hours, class meetings, and/or other events or deadlines are rescheduled.  

The grade will be based on the above with weights as follows:

35% – Preparation, attendance, and participation in discussions (responding meaningfully to the questions and overall initiative)

30% – Summarizing papers in class and identifying challenges (opening summary of the paper, as assigned by instructors)

35% – Written answers to questions for two papers (turned in for credit)

Academic Integrity

The formal policies about academic integrity are included in the Policies section of this web site. In the case of this course the important considerations are: 

• In their assignments students should always present work that is their own, following the instructions given in this syllabus and the detailed instructions associate with the assignments. 

• Students should cite the sources from which you draw information for your assignments.

• The students may use Generative A.I. or other software to formulate your answers, but they should acknowledge that and give credit to the software used. Note the position adopted by the American Astronomical Society on the use of Generative AI. In the end, the students are responsible for the content of what they submit; any software tools used cannot explain their reasoning and cannot be held accountable for what they do.

In this particular seminar, students can discuss papers and questions with each other in the normal course of the seminar. However, they should keep in mind that, if this seminar is to provide good practice for the qualifying exam, they should not rely extensively on such discussions to figure out how to answer the questions. When it comes to writing complete and detailed answers to the paper they selected, students should work completely on their own without consulting other students in any way. This particular type of assignment is meant to emulate the qualifying exam.

The Cardinal Rule 

All students are responsible for knowing and following all the rules and regulations for this course as set forth in the syllabus (including any additional details on the class web site). Not knowing the rules is not an excuse for not following them. In case of any ambiguity, the instructor is the final arbiter. Students are also responsible for knowing what is announced in class.