English: Workflow for the essay

Subject

The essay subject will typically be in one of three different categories:

•  An in-depth study of a previously studied course in computer science. The topic should be discussed with the course coordinator for that course, to ensure that it is a suitable subject.
• An account of a complex technical system, project or task that you have previously worked on. For this category it is important to identify a computer science question that can form the basis of the thesis.
• A study of new material in any computer science subject, through self-study and reading of a book or some articles.

 

Process

1. Select topic (as above)
2. Submit a Topic proposal
3. Email the examiner and announce that you have submitted a topic proposal.
4. Await the examiner's approval of the topic.
5. Write the essay.
6. Read through your text, run spelling and grammar checks.
7. Submit the essay for peer review  
8. Check that the essay fulfils the formal requirements in the Checklist
9.  Submit the essay for asessement by the examiner (all submissions are checked for plagiarism)
10. Notify the examiner that you have submitted the essay.
11. Rework the essay after reading the comments from the examiner.
12. Hand in the final version of the essay.

 

Outline

The essay should contain about 2000-5000 words, corresponding to about 4- 7 pages.

The important learning objectives in DD1395 are

• that you should be able to search, read and summarize scientific and/or technical literature that is relevant for the topic,
• structure and write a scientific essay,
• critically review the collected sources of information and analyze and discuss these in the essay, in order to arrive at your own, independent conclusion, position or prediction about future development.

In your proposal, you must specify which target group the essay is aimed at, e.g. an engineering student, a beginner in the subject, a member of a project group focused on the subject. The level and content of the text should be adapted to the intended target group.

 

Assessment

During the assessment, the examiner typically checks if the essay

• has a sufficient scientific and/or technical level
• follows the accepted structure and style for academic essays (has a summary, an introduction, a clear formulation of the purpose of the essay, a structured review of the topic, a discussion and a reference list)
• has clearly reported and relevant references to scientific and/or technical literature
• is well written, in your own words and is coherent.