Final Project: Evaluating a Research Paper

The link of my evaluating paper:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~whitney/research/Whitney_Isailovic_Patel_Kubi_Frontiers007.pdf

1. Describe the audience for whom the paper is written. (Provide detail and do not assume that the audience is homogeneous).

a. What concern of the audience is addressed in the paper?

b. Is this concern primarily practical or theoretical?

Audience: Researchers those who had been or will be studying “Quantum Computing” technologies, especially those try to use CAD (computer-aided design) in designing the quantum circuits.

a. Automate most of the tasks involved in generating a physical layout and its associated control logic from a high-level quantum circuit specification.

b. This concern is practical.

2. How is the paper structured? How many headings does the paper use and how are these formatted in the paper? Does the paper follow the APA headings style (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/apa/parts/headings.html)?

The structure of this paper:

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2, 3: Background Knowledge

Section 4, 5: Methodologies – Common method used to control the experimental environment

Section 6, 7, 8: Methodologies in detail – Techniques used in this research

Section 9: Results

Section 10: Conclusions

The paper uses two levels of headings, and the format is:

8. DATAFLOW-BASED LAYOUTS (Level 1)

8.1 Dataflow Graph Analysis (Level 2)

8.2 Placement and Routing (Level 2)

8.3 Annotated Scheduling (Level 2)

9. RESULTS (Level 1)

9.1 Benchmarks (Level 2)

9.2 Evaluation (Level 2)

This paper does not follow the APA heading style. It follows the ACM style.

3. Does the paper contain an abstract? What kind of abstract is it? (See AWGS p. 282).

Yes. The abstract in this paper is results-driven Abstract.

4. What is the paper’ argument structure?

a. What is the paper’s main claim?

b. What reasons does the author provide to support the claim?

c. What type of evidence does the author provide?

Provide some examples of evidence.

Is the evidence quantitative or qualitative?

d. Does the author acknowledge counter-arguments? If so, how does the author

deal with the counter-arguments?

e. Does the paper contain any warrants?

a. Classical electronic circuits can be designed using the CAD (computer-aided design). So can quantum circuits.

b. Provide the quantum CAD flow and compare it with the classical CAD flow.

c. The authors conduct the experiments and get the data. Those data contains the latency and area of the designed circuits. All the data can be provided as evidence. And also, the evidence is quantitative.

d. No.

e. No. It’s about hard science and no such warrants exist.

5. Which moves does the author use in the introduction? (See Table 6 on AWGS p. 244). Identify the moves and describe them. What words or phrases mark the beginning of each move?

In the introduction, the author uses move 1, 2 and 3. The phrases “Quantum computing” in the first sentence marks the beginning of move 1, and the word “while” in the last sentence of paragraph 2 marks move 2. The words “Our goal” in the first sentence of paragraph 3 marks move 3.

6. Does the paper contain any definitions? If so, is it a gloss, a sentence definition, or an extended definition? (See AWGS p. 50-51).

No definition.

7. What is the author’s method? Using Table 22 on AWGS p. 227, give the methods section a score. Does the author justify her/his methodology/

The methods the authors mentioned in the paper are very technical, and they provided 3 kinds of methods to control the experiments. If I follow Table 22 on AWGS p. 227, I will score the method section -6. It seems that the authors didn’t justify their methods.

8. In the paper’s results and discussion sections, what examples of hedging (i.e., qualifications) do you see? (See AWGS p. 125). List at least five examples.

In fact, in this paper, not many examples of hedging can be seen. And, I try to find 5 examples which may be not good. 1^st: The exhaustive search over grids yields the best latency for all benchmarks. 2^nd: Dataflow-based place and route techniques in general produce the lowest latency circuits. 3^rd: We find that greedy heuristic tends to find the best design area-wise. 4^th: Our greedy algorithm produces good result for very simple circuits. 5^th: We found that our dataflow approach generally offers the best latency, often at the cost of area.

9. Which moves do you see in the Discussion Section? (See AWGS p. 270.)

In fact, this paper did not have a “Discussion Section”, but in the “Conclusion” section, the authors mentioned all of Move 1, 2, 3 in that section.

10. Does the author evaluate any previous research? If so, what evaluative language is used? (See AWGS, p. 188).

The author evaluate two previous research paper, discuss the method they use in designing and optimizing the circuit, and then the sentence “While this approach is quite informative in a new field, it quickly becomes intractable as the size of the circuit grows.

11. How does the author refer to the end-of-text citations? How current are most of the citations? If there are older citations, what do these refer to?

The author uses [number] format to refer to the end-of-text citation (IEEE or ACM format maybe). Most of the references cited in this paper were published in 10-15 years. The reason of this is that the “Quantum Computing” technologies were not researched before 15 years. Only one research paper cited in the article was published more than 20 years ago. This paper was cited because the theory described in it is the fundamental theory used in the article.

12. Create a summary (125-200 words) of the paper.

In this paper, the authors try to point out the most important tasks in designing and optimizing a quantum circuit and try to find one or more possible solutions by using computer-aided design (CAD). After describing the background knowledge needed to conduct the research and the common method used to control the experimental environment, three group of researching object were introduced in the paper, such as “grid-based layouts,” “greedy place and route,” and “dataflow-based layouts.” After the results of these experiments emerged, comparison of these original data was done. According to the comparison of the result, no globally optimal method was found, but each method was found to be optimal in some special circuit designing condition. Also, when doing this experiment, some possible future study was found.

The Definition of "Frame" and "Metaphor"

For Frame:


A frame is a structure which we use most frequently in our daily lifes. Just as in the classic definition, a frame should be formed with a skeleton and boundary, but in the lecture given by Professor Lakoff, two parts of a frame were defined. One part is "frame elements" and another is "scenarios." In an institution, such as a hospital, given as an example, all the people such as doctors, nurses and so on, and the space such as operating room, patient room, are all frame elements of a hospital. And the activities done in a hospital such as surgical operations and clinics, are scenarios of a hospital.

For Metaphor:

A metaphor is a link built in one's brain, which, in the case of basic metaphors, was established gradually since one's childhood. Since one's childhood, something meaningful will appear in front of him/her, and when these things repeat to be seen more and more times, the meaning and the phenomena will gradually find the shortest path by brain's activity and the neural circuit will be created. Then we will see something as a kind of metaphor of others.

Chinese Imports and Exports between 2002 and 2006

As can be seen in Figure 1, the Chinese exports and imports did not remain steady in the period. Both exports and imports, although having dips in January 2004, rose sharply and reached a local maximun, to about 38 and 32 billions dollars, in the middle of 2004. Then both declined eventually and reached the low points at about 35 and 30 billions in the end of 2004. After January 2005, the imports, although fluctuating during this period, rose gradually and reached the peak in July 2006. The exports in the same period, however, rose sharply after the middle of 2005 and reached a peak at about 40 billions in the end of 2005. After the peak, the exports suddenly fell off to 37 billions in the beginning of 2006. Before September 2006, the exports fluctuated most of the time.

Task 17 of Unit 4: Letter to Professor - as a TA

Email Title: The Possible Explanation of the Makup Exam's Result

Dear Professor:


I also noticed the big discrepancy between the regular and makeup exam. I prepared the data about the two exams in a table as an attached file. As can be seen, the makeup exam was given at 4 pm on Fri. IMHO, the students who took the makeup exam may have a weekend plan and, as a result, may have not concentrated on the exam. And, they may misunderstand the meaning of the questions without board examples, although I considered them not necessary at that time. Also, the temperature was 28'c, much higher than 20'c, the temperature when the regular exam was given. Maybe this hotter environment made the students feel uncomfortable so that they were not able to focus their attention on the exam very well. What can we do?


Best regards,

Chinfeng Wu

TA of Introductory Biology

Task Ten of Unit 4, on P.129

1. Attractive people have more favorable personal attributes than unattractive people.

In most cases, attractive people have more favorable personal attributes than unattractive people.

2. Economic sanctions are ineffective.

According to the history, most economic sanctions are ineffective.

3. Alcohol causes people to become violent.

Sometimes alcohol causes people to become violent.

4. Passive smoking causes cancer.

Many studies indicated that passive smoking may cause cancer.

5. Recycling is the best solution to the waste disposal problem.

Recycling may be one of the best solutions to the waste disposal problem.

6. Physical exercise prevents depression.

Physical exercise may be useful in preventing depression.

7. Deep tunnels are safer and less vulnerable to earthquake shaking than are shallow tunnels.

Some research shows that deep tunnels are safer and less vulnerable to earthquake shaking than are shallow tunnels.

8. Private schools provide a better education than do public schools.

In some countries, private schools may provide a better education than may public schools.

Move 2 & 3

However, most of the studies have discussed the broader topics about English learners' beliefs and the influential factors of those beliefs. Some studies focused the the research on the difference of beliefs influenced by gender, cultural backgrounds, learning contexts, and so on. Most of these studies have examined learners' beliefs in general, discussing the learners' beliefs influenced by some factors, without considering the differences between other factors. In addition to those factors discussed in those studies, since each academic department requires different English proficiency, the major fields of those students may have effect on their beliefs but not be discussed.

A further study may be conducted on learners' beliefs based on those students with similar cultural backgrounds but different major fields.

Possible Advanced Research Topic

1. The learners' beliefs of EAP students in GWU and the influence of their beliefs in learning
2. The difference of learners' beliefs between students with different major fields
3. The strength of learners' beliefs (how hard to change them) in students with different ages


People in the group:
Abdullah, Chinfeng, Domey, Patipat, Yan

Literature Review

The Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) was developed by Horwitz (1988) to assess the learners' beliefs about secondary/foreign language learning. In the past two decades, extensive research was devoted to this field. Although some articles also provided other methodologies, most of the researchers took BALLI as the researching tool and conducted their studies based on the result of this survey.


Much research had discussed the factors that influence the learners' beliefs and the changes in them. Bernet and Lloyd (2007), for example, explored the gender effect on EFL learners' beliefs and found that beliefs were mostly similar. Also, Diab (2006) found that students' beliefs about learning English and French in Lebanon were different. However, most of the studies tried to find how the environmental factors influence the beliefs. Kern (1995) found that teachers' beliefs only had little influence on students' beliefs at the global level. Mantle-Bromley (1995) found that students usually have many misconceptions, and the teaching style of their teachers seems to make a difference in the the beliefs. Horwitz (1999) concentrated on the cultural factors and found difficulty in teasing apart culture and learning context. Tanaka and Ellis (2003) conducted their research on 166 students during a 15-month period studying abroad, and found changes in analytical, experiential language learning and self-efficacy, but no effect on proficiency. Amuzie and Winke (2009) conducted similar research on 70 students studying abroad and found that the duration had effect on the change of learners' beliefs.


As the conclusions of Amuzie and Winke (2009) and Tanaka and Ellis (2003), studying abroad may influence the change of learners'beliefs. However, more than two countries assigned English as one of the official languages, the effect of studying abroad may also be relative to the culture of these countries. Advanced research about learning English abroad in different countries could be conducted to discuss the difference.

Citation

(Introduction, on the textbook)

Citations are widely recognized as being an important and distinctive property of academic texts. Indeed, the presence or absence of citations allows the casual reader to get an immediate sense of whether a text is an “academic” or “popular” one. Because citation is such an obvious surface phenomenon, it has been much discussed in the academic world. Indeed, there are several theories about the role and purpose of citation in academic texts.

(Sections below written by Arthur Rimbaud)

The most accepted theory is that: "Citations are used to recognize and acknowledge the intellectual property rights of authors. They are a matter of ethics and a defense against plagiarism." This theory is widely proposed in manuals and standard practice guides. In the well-established field like the sciences, there is also a theory which has many supporters. " Citations are used to show respect to previous scholars. They recognize the history of the field by acknowledging previous achievement."

Some researchers also provided theories about citation. In the rhetorical aspect, Gilbert(1977) said that citations are tools of persuasion; writers use citations to give their statements greater authority. Swales(1990) also claimed that citations are used to create a research space for the citing author. By describing what has been done, citations point the way to what has not been done and so prepare a space for new research. And in the economic aspect, Ravetz(1971) developed a theory that citations operate as a kind of mutual reward system. Rather than pay other authors money of their contributions, writers “pay” them in citations. Besides, Vavelas(1978) also provided a theory from the sociological viewpoint. He said that citations are used to supply evidence that the author qualifies as a member of the chosen scholarly community; citations are used to demonstrate familiarity with the field.

Sources Selected - About Learners' Beliefs in Secondary Language Learning

DB used: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts

Keywords used: 1. ( (internation*) or (secondary) or (foreign) ) and (language*) and (belie*)

2. ( (secondary language*) or (EFL) ) and (belief*) and (student*)

Both of the articles were found in the "Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts" database. I used the 2 sets of keywords listed above to search the database. While using the 1st set of keywords, I found an article, which has the title "Second Language Learners' Beliefs About Grammar Instruction and Error Correction". This article was used as a source of one of my peers, so I tried to looking into the reference of that article, and find my 1st selection. Then, I used the 2nd set of keywords, and found the 2nd selection of my articles.

1st Source --

Title:

The relationship between EFL learners' beliefs and learning strategy use

Abstract:

How are foreign language/second language learners' beliefs about language learning related to their learning strategy use? The present study addresses this question by investigating the relationship between college EFL (English as a foreign language) students' beliefs about language learning and their use of learning strategies. This study found that language learners' self-efficacy beliefs about learning English were strongly related to their use of all types of learning strategies, especially functional practice strategies. Also, learners' beliefs about the value and nature of learning spoken English were closely linked to their use of formal oral-practice strategies. The results of this study suggested cyclical relationships between learners' beliefs and strategy use. A theoretical construct of learners' beliefs was then proposed and pedagogical implications were discussed.

APA Citation:

Yang, N. (1999). The relationship between EFL learners' beliefs and learning strategy use. System, 27, 515-535

Justification:

There are 3 reasons why I choose this article. First, this article was written by a researcher who got her Ph.D. in US about language learning in 1992, but teaches in the NTU now (my home country), so her study was using the college EFL (English as a foreign language) students in Taiwan as cases. Maybe the result of her study will be useful to a person like me. Second, this article discussed about the relation between learners' beliefs and the learning strategies they use (especially functional practice strategies), that's also close to the article we read in class. Third, she also discussed some theoretical construct of learners' beliefs in this article. That will be useful when we try to understand more about learners' beliefs and the influences of them.

2nd Source --

Title:

University Students' Beliefs and Attitudes regarding Foreign Language Learning in France

Abstract:

This study is based on a survey of 1,305 university students enrolled in English & other foreign-language classes across year levels in four major universities in France. It explores the factors that promote or hinder multilingualism, with special attention to the following questions: What are the beliefs & attitudes of students enrolled in various postsecondary institutions across France toward learning a foreign language? How do these beliefs & attitudes change as students progress from beginning first-year students to upper years? The results suggest that the reasons first-year students typically have for studying a foreign language have more to do with internal factors (e.g., personal attitude) than with external factors (e.g., social value). Moreover, this trend becomes more pronounced with upper-year students whose motivation to learn a foreign language compared with that of first-year students is influenced less by perceived societal beliefs & more by intrinsic reasons. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

APA Citation:

Piquemal, N. (2006). University Students' Beliefs and Attitudes regarding Foreign Language Learning in France. TESL Canada journal, 24(1), 113-133.

Justification:

There are 2 reasons why I choose this article. First, this study was based on the university students taking English or other foreign-language classes. Second, this article discussed not only about the beliefs & attitudes of students, but also about the change of these beliefs and attitudes while they learning.

Graduate Students' Time Management

After being admitted as a graduate student, people may face a situation very different from what they had experienced before. They may find that they have fewer courses to take during each semester, so some may think that they have more time to waste.

However, professors often ask graduate students for more while giving them less in the meantime. It means that there may be more responsibilities a graduate student should take. Some students may not get used to dealing with the situation, and maybe some even haven't noticed the difference between graduate and undergraduate studying, so they might have some problems. Maybe they can't understand what was taught in class because they did not read the materials given. Maybe they will miss the due-date of the project or term-paper.


In my opinion, I think it's very important for graduate students to have a "calendar." Having a study calendar may be helpful in keeping track of their long-term or short-term studying plan. And then, to make a to-do list might be helpful, too. A prioritized to-do list may help a graduate student to check if there is something forgotten, and to make sure what must be done first.

If a graduate student can make a good plan for their studies, and follow the plan day by day, I think he may perform better in there courses and enjoy the life more,

Task 6, question 7

If the writer don't think that the solution would work, maybe he will write down some sentences like these:

1. If he doesn't want to describe another solution of this problem, maybe he will write, "Even if the settlements are better regulated, it is doubtful that the housing shortage may begin to alleviated. Maybe there is still something else need to be done in the meantime to help solving the problem."

2. If he wants to describe another solution of this problem, then he could write, "Although the regulation may be useful in solving this problem, I think that it's not only the government but also the companies in Delhi responsible for this situation."