Useful resources for COMP516¶
English Language Support¶
For overseas students, there is a series of English Language Support classes.
There is an English language class dedicated to students taking COMP516, that is, all MSc Computer Science students. Please do attend that class if you are not a native English language speaker. There is no need for students to register! Just show up and the organizers will keep a record of who’s attending. It takes place every Monday 15:00-16:00 in ELEC-204 (E4). There is also two hours long class for all MSc students at the Faculty of Science & Engineering titled Scientific English which takes place every Wenesday 15:00-17:00 in MATH-103. All details are here: http://www.liv.ac.uk/english-language-centre/academic_english_classes_for_science_and_engineering/.
Even more English classes are available to all international students. The timetable of these classes can be found here. Please attend as many classes as possible. It will greatly improve your English and make it a lot easier to write the final essay.
Literature¶
The module is partly based on the following two textbooks:
Christian W. Dawson: Projects in computing and information systems (A student’s guide). Addison Wesley, 2005.
Earlier edition: Christian W. Dawson: The essence of computing projects (A student’s guide). Prentice Hall, 2000. Harold Cohen Library, Class No 518.561.D27
Justin Zobel: Writing for Computer Science. Springer, 2004. Harold Cohen Library, Class No 378.962.Z81
Rankings of Journals and Conferences¶
Not sure of a publication venue’s reputation? Try rankings such as
Presentations¶
To complement the lecture material, here is a list of useful webpages which give advice on giving presentations:
Essay Writing¶
To complement the lecture material, here is a list of useful webpages which give advice on essay writing and writing in general:
- Essays and other Academic Writing (University of Birmingham)
- Writing Skills (University of Leeds)
- Essay Writing Guide (University of Manchester, Department of Computer Science)
- Essay and Reports (University of Manchester, Faculty of Humanities)
- William Strunk’s Elements of Style
- William Safire’s Rules for Writers
Examples of Student Essays¶
These essays are all on Pretty Good Privacy; some are quite good, some are quite poor. We will discuss them in the lectures.