Essay 3 – Research Summary and Response
The purpose of having you write a survey paper is to give you the opportunity to become closely familiar with
the current work being done in a particular area so that you both have an appreciation of why the area is of interest
and what work remains to be done in that area. Your research will be pooled with that of your collaborative group
members to form a larger pool of research from which to draw.
Each student will write an individual survey paper on a topic related to the collaborative group project.
A survey paper, as the name suggests surveys the current research work done in a particular area and provides
a critical assessment of the work that has been done. (That is, the strengths and weaknesses of the existing work
are presented as well as the work itself.) Brief comparisons between the presented research papers are normally
also provided. The source for descriptions of existing research work is normally a collection of research articles
from well known international journals. In addition to reviewing the existing work, a survey paper normally
concludes with a “value-added” discussion of potential future work in the area.
A good survey paper provides a concise but broad review of an area that is accessible to a wide range of
readers who will not be researchers directly in the presented area. This introduces two primary challenges to
writing such a paper. The first challenge is to pick representative papers from within the research area and
summarize them concisely. The second challenge is to ensure that your survey paper is easily understandable. The
first step to ensuring this is making sure that you, the writer, understand the papers you are surveying. It is very
common to have to read a paper two or three times before you fully understand what it is saying.
Your survey paper should consist of the following:
- an introduction that summarizes what the paper presents without expecting the reader to have already read the
paper – this can be tricky, - a problem description which explains the problem and motivates interest in it,
- a summary of the research in 4-5 papers on a particular topic
- your own commentary on the significance of the approach and the solutions presented in each paper
- a critical assessment of the work that has been done
- a discussion on future research directions
- a conclusion which summarizes your paper and which describes possible directions for future research,
- a detailed bibliography presented in an easy to read and consistent format
Schedule:
Week 7 Essay 3 proposal due
Week 9 Essay 3 Research due
Week 9 Essay 3 Rough draft due
Week 10 Group conferences
Week 10 Final Essay 3 due
File name should be LastName_Essay3.doc
Assignment length 1200+ words
