Advanced NLP Seminar (11-713)

Instructor: Prof. Noah Smith
History: Taught in Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Spring 2011, Spring 2010, Spring 2009

Course Description

This course aims to improve participants' knowledge of current techniques, challenges, directions, and developments in all areas of NLP (i.e., across applications, symbolic formalisms, and approaches to the use of data and knowledge); to hone students' critical technical reading skills, oral presentation skills, and written communication skills; to generate discussion among students across research groups to inspire new research.

Format

In a typical semester, a set of readings will be selected (with student input) primarily from the past 2-3 years' conference proceedings (ACL and regional variants, EMNLP, and COLING), journals (CL, JNLE), and relevant collections and advanced texts. Earlier papers may be assigned as background reading. In 2010, the readings were recent dissertations in NLP. The format of each meeting will include a forty-minute, informal, critical student presentation on the week's readings, with presentations rotating among participants, followed by general discussion. Apart from the presentation and classroom participation, each student will also be graded on writing assignments (e.g., in 2009 and 2010, each student wrote a 3-4-page white paper outlining a research proposal for new work extending research discussed in class; in 2011 there was a collective journal).

White paper assignment instructions (2010)

White paper assignment instructions (2009)

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