The midterm papers should be 5-10 pages; the final paper should be 10-15. Papers are expected to conform to the usual academic standards. Apart from the obvious -- no cheating; your work should be entirely your own -- I expect a proper bibliography. Make sure you indicate, via proper appropriate bibliographic pointers, what material you've taken from other works.
The midterm paper is due by the start of class on Monday, March 10. The final paper is due by 7:00 pm, on the day of the final exam schedule posted by the registrar. NO EXCEPTIONS.
By April 7, I would like to know who wishes to present their paper on 4/28 and who on 5/5. To quote a professor of mine, "as we learned in switching theory, increasing the number of "don't care" states simplifies the circuit" -- if you don't have a preference, tell me that, too. In the event of imbalance or lack of input, I reserve the right to make random selections. If you have a better-than-usual reason for your preference, please let me know.
8 students will go each day, which works out to 13 minutes per presentation. Yes, I know that that's tight. We have to stick to it, which means I'm going to have to be ruthless about time.
To avoid the hassle of switching laptops, please make sure your presentation is accessible from the conference room PC. For this presentation, you probably do want to have slides.