Reading Notes Guidelines

Reading Comprehension

The purpose of the assigned readings is for you to develop a better understanding of AI as a disciplinary study, technology, or professional career.

Reading comprehension helps you:

  • Learn key ideas, concepts, principles, techniques, approaches, algorithms, and illustrative examples.
  • Communicate what you have learned.
  • Use supportive evidence and be specific in your communication.

Writing Process

CAE Support

To help you with the writing process of your reading notes, experts from the UNH Center for Academic Enrichment are offering weekly reading comprehension sessions. You can also schedule one-on-one writing tutoring appointments to revise and get feedback on your notes.

Reading Comprehension Session

  • When: After class at 4 pm
  • Where: Room 333
  • Requirements
    • Bring the annotated hard copies of the two articles and a notebook
  • During session:
    • Take notes about what you’ll be discussing during the session. 

Writing Products

Another helping element is that the development of your notes is done in two iterations;

  • RN Feedback assignment is a first draft of your understanding of the assigned reading.
  • RN Final uses RN Feedback to addresses questions and issues discussed in class.

RN Feedback Guidelines

  • Allocate 1/2 hour of undisturbed/unplugged time to read each article. 
  • Read carefully the hard copy with a pen/pencil ready to underline or make notes in the margins of the page. 
  • Pay special attention to new concepts and findings you consider important.
  • If there are terms that you are not familiar with, do a Google search.
    • Select carefully sources that seem credible and from which you can gain more understanding about the terms you are searching for. 
  • Total preparation time should be 1 hour.
    • It’s recommended you do it in two separate sessions, if you can, one per article. 
    • Spacing out studying time helps with better consolidating our understanding. 
  • Participate in the Reading Comprehension session with experts from the Center for Academic Enrichment.
  • Prepare a first draft  of your understanding of the assigned readings. In your draft:
    • Identify and briefly describe new concepts and technical terms.
    • Also, list the main findings that the articles report.
  • The draft has 1-2 pages and is organized as discussed in class.

RN Final

  • Preparation
    • Must have RN1 Feedback completed.
  • Logistics and Submission
    • Write your reading notes using Word in OneDrive
    • Keep your notes in the Reading Notes subfolder of your COMP 841 folder in OneDrive.
    • Submit the notes to the submission link in Canvas.
    • Only Word (docx) or PDF formats are allowed.
  • Process
    • Review and get feedback on your first draft (RN Feedback)
    • Participate in class discussion about the first draft
    • Address the questions and issuses raised in class
    • Finalize and submit the reading notes.

Attribution and Referencing

Attribution means referencing the source of the material you include or integrate in your notes.

  • Proper reference means that you specify useful information about the material you are using. Such information includes:
    • Name of who created the material.
      • If the name(s) of individual author(s) is missing, you need to identify the entity that claims authorship, such as an organization, group, insitution.
    • Title of the material you are referencing
    • Year when it was written or published or made available
    • Information about where the material was made available (e.g., internet URL, newspaper, other publication, etc.)
  • References are listed at the end of the notes document.
    • Use Zotero to generate proper references.
    • Right click on the Zotero item, select “Create Bibliography from Item …”, and then select “Chicago Manual Style 17th edition (author-date).

Similarity Check

  • Failing to give attribution to the source from where you copy any material is plagiarism and an instance of academic integrity misconduct.
  • At UNH all students, faculty, and staff are expected to share and uphold the value of academic integrity. See syllabus for this course policy on academic integrity.
  • UNH uses Turnitin software to check how similar your submission is with other submission or with content that can be obtained from the internet or AI generative tools.
  • You’ll receive the similarity check report from Canvas immediately after you submit your reading notes.
  • Review the similarity check report and make changes in your notes if you omitted to quote or reference properly content from other source(s).
  • Similarity score does not determine plagiarism
    • Instructors review similarity score – TurnItIn is just an indicator
  • You cannot copy text from any EXTERNAL source (that is not yours, including AI generative tools) without giving attribution:
    • Quote original text and add the reference, or
    • Rephrase original text and add the reference.

Organization of the Notes

  • The notes document starts with a title, your name, and date when notes were created. For example:
    Week 1 Reading Notes** 
Mihaela Sabin** 
Jan 26, 2024
    • If the notes represent the first draft, title is Reading Notes Draft
  • Have sections with headings to better illustrate the structure of the notes, based on the reading assignment requirements.
    • Multiple articles should have separate headings
    • Questions or issues related to each article should have subheadings.
  • If you choose to include figures or tables, you MUST provide a caption, describing what the figure/table represents.
  • Captions of figures/tables which are taken from other sources MUST cite the reference of the source.

Document Format and Submission

  • Write the notes in a Word document in the Reading Notes subfolder of COMP 841 folder in OneDrive, where you’ll keep all the notes.
  • Upload the document to the submission link in Canvas.