To both introduce you to research methods, and to expose you to cutting-edge research, a portion of this course is devoted to discussing research papers. For every paper, one student will present the paper. To help the presenter direct the class discussion, everyone else is expected to submit a reaction to the paper.
Read the paper carefully (see long "How to read a research paper").
Take last 15-20 minutes of class for presentation and discussion. This is the typical length of many conference presentations, so learning how to be brief is important.
Slides are not required, but if it makes you more comfortable, feel free. If so, you are responsible for your AV needs.
Do not primarily summarize/reiterate the paper (except to clarify). The class is supposed to have read the paper. Instead, present your deeper understanding and critical analysis. In particular:
I do no not expect you to read and understand the paper in the same depth as the presenter. Even just "skimming" the paper (see "How to read a Computer Science research paper") allows you to do much of the following.
State one SIMILARITY and one DIFFERENCE between the paper and the relevant chapter in J&M. The goal is to connect your paper reading experience to our classroom experience.
Suggest at least one point for the presenter to discuss. When it is your turn to present, you will appreciate these comments!
Rate whether you think the paper is a theoretical, engineering, and/or empirical paper.
Rate the paper on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best) and justify your rating in one sentence.
NOTE: Do not spend huge amounts of time on this! Since the papers often talk about things not covered by J&M (either at this point in the semester, or at all), your job will often be more of an exercise in deciding "whether a research paper is good", without fully understanding everything! This is actually an important real-world skill useful for peer reviewing.