During spring quarter I would like each of you to write a paper and present a talk on a subject or topic of your choice in statistics. The paper and talk should have a ``theory'' slant or approach, but other than that the choice of subject is up to you. I will hand out a list of potential topics on Wednesday -- with some references as possible starting points. I would be glad to talk to you individually (during office hours for example) about possible topics and starting points for your reading. Part of your first homework assignment of the quarter (due on Wednesday, April 8) will be to identify the topic of your talk and paper.
Talks: Your talks will be quite short -- about 25 minutes in length (two students per meeting) starting on Friday, May 22 and going through June 5.
Papers:
Your papers should be written as if you were
writing for publication in one of the more theoretical statistical
journals such as the Annals of Statistics
Journal of the American Statistical Association, or other
comparable journal.
I will ask that you identify the journal
for which you are writing.
It is not required that you obtain or present
new results in your papers (although it is fine if you
do!), but you must write in your own words; see the
discussion in Higham's book on plagiarism.
The papers should be done in TeX
or LaTeX, and should not be more than 20 pages in length including
references.
The written papers will be due on Friday, June 5.