Milestone dates:

• January 29: Topic due
• February 19: Bibliography due
• March 18: Draft due
• April 20: Final version due

Quotidian requirements:

• You must use LaTeX to write your paper. If you are not familiar with LaTeX, you may want to use LyX or equivalent WYSIWYG system as a gentle introduction to LaTeX.
• Drafts and final papers must be submitted on paper and on Blackboard, and will go through TurnItIn. Your topic and bibliography should be submitted on paper at the beginning of the class that it is due.
• Papers should be at least 8 pages, and most suitable topics will probably take closer to 10 to 12 pages. If you want to write a 30 page opus, though, that's fine too.

I will be glad to discuss topics with you in depth, and, if you wish, suggest a topic.

We do have access to a lab; if you want your paper to be about your implementation of a particular system or systems (perhaps you want to do a comparison/contrast, for instance, of different current email systems or configuration management systems), that's a fine idea and is probably one of the easiest ways to create a good paper.

For examples of excellent papers, please see the section "Selected Papers" in the class home page.

For reference, here's some LaTeX source (and here, here, here, here, and here) to look at.