Thank you all for completing the classification project. In case you need it, Here is the page will the original instructions. As you know, for the final step, each one of you will be refereeing the paper written by a different student.
What I want you to do
Many of you had questions about what exactly means to referee a paper. To make this concrete, imaging the following scenario. Imagine that I were to maintain an online repository of group classifications. Student X has submitted his or her classification of groups of order N for posting in this repository. I send you their paper, and I ask you to evaluate it. I want you to write a short review indicating what is particularly good or what does not work in the paper, and suggestions for the author of how they can improve the paper. You should comment on the correctness of the math, on the clarity of the explanations, and on the quailty of the writing. The author then would have an opportunity to improve their paper based on your comments, before I decide whether to post it.
Note: this is not a real scenario. I am not going to ask any of you to rewrite the papers, nor am I maintaining this repository.
Logistics
Send me a new pdf copy of your own paper by Tuesday, January 6th without your name or any other identifying information.
I will send you a new paper to referee. It will either be your same order, or a different order that has an almost identical classification.
Write down a review following the guidelines above. When you write it, keep in mind what you would find useful for somebody else to write for you. Be polite and professional, but also be fair and do criticize what needs to be criticized.
As a guideline, about one page should be fine. If you think that less than one page or more than one page is necessary, go ahead, but please do not write more than two pages.
Your review should be written in latex again. Email it to me as a pdf. Please send me two versions: one were you include your name and student number (for my files) and one without your identifying information (which I will forward to the author).
As you know, this will count for 10% of your project. I will be quite generous with this grade. Anybody who completes it and has make a serious effort will get the whole 10%.
The deadline to complete the review is Friday, January 23. (There is no homework due on that Friday.)
Why are we doing this?
Peer-review is an essential part of math (as well as of all sciences). The first time you are asked to referee a paper for real (or that a paper of yours is refereed) will likely be a stressful experience. This little exercise will help you ease into the process in a low-stakes situation.