Due dates:

Monday Oct 30: Proposal Due
Monday Nov 6: Receive Feedback on Proposal
Monday Nov 13: Turn in revised proposal (if required)
Dec 4 and 6: Class Presentations
Wed Dec 13: Final Project Writeup Due

The goal of this project is to allow you to tie together some of the different ideas and skills you've acquired in this class (and elsewhere), and to learn them in more depth by applying them to a topic that interests you.
You may (and are encouraged to) work in pairs for the final project. I expect a bit more from people working in pairs than those working individually, but projects done in pairs often turn out better.
The most important aspect of the project is the quality of the work. I also give weight to creativity, both in what you attempt to do (provided it is realistic) and in how you do it. For your writeup, I give as much credit to thoughtful analysis of the data and results as to implementation and algorithms. Your writeup should show me what you've learned by doing the project and how you've incorporated things you've learned from this class and elsewhere. You should be thorough in your descriptions of your algorithms, resources used, and results obtained.

The purpose of the proposal is to allow me to ensure that you've proposed something doable in the time available. Please be as specific as you can about the project goals and the means by which you intend to achieve those goals. This should be no more than 2-3 paragraphs, but you can write more if you like. Be sure to state who is working on the project if you are working in pairs.
The hardest part of doing an NLP project is scoping something that is doable and really involves NLP. It can be quite hard to make something work in this class, so I will require you to change your proposal if I think it is too ambitious.
See the lecture from Oct 20 for project ideas.

The purpose of the class presentation is to let other students know what you're doing and to also get their feedback and ideas. The amount time you'll have to speak depends on how many groups we end up with; you'll be notified of your talk slot by Wed Dec 1. It's best if you prepare a few slides or a webpage; it's best if they are accessible from the web so we can switch quickly between speakers (if needed, feel free to send your information to me and I can make it easily available).