Verification of Distributed Systems

We have now received most of the report drafts. Those who have sent their draft will soon receive their personal feedback.

In addition, here are some general guidelines that all of you can use to improve your reports:

• scientific writing needs a lot of revision: it is fine to start with a very rough draft, as long as you go over it again and again, improving it in every iteration.
  Please go over your report again, in the best case after letting it "rest" for a few days, and try to read it as if you were not the author, but a reader of your report - are there parts that are unclear? that could be misunderstood? that could be improved by adding something? could complex sentences be replaced with short and understandable ones? is it better to remove some part because it cannot be explained properly in the limited space?
• structure: in addition to sections and subsections, your text is organized in paragraphs. Every paragraph should handle exactly one idea. The usual structure within a paragraph is that the first sentence introduces the idea, makes a claim, or raises a question, and the following sentences elaborate on this basic idea/claim/question. The first and the last sentence of a paragraph have the highest impact on the reader, so they should cover the most important information. The last sentence can for example be used to conclude/summarize the topic, or to lead over to the next topic, connecting this paragraph to the next.
  The latter is more regularly done in the first sentence of the next paragraph, often by starting it with a fixed phrase such as "However,...", "Additionally,..." or "In contrast,...". Paragraphs are also connected by re-using key words or phrases again, e.g., one paragraph introduces the verification technique "X", and the next paragraph begins with "However, X also has significant limitations."

Dear students,

there has been some confusion about your registration in LSF (which is necessary for you to get an official grade for the seminar), partly due to my own oversight.

I have arranged that registration for the seminar is again possible until January 13 (https://www.lsf.uni-saarland.de/). If you have not registered yet, please do so until then.

Dear Students,

a Happy New Year to all of you!

As a consequence of the change in papers to be presented (see last news item), there have been a few other changes to the schedule.

Therefore, we will not meet next week, and have two papers in the session on Jan 23 (and also in the last session, on Feb 13). I.e., the tentative overall schedule is:

Jan 16: P1
Jan 23: P3+P4
Jan 30: P5
Feb 6: P7
Feb 13: P8+P10

Please let me know if there is any problem with this new schedule.