Important things to do

• What is the contribution of the paper? What is the question that they are attempting to answer?
• Be sceptical of what the paper says. You're supposed to be a critic of it, not a cheerleader for it.
• Is the paper logically sound? Did the authors include any irrelevant things? Did they leave anything important out? (This could be other papers that they failed to mention, or analytical tools.)
• Are their results significant?
• Do you agree with what the paper says? Do you disagree? What could they have done better?
• Go deeper into the original paper than just a superficial level. For example, try to explain some of the math behind it.
• There's no need to split the work into several sub-headings. The writing should flow.
If you are writing a literature review, your writing should flow naturally. If you feel the need to say "And now for something completely different" between your paragraph, then you need to work on connecting them better.
• Is the paper published in a good conference/journal? Suppose that you find two papers that you like, one in the IEEE Transactions on Games and the other in the International Transactions on Games. Which one of the two is from an established journal? Hint: I made up one of the two, and the one that I made up does not exist at the time of this writing.

These are comments from a previous semester's paper summary

• Explain terminology, e.g.
  • "amplitudes are whitened"
  • "the semiperiodic DNA sequences are considered that are neither periodic nor nonperiodic."
• Summary without explanation e.g. "Results show that similar quality was achieved" How?
• Need to cite where figures come from
• Impcomplete reference e.g., no volume or number for an article.
• Put math in math mode, and consider putting equations on a line by themselves.
• Not including the paper you summarized in the references.
• Not including the original paper.
• Get the citation style correct. [Ji07] or [1] is fine, but [Ji et al. 2007] is weird. ``Ji, et al., ... [1]'' would also be good.
• Use a different font for computer code. This should be monospaced.
• Put journal names in italics.
• Wikipedia is not appropriate for college-level work.
• Make sure the equations are legible (are you scanning them in ?)
• Include a little information about the assignment - your name, the date, the assignment, the class.
• Don't say "the author" because this is confusing.
• Cite the source within your summary.

Here is a list of minor problems from another semester

• need to do proof-reading
• reference style is incorrect
• Spell out acronyms
• too many references. If the assignment is to review 1 paper, you should review 1 paper. If you absolutely must include more than 1 reference, it should be clear why you are doing so, and the content based on it should be brief. Obviously, this applies to a paper summary but not a literature review.

Here is a list of more serious problems from another semester

• poor focus
• not clear
• needs to explain uncommon terms
• needs to explain more
• needs to explain uncommon terms, not clear
• text of a caption without citing
• pasted a sentence directly, did not indicate (though cited)
• needs to explain uncommon terms
• review needs depth
• It is not clear which paper you are talking about. Even if the assignment is a paper summary, you should still cite the paper and show it in a references section.
• You used a conference paper when the assignment indicated that you should use a journal paper. Obviously, this applies to a paper summary but not a literature review.
• need to quote copied text. You must cite your sources!
• Your work did not connect and synthesize the papers in a logical way. Obviously, this applies to a literature review but not a paper summary.