The final project and presentation will count for 25% of the final grade, to be broken down as follows:
- 10%: Paper (content and background): conveys motivation for studying this topic; goes beyond what was presented in class (i.e., shows evidence of wider reading than just the textbooks); material presented clearly.
- 5%: Paper (format): adequate length; proper grammar and spelling; appropriately serious tone; consistent formats for citations, figures, equations.
- 10%: Presentation: clarity; clarity; clarity (see below).
The project will enable you to explore a chosen topic in a bit more detail and gain some extra experience with scientific writing and expressing your ideas in front of a group. The idea is to delve into a topic that's relevant to this course -- and also goes well beyond the material discussed in class -- and write a review paper. Homework 4 contained a list of example topics, but you're not limited to them.
The Paper:
These kinds of review papers usually involve conveying the background (i.e., how did we come to understand the topic) and motivation (i.e., why is it relevant) to non-experts, as well as searching the literature to get a good sense of chronological progress.
The written component of the project should end up around 2500 words (i.e., about 5 single-spaced pages or 10 double-spaced pages), not including the (required) bibliography. If you haven't learned LaTeX yet, this is a good opportunity.
The paper is due on Monday, May 2, 2022. There will be an assignment on Canvas that will allow you to upload a document (preferrably PDF, but other formats are okay).
Other resources for scientific writing include:
- Astonomer Lynn Hillenbrand teaches a course titled Writing in Astronomy, whose web page contains many links to helpful resources (scroll down in the above link).
- Each journal has its own "author instructions" for preparing papers. The one for the Astrophysical Journal is close to being a community standard for astronomers; find it HERE. The AIP also has a good online Author Resource Center HERE.
- Other possibly useful articles include The Science of Scientific Writing (Gopen & Swan 1990; American Scientist) and English Communication for Scientists (Doumont et al. 2014; Nature ebook) and The Art of Writing Science (Plaxco 2010; Protein Science).
- A brief and fun editorial on how to properly include equations in scientific text.
The Presentation:
During the week of April 25-27, you will also give short presentations on what you have learned about this topic. With 8 students and two 50-minute classes, it breaks down to about 12 minutes per presentation. Maybe aim for 7 or 8 minutes for the primary "talking time" and save the rest for questions and informal back-and-forth?
Students can decide on whether their presentations will be high-tech (Powerpoint or Keynote) or low-tech (whiteboard only). Note that our classroom has whiteboard space to the left of the projector screen, so we can switch back and forth between the two easily. The rest of the class will be encouraged to ask questions, request more in-depth derivations, and so on. Even if you have already taken your Comps exam, this kind of experience is valuable.
There are many good online resources for giving scientific presentations. See, for example,
- Ten Secrets to Giving a Good Scientific Talk, by Mark Schoeberl and Brian Toon, from the AGU's Atmospheric Science Division.
- Suggestions for Giving Talks, notes by Robert Geroch from 1973 that are still valid today.
- How Not to Give a Scientific Talk, by Michael De Robertis (with hints from an article by by James C. Garland, Physics Today (July 1991), 44, p. 42; that article is also available as a PDF file here).
- Oral Presentation Advice, by Mark Hill, Computer Sciences Dept., University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- A Seminar on Seminars, by Kenneth Suslick, a humorous presentation on what to do and what not to do.
- Some interesting tips from Will Ratcliff on giving a presentation in the form of an engaging story (i.e., "David Attenborough style").
- Patrick Winston's one-hour lecture "How to Speak," on MIT's Open CourseWare YouTube page, comes very highly recommended.
If you have any questions about any aspect of the final project or presentation, please let me know.