Minimally Expected Contents (minimum means there is an opportunity to do something impressive) 1. You do not need a separate title page, but the top heading of your report should have at least:
a. Class title and section number b. Project or report name or title c. Your name and date
2. A Summary Section (briefly, what did you discover, why should I read your report?) 3. A Problem Section (consolidate and reword all five textbook problems of your assigned sequence as a single comprehensive problem statement), link in any background material, which the text book provided. Some of the problems provide a link to an external web site of background information. Basically, approach the assigned textbook problems as a real-world assignment by your manager with a real business concern and make it sound like a real investigation/study. This is not and should not look like a typical math homework assignment. This is more about thinking, organizing and communicating than statistics. 4. A Results Section
1 Professional means college-level format, sentence structure, grammar and spelling.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT A GROUP ASSIGNMENT. You are free to form groups and work together as “study buddies,” but YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR OWN INDEPENDENT WORK IN THE FORM OF A REPORT THAT YOU ALONE DEVELOPED. ANY REPORTS APPEARING TO BE DUPLICATES OF EACH OTHER WILL BE AUTOMATECIALLY DOCKED 30% OF THE POSSIBLE GRADE POINTS. Draft and submit your own work.
a. Generally, detailed calculations and tables or EXCEL printouts DON’T go here. The detailed stuff goes in the Appendix. b. For Results, what did you analyze and what are your results. Write clean and concise with just enough content to convey a message, but don’t write a novel. c. What kinds of calculations did you perform? d. You can offer this as a narrative, or as a table. Graphs are always good if they are relevant. The exact form of the material depends on what and how you wish to communicate it.
5. Expected Sections
a. Main Report Body
i. 8.5” x 11” with a 1” margin, and page numbers
ii. Typed report, double-spaced with 11-point font; prefer the typical fonts such as Times Roman, Courier, Calibri or Arial. You pick, but nothing weird.
iii. All figures and tables should have captions and be numbered if more than one in the report.
iv. The main body of the report should be 4 to 6 pages depending on figures and tables. You should have at least one figure showing the data with the predicted model fit, and another one showing the distribution of the error residuals.
v. Major Headings should include (but possibly not limited to):
1. Executive Summary 2. Problem Statement 3. Results 4. Conclusions 5. Appendix
b. Appendix You should have at a minimum two sections:
i. Section 1 of the Appendix should be any hand calculations related to solving the questions. They can be typed (using all the cool MS WORD symbol features) or hand-written (in ink). But I must be able to read them, and verify your work. ii. Section 2 of the Appendix should be any raw Excel output you created in the process of solving the questions, and/or raw computer output from any other analysis tool used in the process of this assignment. iii. Section 3: If there is nothing to add then don’t include any additional sections.
Grading Rubric This Report is worth 35% of your Final Text Exam, and graded as follows:
10% for readability 40% for calculation accuracy 25% for meaningful results, interpretation and conclusion 20% for Report construction (did you follow directions) 5% for WOW factor (you went over and above the minimum)