Final Reports

From SCChallenge

A Final Report takes all of the information about your project and makes it formal and comprehensive. It is also a required component of the Supercomputing Challenge so that judges can get a complete picture of your project. When writing your report, you should use standard essay format and the scientific method as guides. It can also be helpful to think about your report as a story: What did you plan to do? What did you end up doing? What results did you get? What conclusions can you draw from your results? What do you plan to do next?

Your Report Should Include:

Introduction:

• A clear statement of your question or problem. What were you trying to find out with your project?
• The importance of your project. Why does it matter? To you? To your community?
• Background information. What is already known about this problem?

Method:

• How did you plan to approach your problem?
• What sources did you use to come up with this approach?
• Quasi Code - Step-by-step what your code does, in English, and without jargon.
• What language did you use?

Data:

• What data did your program output?
• What patterns in numbers, graphs, or agent movement (if you're using an Agent Based Model) did you observe?
• What else did you see in your model?
• Did you expect what you got? Why/Why not?

Conclusions:

• What does your data mean?
• Why do you interpret it this way?
• Is there another way to interpret it?
• Is this what you expected to find?
• How can this now be used in the real world?

Bibliography and Citations:

• Who helped you with your project?
• What books did you use?
• What websites did you use?
• What experts did you talk to?

Appendixes:

• Full, Annotated Code.
• Any and All Graphs and other graphics.

Other Things to Think About

In order to write an effective report, it is important to understand the audience. In scientific reports, assume the reader has knowledge and background similar to your own before you began your project. A report serves as a "mind map" that shows the reader the steps you took to get to your current understanding of the subject. In other words, once your report is read, the reader should be able to reproduce your experiment from start to finish.

Because of the need to engage the reader, your language should be chosen carefully. Do not convolute or purposely inflate your language in order to sound scientific--explain what you did, how you did it and what you observed in the simplest language appropriate.