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The report should include the following sections with some flexibility based on the scope of your project:
- Detailed task list Semester schedule - You should keep and update your detailed task list from the first assignment in each of your reports. Denote completed tasks and modify your deadlines to reflect your most recently completed progress and any delays.
- Abstract - Summarize the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of your subteam. 100 words max.
- Literature review - Discuss what is already known about your research area. Connect your objectives with what is already known and explain what additional contribution you intend to make.
- Introduction - Explain how your completion of your challenge will affect AguaClara and our mission of providing safe drinking water (or sustainable wastewater treatment!). If this is a continuing team, how will your contribution build upon previous research? What needs to be further discovered or defined? If this is a new team, what prompted the inclusion of this team?
- Methods - Explain the techniques you have used to acquire additional data and insights. The techniques should be described in sufficient detail so that another researcher could duplicate your work.
- Analysis Discussion - Connect your work to fundamental physics/chemistry/statics/fluid mechanics or whatever field is appropriate. Analyze your results and compare with theoretical expectations or if you have not yet done the experiments, describe your expectations based on established knowledge. Include implications of your results. How will your results influence the design of AguaClara plants? If possible provide clear recommendations for design changes that should be adopted.
- Conclusions - Explain what you have learned and how that influences your next steps. Make sure that you defend your conclusions. (this is conclusions, not opinions!)
- Future work - Describe your plan of action for the next several weeks of research.
It is too easy to create a report that is full of opinions and unsubstantiated conclusions. Defend your conclusions using your engineering skills. If you have an opinion (hypothesis) that you wish to include, explain how you will test your hypothesis.
Formatting
Research reports will be written in Overleaf. The final submission at the end of the semester will be a PDF of the report and a zip file of the Overleaf Project uploaded to the subteam wiki page.
Here is a template that can be used directly to build a research report.
The file name shall be "Report <team name> <semester> <year>". For example, the Foam StaRS Filter Cleaning Theory report name would be "Report Foam Filter Cleaning Fall 2015"The documents you submit will be Google docs uploaded to your folder in the AguaClara Google Drive. You should email your research advisor informing him/her that of the link once finished.StaRS Filter Theory Spring 2016"
All formatting should follow Grammar Guidelines for Reports.
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By the end of the night on Friday (by 11:59 PM):
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, e-mail your advisor and cc all of your group members with the
- link to your report
- rubric
Due dates for these reports can be found on the current semester syllabus. Late reports will be penalized 10% each day that they are not turned in.
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The following rubric breaks down how all reports are calculated. Your advisor will include this table and your team's score in each category for each report.
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Effort toward objectives (is the team on track to complete their tasks or at least to make excellent progress?)
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20%
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Data and insight used effectively to direct the research path. Are you following the scientific method? Are you justifying your decisions based on engineering analysis?
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20%
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Formatting (Figures after first reference, images that load correctly, well formatted graphs, use of math editor for equations)
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20%
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Background and Literature review (Are you building on prior work as much as possible?)
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20%
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Technical writing (clear, concise, good transitions, context, accurate, logical. Did you proofread the paper as a very critical reviewer? Is every word, phrase, and sentence accurate and concise?)
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20%
| Section | Percent |
|---|---|
Background and Abstract | 20% |
Methods | 25% |
Discussion | 20% |
Conclusions and Future Work | 10% |
Effort Toward Objectives | 10% |
Formatting | 5% |
Technical Writing | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
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Total
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