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Project Deliverables

Every project in Astronomy will have three deliverables - a paper, a slide deck, and a poster. See the Links and Documents page for resources to help you create these deliverables.

Deliverables

There will be three different deliverables for a project:

 

Scientific Posters: You and your partner will develop two 11"x17" color posters that will communicate your project results. Each poster will explain its content on a conceptual level; explaining the logic behind your analysis, and a technical explanation for the computations supporting your analysis. Posters should not have a dark background.

 Posters are judged on the following criteria:

  1. Poster addresses all necessary and appropriate topics - breadth of discussion.
  2. Poster addresses topic areas with sufficient depth and detail.
  3. Writing is clear, concise, and correct.
  4. Poster design orients the audience quickly to Title, subject, purpose, and results.
  5. Poster design is professional, with effective and pleasing color scheme, layout, and effective use of diagrams and equations as appropriate.


Slide Deck: After writing your paper you will create an Assertion-Evidence Slide Deck based on your paper's content. The slide deck will show me what you would present your results to an audience of technically literate colleagues at a scientific conference. Your scientific paper will serve as your primary resource for the slide deck. Slides are judged on the following criteria:
  1. Breadth of discussion - all important topics addressed, appropriate number of slides, including primary deck and backup slides
  2. Depth of discussion - slide notes have speaking points providing informative details that support the slide body.
  3. Slide titles are informative assertions, results, or conclusions.
  4. Slides are visually engaging, informative, and support the slide title, not an endless sequence of bullets.

Scientific Paper: you will collaborate with your partner to write a detailed scientific paper that will demonstrate your ability to communicate scientific and mathematical knowledge clearly and concisely, using written text supported with professional diagrams and mathematical equations. Papers are judged on the following criteria:
  1. Documentation addresses all necessary and appropriate topics - breadth of discussion.
  2. Document addresses topic areas with sufficient depth and detail
  3. Writing is clear, concise, and correct
  4. Diagrams are informative, professional, and support discussion in the text.
  5. Applies and describes mathematical understanding and techniques appropriately.



Each deliverable will have at most two drafts as indicated below:

First Draft: The first draft will focus on breadth of topic and some detailed content. It must address the full scope of the project, briefly discussing all the important tasks and results. The goal is to make sure the structure of the document and tone of the writing is correct and that you are providing necessary diagrams, figures, and supporting equations. You must provide depth of content on at least one area in the first draft so you can have feedback on whether the depth of detail is appropriate. 

Final Draft: The final draft must be content-complete and well formatted. I will assess everything in the paper from a content perspective including
    1. Addressing all topics - breadth of discussion.
    2. Detailed discussion of topics - depth of discussion.
    3. Technical content - scientific and mathematical justification of project results and conclusions.
    4. Quality of technical writing - is the writing clear, concise, easy to understand?
    5. Clarity of diagrams in explaining and supporting written content.
    6. Shared editing responsibilities including technical discussion. I will review the revision history to see what each partner contributed to the paper in terms of work load and technical writing. I should see quality technical writing from each partner represented in the paper.
    7. Professional formatting and look-and-feel for the document - is the document formatted sufficiently well to be published in a scientific journal?

Submitting Drafts

The first drafts of all your deliverables must be written using Google Docs and submitted through the Trello page to the appropriate lists. The advantage of Google Docs, in my opinion, lies in the collaboration model. It is easy for you to collaborate with your partner on the deliverables and it is easy to share your work with me for feedback. I suggest creating all three deliverables at the beginning of the project and leaving them blank until you start working on them. Use the following Google applications for the first and second drafts of the deliverables:
    1. Google Document for the scientific paper.
    2. Google Presentation for the slide deck.
    3. Google Drawing for the poster.

    Share these documents with your partner and when you are ready to submit share them with me, with at least commenting privileges. You will then submit the drafts for grading using the Trello page and the appropriate List.

    Submitting Final Drafts

    What I don't like about Google docs is their formatting and layout features. Google docs is simply not as flexible and powerful for final layout as other tools like Microsoft Word, LaTex, PowerPoint, or Publisher. For your final drafts you may use any software tools you wish to format and layout your deliverables. Your paper will probably be the most challenging for final draft. I recommend using Microsoft Word or LaTex to format the final draft of your paper.

    After completing the final drafts of your deliverables you must 
    1. Convert all three deliverables into PDF format
    2. Submit the paper and slide deck via the Trello site onto the appropriate List.
    3. Print out the two posters in color on 11"x17" paper and submit to Mr. Joshi. Posters should not have a dark background.