Morten Hjorth-Jensen
128 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
128 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
TITLE: How to write a scientific project
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AUTHOR: Morten Hjorth-Jensen {copyright, 1999-present|CC BY-NC} at Department of Physics, University of Oslo & Department of Physics and Astronomy and National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University
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DATE: today
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!split
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===== The report: how to write a good scienfitic/technical report =====
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!bblock What should it contain? A typical structure
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* An abstract where you give the main summary of your work
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* An introduction where you explain the aims and rationale for the physics case and what you have done. At the end of the introduction you should give a brief summary of the structure of the report
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* Theoretical models and technicalities. This is the methods section
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* Code structure, tests and more
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* Results and discussion
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* Conclusions and perspectives
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* Appendix with extra material
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* Bibliography
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Keep always a good log of what you do.
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!eblock
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!split
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===== The report, the abstract =====
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!bblock
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The abstract gives the reader a quick overview of what has been done and the most important results. Here is a typical example
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taken from a recent "scientific article":"https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.131401"
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_We construct the first four-dimensional multiple black hole solution of general relativity with a positive cosmological constant. The solution consists of two static black holes whose gravitational attraction is balanced by the cosmic expansion. These static binaries provide the first four-dimensional example of nonuniqueness in general relativity without matter._
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!eblock
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If you have specific recommendations and/or results you may also highlight them in the abstract.
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!split
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===== The report, the introduction =====
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!bblock What should I focus on? Introduction
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You don't need to answer all questions in a chronological order. When you write the introduction you could focus on the following aspects
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* Motivate the reader, the first part of the introduction gives always a motivation and tries to give the overarching ideas
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* What I have done
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* The structure of the report, how it is organized etc
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!eblock
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!split
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===== The report, discussion of methods and codes =====
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!bblock What should I focus on? Methods sections
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* Describe the methods and algorithms
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* You need to explain how you implemented the methods and also say something about the structure of your algorithm and present some parts of your code
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* You should plug in some calculations to demonstrate your code, such as selected runs used to validate and verify your results. The latter is extremely important!! A reader needs to understand that your code reproduces selected benchmarks and reproduces previous results, either numerical and/or well-known closed form expressions.
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!eblock
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See also the next slide.
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!split
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===== The report, code part =====
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Try to make a GitHub/Gitlab etc repository with three folders
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o One which contains the report
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o One which contains some test runs and eventually additional results not presented in the report
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o One which contains the code
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The code should be well documented and make sure it produces the results you are showing in the report. Here you can doucment soruce files and/or jupyter-notebooks.
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You may also add a README file which tells what is contained in the this repository.
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!split
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===== The report, results part =====
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!bblock What should I focus on? Results
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* Present your results
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* Give a critical discussion of your work and place it in the correct context.
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* Relate your work to other calculations/studies
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* An eventual reader should be able to reproduce your calculations. All input variables should be properly explained.
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* Make sure that figures and tables should contain enough information in their captions, axis labels etc so that an eventual reader can gain a first impression of your work by studying figures and tables only.
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!eblock
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!split
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===== The report, conclusions and perspectives =====
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!bblock What should I focus on? Conclusions
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* State your main findings and interpretations
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* Try as far as possible to present perspectives for future work
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* Try to discuss the pros and cons of the methods and possible improvements
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!eblock
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!split
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===== The report, appendices =====
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!bblock What should I focus on? additional material
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* Additional calculations used to validate the codes
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* Selected calculations, these can be listed with few comments
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* Listing of the code if you feel this is necessary
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You can consider moving parts of the material from the methods section to the appendix or your GitHub/Gitlab repository. You can also place additional material on your webpage.
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!eblock
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!split
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===== The report, references =====
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!bblock What should I focus on? References
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* Give always references to material you base your work on, either scientific articles/reports or books.
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* Refer to articles as: name(s) of author(s), journal, volume (boldfaced), page and year in parenthesis.
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* Refer to books as: name(s) of author(s), title of book, publisher, place and year, eventual page numbers
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!eblock
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!split
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===== Where do I find scientific articles, books etc and examples of reports =====
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!bblock
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* With a UiO IP number you can access freely all books and scientific journals available at our "University library":"http://www.ub.uio.no/"
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* For scientific articles, go to for example the journal "Physical Review Letters of the American Physical Society":"http://journals.aps.org/prl/issues/117/10"
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!eblock
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!split
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===== Other resources =====
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"KURT":"https://www.mn.uio.no/kurt/english/index.html" (Kompetansesenter for undervisning i realfag og teknologi,
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Centre for Teaching and Learning in Science) has several active learning resources related to report writing, see URL:"https://www.mn.uio.no/kurt/english/active-learning/structure/index.html" and URL:"https://www.mn.uio.no/kurt/english/active-learning/writing-skills/"
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!split
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===== Procrastination... the curse of all? =====
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FIGURE: [fig-projectwriting/procrast.jpg, width=700 frac=0.9]
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"Enjoy this video":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU"
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"And research shows that procrastinating enhances creativity!!":"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/why-i-taught-myself-to-procrastinate.html?_r=0"
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