Q Project grading guidelines You will be graded by your instructor, who will be looking for the following characteristics: (400 points) 1. Consistency: Did you answer your question of interest? (100 points) 2. Clarity: Is it easy for your reader to understand what you did and the arguments you made? (100 points) 3. Relevancy:Did you use statistical techniques wisely to address your question? (100 points) 4. Interest:Did you tackle a challenging, interesting question (good), or did you just collect descriptive statistics (bad)? (100 points) Make sure to include: (350 points) 1. Statement of the problem: Describe the questions you address and any key issues surrounding the questions. (25 points) 2. Data collection: Explain how you collect data. Include any questions you asked. Also, include response rates. (25 points) 3. Analyses: Describe the analyses you did. Be ready to explain why you believe these methods are justified. (50 points) 4. Results: Present relevant descriptive statistics (e.g., number of men and women surveyed, if that is important). Include tables or graphs that support your analyses (be judicious here--too many tables and graphs hurts the clarity of your message). (25 points) 5. Conclusions: Answer your question of interest. (25 points) 6. Discussion: What implications do your results have for the population you sampled from? What could be done to improve the study if it was done again? What types of biases might exist? (200 points) Additional suggestions and considerations to enhance your project: 1. State your question up front, and use statistics to help answer it. The statistics should not drive the question; the question should drive the statistics. 2. Don't just collect data and publish it, rather have a specific question in mind. Otherwise, you wind up being hard-pressed to come up with something challenging and interesting. 3. Most importantly, talk to your instructor and peers for advice. You can ask them, for example, about your planned methods of analysis and see what they think. 4. Be selective with computer output to help clarity. If you are using techniques we learned in class, you do not have to re-explain the techniques. That hurts clarity. If you are using techniques that we did not cover in class, you should definitely explain the techniques. That is clarity! Previous