Final project file pitfalls

Here are a few things to check for as you are polishing up your files for submission. Your guiding principle is professionalism. Does this look like something you would present to a client? To your boss?

The report

• The report should have the project title and team members at the top of the first page.

• The report should be 3 pages (1,500 words) or less. The three-page limit does not include figures and tables. So you may have a five-page report, but two of the pages are figures.

• The report should be organized in paragraphs, not bullet points.

• Figures

  • Figures should not be screen shots! Screen shots are blurry and do not scale well. If using Word, use SVG files. If you need help with LaTeX, let me know.
  • Check the sizes of figure labels and annotations. Open your report and look at the figures. Can you read the labels easily? I do not carry a jitterbug, but I should not need a magnifying glass to read your labels.

• All figures and tables should be numbered.

• If you are using the project templates, delete the text in the square brackets (and the brackets, too) and replace it with your words.

The code

• Make sure your file paths are relative. See the submission instructions for more details.

• Get rid of unused code.

• Make sure your code runs completely. If you "run all cells" does every cell compute?

• Include any files the code needs to run. If your data files are too big to upload, let me know.