Senior Project Final Report Instructions

(last updated December 22, 2006 )

A first draft of your final report is due the Monday after spring break (or, for students finishing in other semesters, the equivalent date ). It may not be possible to include all of your results and analysis in this draft but much of the introductory material ( background information, literature review, theory, experimental, etc. ) should be in near-final form. This gives you a chance to get two thirds or more of the writing out of the way so you can concentrate on the research results during the remaining weeks.

Your report should be written in a style appropriate for a Masters or Ph.D. thesis. It should include a comprehensive description of the physics involved and the equipment or mathematical techniques employed. With the results, discussion, abstract, conclusion, references, tables and figures, a proper final report will normally require at least 25 pages. Iimproper spelling or grammar will not be tolerated; papers with many such errors will be returned for revisions. ( Use your spell checker!)

Your report should be written for an audience of other reasonably well informed senior-level physics majors. There should be enough background material for the reader to understand where the current work fits in with the research field in general. As per a famous quote, your report should be as long as necessary - and no longer. Your thesis should have the following components:

Title, Author, Affiliation (CWRU + address)

Abstract - typically 100 words or less.

Background about the general area of physics to set the scene for your work ( perhaps a page or two ).

References are to appear as in the journals, e.g. Jones et al. 22 Then, at the end of the paper, you list the references:

(22) J. A. Jones, H. K. Abednego and Melvin Shadrack, Phys. Rev. 71(1958)131 .

Description of the equipment and/or mathematical techniques employed. The reader should be able to deduce exactly what you did. Figures, photos, illustrations can be very useful here. Each figure should have a figure caption and the axes must be clearly labeled with quantity and units.

The results of your work, with appropriate discussion of uncertainties and comparisons with other work. There are various ways to mix or separate results, discussion, and conclusions within a thesis; the decision about how best to do this is left to you. Think about how best to display your results; the proper graphs or plots can go far in clarifying your presentation. These same figures may be useful for your oral and poster presentations. Think about how the figures will look in your paper or projected on a screen.

Follow-through : A thesis often ends with some discussion of the continuation of the work, of lessons learned, of improvements which could be made. (no excuses, mea culpa's , or finger-pointing blame here, please.)

Acknowledgements . Here is your chance to thank your collaborators, and to make clear who did what.

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