Process

This page describes the way in which your drafts and reports will be evaluated.

Review (drafts)

We will read your draft as a team and check that it satisfies all requirements. We will mark only the first instance of any mistake that we find with an annotation that has both the label (e.g., “A4”) and the text (e.g., “Symbols in the nomenclature must be listed with units.”) of the requirement that was not satisfied. The first letter of the label gives the category of the requirement:

  • (A) AIAA Format
  • (M) Mathematics
  • (S) Style
  • (F) Figures and Tables
  • (C) Content

Your grade will be based on the completeness of your draft, not on whether it satisfies requirements:

  • (100%) Acceptable. The draft is missing few (or no) required elements. It was possible to provide substantive feedback.
  • (50%) Unacceptable. The draft is missing several required elements, perhaps even a whole section of the report. It was possible to provide little substantive feedback.
  • (0%) Completely unacceptable. The draft is missing all (or nearly all) required elements. It was not possible to provide any substantive feedback.

When we review your first draft, we will only look at the following sections:

  • Abstract
  • Nomenclature
  • Introduction
  • Theory

When we review your second draft, we will only look at the following sections:

  • Experimental methods
  • Results and discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix
  • Acknowledgements
  • References

Our goal is to complete our review within five days after the deadline for submission. Late submissions will be reviewed last and may receive late feedback.

Review (final report)

Our review of your report will be the same as our review of your drafts, with the same schedule for providing feedback. Your grade will be based on the satisfaction of requirements. You will receive a score for each of the five categories:

  • (20%) Acceptable. We did not find mistakes.
  • (10%) Unacceptable. We found mistakes.
  • (0%) Completely unacceptable. Either we found so many mistakes that we were unable to evaluate the report, or large parts of the report were missing.

Your grade will be the sum of these five scores.

Appeals

If you either disagree with or do not understand the feedback that you receive either on a draft or on a final report, you are welcome to contact us in any of the usual ways. Just like we assume you are acting in good faith, please assume that we are also acting in good faith. We can work together to resolve any mistakes or misunderstandings.

Revision

You may revise and resubmit your final report at any time prior to 11:00am on Wednesday, May 7. To resubmit, do the following things:

  • Open the assignment (e.g., “DP1 Report”) and click on New Attempt.
  • Submit the revised version of your report, just like you submitted the original version.

We will be notified automatically that you have resubmitted.

We will review and grade the revised version of your report in the same way that we reviewed and graded the original version, with two exceptions:

  • We will not review any resubmission that has mistakes with AIAA Format.
  • We will mark only the first instance of the first mistake that we find in any given category. For example, as soon as we find a failure to satisfy requirement M5 in the category of Mathematics, we will stop looking for other mistakes in that same category.

We may find and mark mistakes that we did not find (or did not mark) when reviewing the original version of your report.

If your new grade is higher than your old grade, it will replace your old grade. If not, your grade will remain the same. In other words, your grade will not decrease as a result of the revision process.

Our goal is to complete our review of your revision within one week of submission. You may repeat this process as many times as you like (prior to 11:00am on Wednesday, May 7).

Honors

The instructor will read and provide a letter of support for a small number of final reports. These reports will be selected based on the final video that you submit. Catch your instructor’s attention! You are welcome to use this letter when applying to jobs or other positions. It will also be easy for the instructor to provide a letter of recommendation, should you need one, based on this letter.