23  Final Project Rubric

This rubric should guide how you structure your final product report, and will be the basis of how we grade your submissions.

23.1 Introduction

The introduction should concisely and clearly set out the questions you are investigating and why these are interesting.

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Motivates the problem	Introduction summarizes questions to be answered and their importance	Unclear what questions will be answered in the report, or does not provide context that illustrates their importance
Gives hypotheses	Introductions states theories or alternative explanations to be tested using the data	Unclear what theories will be tested using the data
Describes data source	Introduction describes the source of the data and summarizes its relevance to the problem	Unclear what the source of the data was or how it was collected; unclear how the data is relevant to the research questions at hand

23.2 Data

What are the data? And how were they gathered/obtained? For linguistic analysis, the description of the data conventionally includes a table of the kind Brezina shows on pg. 30.

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Describes corpus selection	Describes how corpus was compiled, such as sources and inclusion criteria, or what existing source was used	Unclear how the corpus was created and what’s included
Summarizes corpus	States the size of the corpus, the types of documents included, and other summaries that provide the context for the reader	Unclear how big the corpus is, what documents are included, what dates, etc.
Limitations	Limitations of data for the research questions, including problems with generalizability or omitted variables

23.3 Methods

Your Methods section should clearly explain which methods you chose and why.

These criteria apply to the analysis used to answer each substantive question addressed in the report.

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Precision	Methods clearly stated, including details like thresholds, window sizes, word lists, etc.	Unclear what methods were used or with what parameters
Connected to substance	Chosen analysis is clearly connected to substantive question	Analysis does not or cannot answer the substantive question
Connection explained	Chosen analysis is explained in terms of the substantive question, not purely statistically	Text discusses models and code but does not explain how these connect to the substantive question
Decisions explained	Report explains choices made in model building, such as choice of tests, which variables are included, etc.	Unclear how or why the models were made
Appropriateness verified	Analysis is supported by diagnostics or goodness-of-fit metrics that assess whether the tests or models are suitable for the data	Unclear if assumptions are checked or if the procedures are appropriate for the given data
Problems noted	Caveats and problems are noted and their potential effect on results explained

23.4 Results

Describe your results and how they answer the research questions. You don’t have to show every result; given the page limit, focus on those that are useful and explanatory. Do not include pages of tiny unreadable plots.

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Results answer questions	Statistical results answer the questions asked	Statistical results do not answer the substantive questions
Statistical results clearly presented	Tests and estimates are presented clearly and accurately	Explanation misstates what the results show or misinterprets the statistics
Statistical results correct	Statistical methods correctly implemented	Errors in code or math mean the results are incorrect
Tests presented with details	If hypothesis tests are used, the test statistic and p value are clearly stated (e.g., \(G^2 = 530\), \(p < 0.001\))	Text just says the result is significant, doesn’t state the test statistic, or doesn’t say what test was used
Uncertainty given	When possible, results presented with clear measures of uncertainty (like confidence intervals)	Many results given without confidence intervals/standard errors

23.5 Discussion

What conclusions might you draw from your findings? Do they suggest interesting directions? Or dead-ends?

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Conclusion presents results	Summarizes conclusions presented in report	Describes conclusions not justified or described in the body of the report, or doesn’t say conclusions
Results translated to linguistic terms	Conclusion explains how the statistical results answer the linguistic questions	Statistical results presented with little mention of practical importance or scientific meaning
Conclusions note limitations	Conclusion notes any limitations of results and what could be done to address these	Conclusion ignores limitations of results or is too confident

23.6 Figures and tables

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Function and purpose	Connection between figures and narrative is clear from text and caption	Not clear what point the figures are making or how they support the argument; some figures have no purpose
Legibility and design	Figures are clear, simple, legible, and attractive	Figures are hard to read; fonts are often too small; some graphics are blurry or squished
Labeling	All legends and axes are clearly labeled, including units	Labs missing or use raw variable names instead of descriptive text
Choice of figures	Types of figures are well-chosen, illustrating the intended points clearly	Figures do not make intended points and should be replaced
Used when needed	Figures are used whenever the text needs them	Many points should be illustrated with figures but are not

23.7 Writing and style

Area	Excellent	Needs revision
Grammar and style	Grammar is correct and style is appropriate to audience	Grammatical or spelling errors make text hard to read
Formatting	Formatting is clear and legible; font is a reasonable size; margins are wide enough to allow easy reading	Text is poorly typeset or in unusual sizes; figures are in inconvenient places; math is hard to read; margins are tiny
Logic and structure	All text works to support the conclusions; there is a clear logical flow between sections	Purpose of some text is unclear; sections redundant or not clearly split
No R code or output	NO R code or raw output is presented in the report, only relevant results	Chunks of R code or output are shown directly in the report
Sourcing (if applicable)	References are clearly given to information from outside sources; quotation marks clearly mark any verbatim text from sources	Some references not given; text or figures used without attribution. Warning: Using text or figures from other sources without clear attribution is an academic integrity violation.
Citation style (if applicable)	Citations formatted in a common style used in statistics or linguistics journals	Citations poorly formatted or incomplete