Guide to writing reports
The project report should be written individually, and contain
- A description of the problem:
A graphical illustration of the problem is often helpful. What are the
physical parameters and equations you use?
- Motivation of choice of algorithm: Analyze your algorithm with
respect to stability. What other algorithms did you consider - why did you
decide to use your particular numerical method? Estimate errors. Test your
results against analytical results in certain limits, if
available.
- Results: There are usually several ways to plot your results -
what is the best way to illustrate what you have found?
- Conclusions: What are your main findings? Does your results make
sense?
- Appendix: Include a listing of your program.
Some things to think about when writing:
First, using "topic sentences" makes writing more fun and more
structured, see for instance
this
link . The basic idea is that each paragraph should only contain
one thought/idea, and that the first sentence summarizes that
idea.
Figure captions: a general structure of a figure caption that you could try
is: first describe in words what the is plotted vs what. Save the list of
parameters to last (this is least interesting if you want to get a general
idea what is seen in the plot). Describe what each curve shows. Now,
something important: Find one or two sentences starting with something like "Notice
that...." to point out something important in the plot. If you cannot find
such a sentence perhaps the plot should not be in the report?