Purpose:

My primary goal for this lab is to encourage you to look hard for previous work done by others interested in the physics that applies to your project. There are dozens of quotes out there about 'standing on the shoulders of giants' and other similar sentiments. You have been threatened with the spectre of 'plagarism' throughout your academic career and this threat has made you cautious. For this project, like most future situations when you need to learn something for yourself, you would be foolish not to search for the best guidance and insight you can find. Learning to figure out what someone else has done and making personal sense of it is a tremendously important skill and one that I will respect as part of your project.

Procedure:  

1) Start a new notebook to contain all of your references. Every notebook you create for this project should have a similar title cell with all of the relevant information to link it back to you (the researcher).

2) Create a markdown cell for each search you do that is succcessful. In that cell note the search parameters. Then include a link and an summary paragraph indicating the relevance of the particular paper, python notebook, book, or web article to your project. It may have low relevance or high relevance. Either way start building this data base. I am aware that one risk to this process is distraction from the core of your project. Be careful and attentive to this risk but the tradeoff is deeper understanding of what you are working on through building on the work of others.

3) Assuming that you find one that seems particularly relevant create another notebook and explore the material from that reference in some level of detail. Even if all you do is discuss thoughtfully how it applies to what you are working on and questions it raises in your mind that's a good thing.

4) Finish your simplest model exercise completely this week since we will be starting into new tools after this lab.

5) Reflection: Create a section in your main notebook or a separate notebook for reflections about how your project is going. Create a dated cell(s) and describe your current thinking about the project. Create a task list for things you need to do next to move your project forward. Think about priorities as you do this and put highest priorities at the top of your task list.

[insert sample citiation here]

 

Deliverables:

1) Turn in pdf's of ALL of your current project notebooks to the LMS.