Feedback Assignment

You will be assigned two Exploratory Reports to read. For each of these reports, please write a short memo (probably one page, maybe two) in a manner reflecting the principles laid out in our feedback reading.

In particular, for each memo, please:

1. Provide a summary of what the authors do in their report. As detailed in the feedback reading, please be very exact, breaking down the different components explicitly and differentiating from what the authors actually do and how they interpret what they do. As fellow data scientists, you will want to check any material in the appendices, even if this is material you would not expect a stakeholder to review. Your summary should speak to all three levels of the analysis.

2. Provide High-Level Reflections:

   1. Document Organization: What do you think of how the document has been organized? Do you think the authors’ organization followed the guidelines from our Writing to Stakeholders reading? How could the organization be improved?

   2. Problem: Do the authors motivate the problem well? In other words, do you understand why they care about their problem? If not, how could their problem statement be refined?

   3. Question: Do you feel the questions the authors set out to answer are aligned with the problem that motivated their analysis? In other words, is it clear why answering the questions the authors set out to answer would help them address their motivating problem?

   4. Analysis: Do you feel the authors’ plans for answering their questions are well thought through? In other words, do they have a plan to answer their questions that makes sense? (Given some questions were answered by other groups and the analses in these reports are very simple, this section will probably be short).

   5. Answers: Do you think they actually answered the questions they set out to answer? When you look at their data, where it came from, how they analyzed it, what they measured, etc., do you feel convinced you know the answer to the question the authors set out to answer? How might they have better answered their questions?

3. Provide Detailed Suggestions: Do you have feedback/suggestions on plots, figures, smaller organizational or language issues?

And as always, be constructive and talk about what works as well as what could be improved!

Due Date

Memos are due on gradescope and by email to your peers by midnight Tuesday, Feb 18th.