Detailed assessment criteria are shown in Table 4.

Level	Analysis (40%)	Discussion (30%)	Presentation (30%)
Distinction (70–100)	Hypotheses are inter- esting and original. Methods are appro- priate and applied carefully and precisely. An interesting de- scriptive analysis is included and reported correctly.	Inferences are valid and supported by evidence. Original and interesting conclusions are articulated. There is some shrewd spec- ulation about possible causal factors.	A high standard of writing is maintained throughout. The nar- rative is clear, coher- ent, eloquent and re- fined. Figures and tables are used cre- atively.
Merit (60–69)	Hypotheses are formu- lated correctly. Meth- ods are appropriate and applied correctly. A moderately interest- ing descriptive analy- sis is included and re- ported correctly.	Inferences are valid and supported by evidence. Interesting conclusions are artic- ulated. There is some speculation about possible causal factors.	A good standard or writing is maintained throughout. The nar- rative is clear and co- herent. Figures and ta- bles are used to illus- trate the narrative.
Pass (50–59)	Hypotheses are for- mulated correctly. Methods are applied correctly for the most part. A descriptive analysis is included and reported correctly.	Inferences are mostly valid and supported by some evidence. Some relatively inter- esting conclusions are articulated.	An acceptable stan- dard of writing is maintained through- out.    The   narrative is lacklusture and sometimes unclear. Figures and tables do not always illustrate the narrative.
Fail (0–49)	The analysis is bland and almost entirely de- scriptive.	Inferences are invalid or not supported by ev- idence. There is little of any interest.	The report is poorly written. The narrative is disjointed and hard to follow.

                                   Table  4:  Assessment criteria

Plagiarism

You may find existing studies of the NBA data set online. Plagiarism is to present other people’s work or ideas as your own, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. The need to acknowledge others’ work applies not only to text, but also to computer code, figures, tables etc. You must also attribute text, data, or other resources downloaded from websites. Following submission your report will be analysed by the TurnitIn software, and any report in which plagiarism is detected will receive a mark of zero.

 

 

Not interesting      The average exam mark of statistics and data science students.

 

Quite interesting The average mark of male students, the average mark of female students, and the results of a test of whether any difference is statistically significant.

Very interesting The average mark of male students, the average mark of female students, a statistical test of whether any difference is significant, and some speculation about why there is a significant difference, or alternatively why there is not.

Audience. The target audience for your report is this year’s cohort students on the Founda- tions of Statistics and Data Science module, so you can assume that your readers are familiar with the methods and terminology established within the lectures and notebooks. If you choose to use methods that have not been covered in lectures, you must ensure that any new terms are properly defined and references to the relevant literature included.

 

Analysis. The reader should be satisfied that you have performed your analysis correctly, and in particular that you have verified the conditions that are necessary to apply the various methods. Your methods should be introduced with a brief summary of their main features, but technical details should not be discussed at length although you might consider providing the interested reader with references to the relevant literature.

 

Navigation. Do not assume that the reader will read the report from start to finish, as one might read a novel. Reports should be made easy to navigate using numbered sections and subsections together with cross-referencing. Once you have written a first draft, it will need careful editing before it becomes a coherent and polished report. This stage always takes longer than you think!

 

Scientific writing. For scientific reports we aim for a style of writing that is clear and concise. Make sure that sentences are unambiguous and that a good standard of writing is maintained throughout the report.

 

•  Sections should not start abruptly with the subject matter, but rather with an introductory sentence or short paragraph. Sections should also end with concluding sentence or short paragraph.

 

•  All figures and tables must be numbered and have captions. Figures or tables that are not mentioned at least once in the text should not be included.

•  A qualified statement is one that express some level of uncertainty about its own accuracy, and should always be used when drawing conclusions from the results of a statistical analysis, and especially when speculating about possible causal factors. Common phrases that indicate qualified statements include “This suggests that ...”, “It appears that ...”, “We might conclude that ...”, “There is some evidence to indicate ...” and so on.