Course Meetings: Tu / Th -- EEB 042, 1:30pm--3:15pm

Required Text: Williams and Colomb, 10th Edition

Course Overview:

• This course develops students skills in reading, understanding and critiquing contributions to the literature of statistical methodology. The course is based around students reading a chosen paper with faculty supervision, and presenting an in-depth critique of it, both as a talk and as a written report. During the course, students are expected to gain a thorough understanding of the methods described in the paper, and should reproduce key simulation and/or data analyses presented in the paper.

Course Evaluation:

• Students will give a final presentation and submit a final written report. Both are worth 50% of the student's final grade.
• Final presentations are 30 minute overviews of the student's project work - including 5 minutes for questions. These presentations will be scheduled in class during the last weeks of the quarter.
• Students will also submit a written summary of their project work. This is due final exam week (June 10th) in Patrick's F-wing mailbox; please submit one hard copy, and email an electronic copy. (Students doing the Stat prelim should submit four hard copies and the electronic copy). The paper should include:
  1. Introduction and Motivation
  2. Literature Review
  3. Summary of Methods -- with appropriate detail (typically beyond that found in the primary paper)
  4. Simulation Evaluation and/or Worked Example
  5. Conclusion / Discussion
  This should be no more than 20 pages of double-spaced text (figures, tables, references, and any technical appendices are in addition to this page limit).
• Full details of what is expected in reports and talks are provided in this file. Here are some examples of reports, from 2010:
  • Mark Wheldon (link to paper)
  • Alex Volfovsky (link to paper)
  • Theresa Smith (link to paper)

Announcements:

• 24 March 2012: Welcome!