SFP requires detailed progress reports on July 9 and August 2 (or in
weeks 3 and 7 of your project). The purpose of the reports is: 1) to help you
focus on the goals of your project and your progress toward those goals; 2) to
provide a basis for discussions with your mentor and co-mentor; 3) to help provide
a framework for the final paper. We encourage you to use the reports as a tool
to practice and strenthen your technical writing skills. We suggest that mentors
use these reports to help students develop their technical writing skills.
Guidelines for each progress report are below. Mentors may have
other suggestions and ideas for material that should be incorporated into these
reports. The reports must be approved and signed by the mentor (not the co-mentor.)
Information for the abstract (due on August 2) can be found here.
Information for the final report can be found here.
First Progress Report:
- Write in some detail the motivation for your project. It should include background and an overview of the ongoing work in the laboratory. You should include references.
- Discuss the problem you are working on and explain how it fits into the ongoing work. Explain your approach and outline the methods you expect to use.
- Discuss the progress you have made on your project, your goals for the next month, and the methods or approach you will use to reach your research goals.
- What are the challenges and problems you have met so far and what challenges and problems do you anticipate?
- What resources will you require?
Second Progress Report:
- Discuss in detail the work you have completed over the past month. (Describe your experiments, progress on data analysis, etc.) Include exact technical specifications and quantities and source or method of preparation for work you have done thus far. You should present the methods in chronological order if possible.
- Discuss the progress of your work so far. What observations have you made? Describe how your observations are (or are not) in line with what you expected.
- Describe any problems you have encountered. What was the source of the problem, and how have you worked (or how are you working) on solving the problem(s)?
- What are your research goals for the remainder of the project? Have these goals changed since you started working on your project?
