IA Checklist and Help Site

Checklist for your IA 

□    A descriptive title

Introduction

□       Your (first) paragraph reflects personal significance, interest, and curiosity

□        Background information organized from broad to narrow.  The first things you talk about are less related to your research, the last things are the most closely related.  When the reader sees your statement of the problem, they say “of course!!!”.

□        You have a clear statement of the problem.  Keep it simple.  “The purpose of this investigation therefore, is to find the relationship, if any, between IV and DV”

□        You state your variables – dependent, independent, and controlled and define them explicitly.

□        You state a hypothesis (optional but recommended) and state why you have that hypothesis.

□        Any sources cited are included in your bibliography.

Method/Procedure

□        Your procedure is a narrative, not an ordered list.  You talk us through how you collected your data

□        Possible safety/ethics concerns are addressed.  (with humor?)

□        There is a diagram of your setup that is annotated with all the materials and equipment you used.

□        You describe how you manipulated your independent variable.

□        You describe how you measured your dependent variable. 

□        You explain how the controlled variables you listed are kept constant.

□        You state which variations you used of your independent variable, and how many trials (repetitions) of the measurements of your dependent variable you did. 

□        You explain why you chose those variations and number of trials.

Results/Analysis

□      Your raw data is included.  If it is derived from thousands of computer gathered points, be creative, and walk us through using screenshots how you derived your table graph or gathered data from the computer data.  If there are thousands of data points, you don’t need to include all the points, just your derived data.

□        Your data table includes the name of the quantity, the symbol for the quantity, and the units for that quantity, and the uncertainty of the quantity in the header of each column.

□        The numbers in your data table include the same level of precision.  (They are rounded to the same decimal place)

□        Any processing of raw data is described briefly and completely.  You walk us through one sample of data processing.

□        You include your graphs in the body of the paper, and they have titles, axis labels and units.

□           If your data is linear, you have graphed it with error bars and a linear trendline with the equation displayed, and have included max and min slopes, as well as the uncertainty of the slope.

□        If your data is a curved line, you have done your best to linearize it using a log log graph, and you have linearized it with a y1/n line analysis (or ln(y) vs x if it is exponential).  Include error analysis on your linearized graph as well.

Conclusion and Evaluation

□        You state a conclusion based on a logical interpretation of your data

□        If you made a hypothesis you evaluate the truth of the hypothesis.

□        If you are measuring a well known quantity, (like absolute zero) state its value and give it a bibliography reference.

□        You discuss the limitations of your research (sources of error)

□        You suggest improvements that could be made to minimize your cited sources of error – or other things about your work that could be improved.

□        You suggest work for further research (thereby reflecting your personal curiosity for the subject)

 □        You include a bibliography for any sources cited