Hello, dear friend, you can consult us at any time if you have any questions, add WeChat: daixieit

PHY344 – Experimental Physics 1

Manuscript Rubric

The manuscripts are due as described on the calendar. After you have spent 5 days with the experiment, taken data, analyzed the data, you should be able to write a scientific manuscript on the data. You will need to write a short proposal to describe the rationale for the experiment (why?), the specific experiments and data you will take (what?), and your expected outcomes and sources of error.

Goals of this assignment:

1.  To learn how to write a scientific manuscript to practice scientific writing.

2.  To learn how to make scientific figures that have diagrams and plotted data to describe the results of your work. You should also insert equations and tables, as needed. Each of these will need a caption to describe the data presented.

3.  To learn how to reference background material appropriately.

What to turn in:

.    You will submit a written document in the format of a scientific manuscript from a journal. Please select the format from one of these journals: Physical Review Letters, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, or Journal of Applied Physics.

.    Go online to that journal homepage and find the information on how to format the manuscript for that journal. They often have a page called, "Manuscript preparation" or "For Authors." Most journals have the same, basic outline, and these journals are no different.

.    You may write your manuscript in Word, Google Docs, or in Overleaf. You may format it in pre-print format (single column, double spaced), or anotheracceptable format from that journal (e.g. PRL allows you to format in double column for submission). For Overleaf, you can download a template to use for the formatting.

.    You will also submit a cover letter with your manuscript. The cover letter is a professionally written letter to an editor. Please address it to your instructor as the editor. You must summarize your exciting results, and why I should care and want to print this paper in my journal. An example cover letter will be posted on Blackboard. Both the manuscript and cover letter must be complete and sent to me via email as your first submission in a single pdf file with the title

“LastName-exptname-sub1.pdf” .

Manuscript Requirements:

We expect the following parts and information in your manuscript:

. Title. This should be brief and descriptive.

. Authors and affiliations. Your author list must include your group members.

. Abstract. In 300 words or less, tell what you did and why.

. Introduction and Background. This section will give a brief background on the subject and why it is important. Explain the experiment you did and the motivation for doing it. Do not assume that your reader already knows the new physics that you have had to learn to do the experiment.

. Methods. Describe your methods in the brief manner you can see in manuscripts. Describe your methods that you used so that someone else can reproduce your experiments. This means you need to carefully reference techniques and prior work needed to set up the experiment or explain it yourself if you have done something new. You should have a figure of your apparatus with labels, similar to the initial proposal report. Do not assume your reader  knows anything at all about the experimental setup. Show at least some real data to make your reader believe you really did an experiment.

. Uncertainty. Part of the methods will be to describe the error and uncertainty in your measurements. Be clear about each type, include the estimations for each  type and decide the total uncertainty for your measurements. Convince your always-skeptical reader that you understand the main sources of uncertainty in your results.

. Results. Present your results in an honest, straightforward way. Do not oversell by pretending to measure results that you really didn't; do not undersell by failing to extract all the possible value from your data and observations. Of course, any omissions or errors that came to light during the final presentation must be dealt with correctly in the final manuscript.

. Figures. You must present raw data as well as the results of analysis. Large data tables are not helpful. A plot will suffice and the text can provide, for example the parameters from a curve-fitting analysis (in which case the best-fit curve should be shown on the plot). You must have figure captions. If you fit data to an equation, you must have an appendix with the fit parameters and the uncertainty in the fit along with the residuals of the fit.

. References. You must use the format for references and citation stipulated by that journal for your manuscript. You may not just pick one at random!

Grading:

The proposal will be worth 250 points of the total 1100 points for the class.