50% | Milestones

Milestones provide student groups with the opportunity to build their final reproducible scientific paper incrementally. Each milestone represents 10% of the overall course grade (5 milestones × 10% = 50%).

There will be dedicated time during class meetings in the hands-on lab to work on these milestones and receive immediate instructor feedback, with final submissions completed after class.

Warning

Milestones are ALWAYS due before the beginning of class (08:00) on their scheduled deadline date, unless specified otherwise.

The 5 Milestones

Milestone	Weight	Topic	Description
Milestone 1	10%	Idea	Research puzzle, initial hypothesis, and 2 academic citations in Typst
Milestone 2	10%	Proposal	5-paragraph introduction, DV/IV definition, 5+ citations in .bib
Milestone 3	10%	Exploration	Preliminary variable exploration, distributions, and 2 figures in Typst
Milestone 4	10%	Analysis	Missing data recoding, scale construction, creating new variables & columns, bivariate relationships
Milestone 5	10%	Modeling	OLS regressions with controls in statsmodels, Typst regression tables

Milestone Workflow

Each milestone instructions page provides explicit guidelines, word limits, and starter templates.

1. Open the milestone by clicking the milestone link on the Schedule page.
2. Read the instructions carefully, and work collaboratively in your group on your Typst manuscript and Python script.
3. Export your files according to the naming convention (e.g. da-milestoneX-groupY.pdf, .typ, .py) and email them to the instructor before the deadline with the subject line:

   [DATA-ANALYSIS] Milestone X - Group Y
   

Grading Scale

Milestones will be evaluated on a 4-category rubric:

Icon	Description
✓+	Exceptional, rigorous analysis and prose above and beyond expectations
✓	Complete, sound methodology and well-argued execution
✓-	Acceptable effort, but major analytical or formatting deficiencies
∅	Incomplete, unscientific, or missed submission