Course Meetings: Tu / Th - Johnson 175, 1:30pm—3:15pm

Optional 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 (572). 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:

• Class attendance is compulsary since student presentations provide a key component, and participation in this process is essential.
• Students will give a final presentation and submit a final written report. Both are worth 45% of the student's final grade, with the remaining 10% coming from class participation.
• 572 students will receive a grade.
• Final presentations are 20 minute overviews of the student's project work - question time is in addition. 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. For the Stat 572 prelim students please hand in your papers (2 copies) during lecture on Thursday June 5th. For the remainder, this is due in final exams week on June 11th at 12 noon in Patrick's F-wing mailbox (Biostat 572) and Jon's Padelford mailbox (Stat 572); please submit two hard copies, and email an electronic copy in pdf format. 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
  The report should be written in the style of a journal paper and should be no more than 20 pages, double-spaced, including all key Figures and Tables. Appendices can contain addtional material, but this may not be looked at.
• 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)
• Stat Prelim Date: 572: Friday 20th June.
• Stat Prelim students will receive feedback on their (course) papers, and will then have time to revise in time for the prelim. Final prelim papers to be turned in on Tuesday 17th June.

Announcements:

• 10 March 2014: Welcome!