Homework 2 - Programming Problems

This is a list of advice and comments that indicate how responses to programming problems #3 and #4 could be improved. They may be relevant to future assignments as well.

When reporting accuracy, two decimal places are sufficient.
When making graphs,
1. remember to label each axis and to provide a title that indicates what the graph is depicting.
2. "zoom in" on the range of useful values (e.g. if your numbers vary from 80 to 100%, then show that range instead of 0-100%, which throws away detail)
3. put markers at the actual data points. A straight line with five intermediate points is much more reliable than a straight line connecting two points, even if they have the same slope.
When asked to do a "comparison":
1. be precise about what two things you are comparing. "It is faster" doesn't provide enough information. For example:
  "Experiment A, with parameters b = 30 and r = 2, has higher accuracy than Experiment B, where b = 20 and r = 5."
2. wherever possible, be *quantitative* in your comparisons. The above claim is much clearer when phrased as
  "Experiment A, with b = 30 and r = 2, achieves an accuracy of 93%, which is 8% higher than Experiment B, where b = 20 and r = 5."
  or
  "Experiment A, with b = 30 and r = 2, runs in 3.5 seconds, which is only half of the time required by Experiment B, where b = 20 and r = 5."

Kiri Wagstaff < Email : wkiri@cs.cornell.edu >

Last modified: Wed Mar 15 10:35:23 2000