How to Get the Most out of your Statistics Course

The goal of these assignments is for you to produce the necessary output using the EXCEL software, to read the information contained in the output, to tell what the output is saying, and to understand how the software generated the output. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of computers can generate output, but it is your responsibility to show me that you know how to read and interpret the output. In most cases, the output is only worth one quarter of the grade, so answer the questions that are associated with the output. Here are some guidelines that should help you with your assignments:

1. Turn in the assignment pre-stapled.
2. The assignment should have a cover-page with the assignment number in the middle of the page while your name, class identification number, Stat 216, class time, and date should be in the lower right corner.
3. There is no need to staple the original assignment sheet to these pages. The output and your answers should adequately tell me which question you are addressing.
4. The output and answers should be on the front-side (only) of 8.5 x 11 inch paper.
5. The answers to the questions can be typed.
6. The answers should be located on the same page as the output of the associated question.
7. Neatness and organization count:
8. Number each question and associated answer. (Make sure the number is not hidden behind the staple!)
9. Put the output and answer(s) in numerical order.
10. For each question, it should only take me a matter of seconds to grade the output and answer. The more time it takes me to figure out how you generated the output and answers, the more points you will most likely loss.
11. Do not include a list of the data. This wastes paper. The output should tell me whether you have used the correct data and if you have used the software correctly.
12. After you produce the output, stop and think whether the information in the output is correct, and does it make sense. A common mistake, that students often make, is that a data point is NOT included because they instruct the software to read the first data point as a label.
13. After the output has been generated, you must make some cosmetic adjustments (font=courier, font size=10) to make the output appear professional.
14. Most answers should be short, but complete. The answers should contain enough information to tell me which question you are addressing and what information you gleaned.