Course report
Course reports follow a general structure, which makes it clear to the reader where certain information will appear. Therefore, it is crucial that you stick to these conventions in your course reports.
Intended for: BSc, MSc
A course report needs to contain the following sections, which we discuss in more detail below:
Introduction
Length: ~0.5-1 page.
Content: Write a brief introduction to your report, where you provide a high level overview:
The topic you study, and why this topic is relevant.
The challenge/problem that appears in this setting.
The methods/solutions you study to overcome this challenge.
Methods
Length: ~2-4 pages.
Content: Write a methodology section, in which you 1) describe the algorithm/method you studied, and 2) detail the experimental set-up.
Algorithms
Fully describe what you implemented, in such a way that a reader could reproduce your work from the text.
Use equations and algorithm boxes (pseudocode) to detail the computational procedure (you can’t fully explain this in words).
You may use a figure to visually illustrate what happens in your method (can be very helpful).
Experimental set-up
Describe the environments/tasks/datasets you will use to study your algorithm. (e.g., describe the dimensionality of state and action space, provide a figure of the task, etc.).
Mention the hyperparameter values you used.
Once you start listing them, you usually find out there were more than you realised.
Describe which hyperparameters you tuned/optimized, and how you did this (e.g., ‘for the learning rate we performed a grid search over the range [0.001, 0.01, 0.01]’)
Attach your source code to reproduce the results, or provide a link to a public repository.
Results
Length: ~2-4 pages
Content: When generating results, simply keep asking yourself: what do I want to learn next about this problem and the possible solutions. Afterwards, you summarize the outcomes of this process to the reader. Think about:
Which aspects of your algorithm are relevant to vary.
Which performance measures you want to use, and how to display/visualize these.
Which other visualizations may provide additional insight in what is happening in your method.
Afterwards, write a results section:
Use figures and tables to summarize your results.
Give every figure and table a caption. Keep the numbering ordered.
Captions should be self-contained (you should be able to understand the figure without looking at the main text). Describe the set-up of the figure, and what we learn from it.
In the main text, interpret your results (very important).
Indicate what you learn from a figure/table, come up with possible explanations, make a connection to a next figure/table where you further investigate your hypothesis.
Focus your results on the most important outcomes/insights.
Additional results can added in an Appendix, to which you briefly point in the main text.
Discussion
Length: ~1 page.
Content: In the Discussion you reflect on you work, primarily discussing:
Weaknesses: Reflect on you own work, discussing the weaknesses of your methods and design.
To what extend are these weaknesses limiting? Why did you make a certain design choice? Would you do anything different next time?
Future work:
Given your current conclusions, what would be an interesting direction to further extend your ideas.
Conclusion
Length: ~1 paragraph.
Content: In the Conclusion you summarize the overall story of your report. Describe in one paragraph:
What method you proposed/studied.
What results you found.
Why this is useful/relevant to the reader.
Note: You may also merge the Discussion and Conclusion together into a single section (which you either call “Discussion” or “Conclusion”).
References (optional)
Length: From a few to as many as you need.
Content: You can use references to indicate the origin of ideas in you text.
In a course report you will usually stick to the methodology that was explained in class and in the course textbook. You do not need to use references for these ideas.
When you do use another method/idea, it is good to include a reference.
Note: references are never an excuse for plagiarism.