The summary is a very important part of your
MCM paper. The judges place considerable weight on the summary, and
winning papers are sometimes
distinguished from other papers based on the quality of the summary.
To write a good summary, imagine that a reader may choose whether to
read the body of the paper based on your summary. Thus, a summary
should clearly describe your approach to the problem and, most
prominently, what your most important conclusions were. The summary
should inspire a reader to learn the details of your work.
Your concise presentation of the summary should inspire a
reader to learn the details of your work. Summaries that are mere
restatements of the contest problem, or are a cut-and-paste
boilerplate from the Introduction are generally considered to be
weak.
To Summarize:
Restatement
Clarification of the Problem -
state in your own words what you are going to do.
Assumptions with Rationale/Justification -
emphasize those assumptions that bear on the problem. List
clearly all variables used in your model.
Model
Design and justification for type model used/developed.
Model
Testing and Sensitivity Analysis, including error analysis, etc.
Discuss strengths and weakness to your model or approach.
Provide algorithms in words, figures, or flow charts (as a step by step algorithmic approach) for all computer codes developed.Present a clarification or restatement of the problem, as appropriate.
Present a clear exposition of all variables, assumptions, and hypotheses.
Present an analysis of the problem, motivating or justifying the modeling to be used.
Include a design of the model.
Discuss how the model could be tested, including error analysis and stability (conditioning, sensitivity, etc.).
Discuss any apparent strengths or weaknesses to your model or approach.
Team # 321 Page 6 of 13