Overview

Software

• While you could potentially write a computational essay in any text editor, I am going to push hard for you to use Quarto this semester.
  • The benefits are worth it. It is seriously nice.
• Can be utilized in a variety of ways:
  • Pure markdown: Write everything in pure markdown with code cells, and when you compile it the code is run
  • Jupyter Notebooks: You can work in an interactive JupyterNB environment, but can export to a nice Quarto document by just adding some material at the start of the notebook
  • RMarkdown/Notebooks: Renders in basically the exact same way you can knit R Notebooks, but better
• What method you to prefer is entirely up to you. They all get to the same place in the end.

Editors

• You have a lot of flexibility in what environment you want to work in:
  • VSCode
    • Can render Quarto markdown with extension, using either Python or R if installed on your system
    • Natively supports Jupyter notebooks (and can render with Quarto if installed)
    • Jupyter Notebooks can also run R code (See IRkernel)
  • JupyterLab
    • Alternative interface to Jupyter notebooks
  • RStudio
    • Primarily for R, but can be used with some Python through the reticulate package

YAML Template

• Essays can be made more attractive with some good choices in the YAML block at the top of your markdown/notebook

  ---
  title: Your essay title
  author:
    - Author_1
    - Author_2
  date: today
  format: 
    html:
      embed-resources: true
      theme: cosmo
      title-block-banner: true
  ---

• Many themes are possible. Full list here!

Computational Essay Fundamentals

• Start with a brief introduction. What are you trying to achieve in this problem. What are you starting with? What are the broad steps that you are going to be following to find your solution.
• Explain what libraries you are importing and why you need/want them.
• Proceed to explain and showcase the steps you are going through on the way to your solution
  • Explanations of equations, code, or visuals should always come in the text before they appear
• Summarize at the end, ensuring that you have answered all the question components

Dos and Don’ts

Example Problem

• The file here is a CSV file containing the names and celestial coordinates of the brightest 200 stars in the night sky.
• Visualize the stars and highlight the constellation Orion.
• How long after the start Arcturus sets will the star Betelgeuse set?

Strategies

Introspection

• The best groups I have been a part of functioned well because of an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual members. That means you should have an idea going into any group of how you would prefer to contribute.
  • What do you feel you are particularly good at?
  • What sort of work makes you happy or feeling satisfied?
  • What do you feel less strong in, and could use support with?
• Any/All of the above could be about technical knowledge (e.g. data visualization, dataframe manipulation, error analysis), scientific knowledge (e.g. how to determine the period of an oscillation, or interpret a spectrum), or “soft” skills (e.g. explaining concepts, organization, proofreading and polish)

Reflection

• Take 10-15 minutes to fill out the form here
  • The first few questions are just for my information
  • The later questions should give you material to help guide initial meetings with new partners
    • Take time on these and make sure you are happy with them. I promise it will help.

HW1 Partners!

Below are the partner assignments for HW1. Rearrange yourself in the room to find your partner and prepare to answer the questions on the following slide.

Partner Questions

• Briefly introduce yourself: name, pronouns, year, major, preferred scripting language
• What was your favorite thing that you did over winter break?
• Why did you register for this course? What are you most looking forward to?
• What are you feeling least confident about currently in this course? Could your partner help with that?
• What strengths do you bring to this group?
• How do you prefer to communicate?
• When do you plan to meet to start working on HW1?