PAPER                         MAX        EARNED

Content                        30	 15
  correct
  appropriate
  complete

- you make a number of claims that are not clearly linked to evidence
  to warrant those claims.  This makes it difficult for the reader to
  evaluate the claims.  Eg. it is not clear at the bottom of p 3
  whether your assertion that rise time is less affected by the
  structure of the receptor is a result of your data analysis, or a
  well known result in the literature (if the latter, pls cite
  paper!).

- tables 3-8 should be presented in standard ANOVA analysis form (see
  Weisberg, or Neter & Wasserman et al., or Tabachnik and Fidell,
  etc.)

- quite a bit of work that we discussed seems to be missing in the
  paper:

  - where is the work on fitting mixtures of (log)normals?

  - where is any information about data transformation, outliers,
    hetergeneity within cells, etc etc?

  - where is work or suggestions about mixed effects models?  Etc

Organization                   20         10
  overall
  sentences and paragraphs
  signposts for skim reader
  two audiences (investigator
    and instructors)

- overall organization (at the level of sections) is good. In sect 3,
  the subsect's should have headers indicating what question is being
  addressed in each section

- a brief abstract summarizing your findings would be helpful

- organization at the parag & sentence level is not so easy to consume

- intro should be broken into 3-5 parags; the several questions you
  are addressing in your data analyses on should be separately
  discussed in each parag; another parag should summarize, indicating
  the organization of the paper and where each question will be dealt
  with is needed as well (see Bem paper on organizing empirical papers).

- indeed quite often throughout the paper, there are longish
  paragraphs with several different ideas in them.  Generally each
  idea should get its own paragraph, with beginning and ending
  sentences that help the reader link the ideas in different
  paragraphs together (see Gopen/Swan paper on "science of scientific
  writing").

Format                         10         10
  layout
  typography

- seems fine

Language                       10          5
  voice
  precise
  clear
  concise
  forthright
  familiar
  fluid

- the voice of the writing is still a bit too informal.  This shows up
  in colloquial phrases and cliches, and also in somewhat lax
  organization within and between paragraphs.  The odd phrases are
  distracting, and the weak organization makes the paper difficult to
  digest 

Mechanics                      10          5
  grammar
  usage
  punctuation
  spelling

- needs significant proofreading for spelling, grammar, usage, voice,
  organization 


Figures and Tables             10          0
  judiciousness
  each discussed in text

- no figs in main text?

- figs in appx too small...

- figs in appx not referred to in txt at all


Appendix/es                    10          5
  judiciousness
  organization
  crossref'd from text

- what is this appx supposed to show?  what models are these residuals
  from? etc.

- appendix not referred to at all in text

TOTAL                         100         50

OVERALL COMMENTS:

I have the impression that you two never "caught fire" on this
project.  Of course this can happen, but it is a shame because there
were some great opportunities to do some good for Alison and to build
your resumes through publications, as well as create a nice letter of
recommendation for yourselves, here.

Perhaps because you didn't "catch fire", the amount of productive work
on this project was less than I expected.  I don't really know how
many hours you spent on the project, but given the outcome as
represented in this paper, it looks like you spent part of your time
spinning your wheels.  I am pleased that Alison seemed happy with the
negative result about fosGFP at your talk, but I think that there is
much more that you could have done, and were capable of doing,
here. Indeed, there is much that we talked about, that apparently
never went anywhere.

What I see as the main problems here are 

- communication skills
- organization and preparation issues
- last-minute-itis

I've talked about the communication skills a bit before.  Both of you 
need to practice public presentations *a lot* before you give them.  In
addition, in oral and written work you both tend to allow your ideas to
be "swallowed" by colloquialisms, imprecise choice of words, not thinking
out what you will say or write beforehand, etc.  Good oral and written 
communication requires careful planning, preparation and practice.

Regarding organization and preparation, several times at our meetings, 
one of you did not come prepared, or you weren't able to say what the 
other person was doing or how each person's work related to the other's
work.  This is a waste of the faculty member's time as well as yours.  
Along the same lines I have the sense that you never did work out an 
adequate sketch of the neurological science for your project.  I am sure
that not being prepared for meetings, and not working to obtain an 
appropriate understanding of the underlying science, would be irritating
to any investigator you are working with on a project.

Finally, I note in Alison's feedback that there is some evidence that you
put work off until the last minute.  That would certainly account for the
lack of ability to deal with neurological and statistical questions at 
your talk, it would account for the poorer writing in your final report,
and it would account for lack of preparation for meetings.

If you hope to succeed in ADA and PhD work in the department, it will be 
necessary to learn to start work early, work consistently and 
comprehensively, and follow through to a high quality final product.

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