<p>Let’s face it. Unless you’re competing for Intel’s STS, Siemens Westinghouse, or the Nobel Prize, the quality of your project is only half the battle in gaining scientific recognition. Local science fairs normally only require a poster/powerpoint presentation as a preliminary round in which judges decide who should be heading off to place like ISEF. In those 10-15 minutes (and they’re usually strict about these time limits), you can’t possibly tell the judges every detail about your project that makes it great. Of course, there are other things to rely on:</p>
<li><p>A winning project must have a winning title: One-word title (all caps) with a long, nonsensical subtitle, preferably containing at least one scientific name / technical term specific to your project. Kudos if you’re able to incorporate the word “novel” into the title.</p></li>
<li><p>No matter how lousy your project is, professional-quality diagrams on your board / presentation will always make you shine like your project deserves a publication somewhere. What works? High-level, well color-schemed graphs. i.e. triaxial bar graphs, sinusoids, 3-dimensional topological surfaces, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Mathematical equations. No matter what category you’re competing in, try to at least slap some equations here and there. I once saw this project in which this girl used integration methods to calculate the volume of her zebrafish.</p></li>
<li><p>Really long bibliography with over 20 references. The judges don’t normally scrutinize this section of your board or powerpoint slide, so you might as well include other junk in here (song lyrics would be a start). Be sure to minimize the font and avoid wikipedia sources.</p></li>
<li><p>Potential applications. In your conclusion, if you can throw in phrases like “may cure cancer”, “could stop global warming”, “road to solving so and so Millennium Problem”, by all means do so. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>You do all that at the expense of your scientific integrity. I doubt the OP has little credentials to really backup any of this. And this is coming from a guy who has won regional/state science fairs, at ISEF, and at Siemens Nationals. Holding up your scientific integrity and dedication is of the utmost importance, and reflects far more on your character than winning some regional science fair. </p>
<p>Furthermore, following the type of advice the OP is giving is just bad scientific practice. </p>
<p>"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."</p>
<p>I'm disappointed that you didn't pick up on the jocularity of the statement I was trying to make. I do agree with you that upholding scientific integrity is exceedingly important if science/research is truly your calling. But ISEF is still a high school competition, and at the local level, rarely do you find people who carry out projects that are genuinely in accordance with righteous scientific practice. Instead, you can find characteristic patterns among the research projects that win (those mentioned in my first post) -- and (not trying to be bitter here) more times than none you can certainly say that these projects, with their quality, didn't really deserve their recognition. Instead they won through curb appeal.</p>
<p>Differential, I'm sure you can at least relate with me on that level?</p>
<p>I cannot agree with the OP's implication that most people who compete at the local level fabricate their results or ignore the scientific process. True, there are exceptions, but the majority of people who reach the local/regional level have made it that far because they accurately practiced the scientific method. I speak from experience, because most judges are pretty good at finding inconsistencies in science fair projects, or illogical patterns. (not from personal experience of course :))</p>
<p>In retrospect my post seems pretty retarded. Yes the sarcasm is very clear, sorry I've just been very upset for the last couple days on this subject.</p>
<p>While I agree that rarely do you find students who truly are dedicated to science at this age/level, that doesn't mean we should excuse them for it. IMO Science is a principle that doesn't change with age. You cannot say the scientific process is different for a 15 year old and a 25 year old or a 50 year old, it is the same for them all. And this is what holds the idea of doing experiments. I got mad at your original (OP's) post because a lot of students read things like that and think that is the way to go.</p>
<p>Also, Ponnan, just because a judge makes a call doesn't mean that's the best call. A lot of times judges aren't able to accurately judge projects because they aren't related to their field. </p>
<p>The point is, the fault is both on the students and the judges, and it's absolutely horrible if students are walking away from these competitions thinking that a flashy title or some fancy double integrals are tickets to winning.</p>
<p>Oh, and I wanted to note that there is WAY too much emphasis on this site that winning the big 3 science competitions (Siemens, STS, ISEF) are tickets to college. It kind of pushes kids away from realizing these are just great chances to train in the scientific method.</p>
<p>The recent Siemens Science Competition winner, Dmitry Vaintrob, had the UGLIEST poster I have ever seen... -ever-! It was practically just sheets of white paper scribbled with notes glued to a posterboard.</p>
<p>Scientists like aesthetics, yes, but there is barely any emphasis on it.</p>
<p>His poster at nationals was much better though. He had a nice glossy poster he printed out. The posters shown on the site are taken from the regionals event.</p>
<p>The point of making things look nice/etc is to convey the information across as easily as possible. It starts looking bad (and others will snicker) when it seems like you spent more time on the aesthetics then the science.</p>
<p>"It starts looking bad (and others will snicker) when it seems like you spent more time on the aesthetics then the science."</p>
<p>Eh, yes. That's what happened to my friends. They spent way too much time designing a pretty poster and movie to accompany their research... the problem was, they didn't actually understand their research. Their project was certain the flashiest of all the projects at the fair... and they were shocked when they lost- they almost started to cry.</p>