Proposing Modifications to a Game Modeled for a Real-World Situation

Motivation, originality, scope of modification

Recall that in the paper, you are to propose a modification to a game studied in class (outside the review portion of the course) to model a real-world situation of your choice. The paper should be 1,500-2,000 words long. You are not required to use citations for material from , but any outside references, such as published papers that may have inspired yours or material from other courses, should be cited.

The content score is out of 20. The following four criteria have roughly equal weight, though I will not assign them separate scores: depending on the paper, some aspects could receive more weight than others. For example, your modification could be particularly simple, making the description of the modified game almost trivial, but your conjectures could be particularly sophisticated.

Motivation, originality, scope of modification: Is the real-world situation that you are modeling interesting? (You should briefly make that case in the introduction.) Is it original? Is the modification that you are proposing meaningful enough to be interesting (i.e. not so minor that the new result is obvious), and yet simple enough that you can formulate reasonable conjectures (i.e. not so complicated that you can’t figure out what happens).

Relevance of modification and appropriateness of model: The modification that you propose should be highly relevant to the situation that you are modeling. Ideally, without it, a key feature of the situation would be missing. Also, your modified game should be a reasonable model of the situation at hand.

Clear description of modified game: The game you propose should be fully specified: payoffs for all outcomes and (if relevant) types, players’ action sets and information at every information set where they play, etc.

Quality of conjectures: They should involve several steps of reasoning (rather than follow from assumptions in an obvious way) and not be clearly wrong. Most importantly, your reasoning/intuition should be clearly explained.

The writing score has two components, each out of Note that if the content score is below 10/20, the writing score will be capped at the content score in percentage terms. For example, if your content score is only 8/20, then your writing score will be capped at 4/10 even i the writing is perfect. This is to prevent botched papers from receiving high scores. Grammar, Spelling and Presentation (5 points): 0.5 point will be deducted for every 3 grammar or spelling mistakes or lapses in presentation (such as inconsistent spacing or formatting – pay particular attention to how you format math). Papers with 30 or more mistakes will score 0/5. All aspects of grammar are evaluated: syntax, subject verb agreement, verb tense, punctuation, etc.

- Writing is efficient and precise: it avoids unnecessary or vague words or sentences.

- Paper is well-structured, meaning that it is easy for the reader to understand the purpose and the placement of each paragraph/sentence.

- Transitions are logical and concise.

- Word usage is appropriate. The author avoids confusing words that have related but distinct meanings (such as “price” and “revenue”) or have similar spelling (such as “deprived” and “depraved”).

Minor shortcomings on one of two of the above criteria, but overall, the paper can still be considered well-organized and clear.

Parts of the paper are unclear (major shortcoming on a criterion above) and/or hard to read (frequent minor shortcomings). This is not enough to obscure important aspects of the paper.

The reader has trouble understanding important aspects of the paper due to major shortcomings on one or more of the above criteria, or the entire paper is hard to read.