Gene product characteristics, gene product annotationĪgriculture, forest, fisheries, Earth sciences, life sciences, engineering, planetary sciences, social sciences etc.Ĭompendium of chemical terminology from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, microbesĮngineering, physics, astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, Earth sciences, biological sciencesĮarth & climate sciences, instruments, sensors, services, data centers, etc. Geographic names, art & architecture, cultural objects, artist names Whenever possible, use terms from standardized taxonomies and vocabularies, a few of which are listed below. Suggested format: W3C/ISO 8601 date standard, which specifies the international standard notation of YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.įollow the scientific conventions for your discipline for taxonomic, geospatial and geologic names and keywords. Present the information in the same order, using the same terminology. separate important pieces of information with blank lines, rather than having all the information in one long paragraph).įormat multiple readme files identically. Format the readme document so it is easy to understand (e.g. Write your readme document as a plain text file, avoiding proprietary formats such as MS Word whenever possible. Name the readme so that it is easily associated with the data file(s) it describes. Sometimes it may make sense to create a readme for a single data file. In many cases it will be appropriate to create one document for a dataset that has multiple, related, similarly formatted files, or files that are logically grouped together for use (e.g.
#Readme document download
Want a template? Download one and adapt it for your own data!Ĭreate readme files for logical "clusters" of data. Standards-based metadata is generally preferable, but where no appropriate standard exists, for internal use, writing “readme” style metadata is an appropriate strategy. You can say it has been part of a class you've taken at Tilburg University.A readme file provides information about a data file and is intended to help ensure that the data can be correctly interpreted, by yourself at a later date or by others when sharing or publishing data. Point interested users to any related literature and/or documentation.Įxplain who has contributed to the repository.
#Readme document how to
If necessary, touch upon the required input data, which secret credentials are required (and how to obtain them), which software tools are needed to run the workflow (including links to the installation instructions), and how to run the workflow. Provide an overview of the directory structure and files, for example:Įxplain to potential users how to run/replicate your workflow. Make use of subheaders where appropriate. Second, summarize your results concisely. Clearly explain which problem is solved.įirst, introduce and motivate your chosen method, and explain how it contributes to solving the research question/business problem. Motivate your research question or business problem. Better still, if you link to other files within the repository so that the reader not only knows what the project is about but also which files are a priority.Ī subtitle that describes your project, e.g., research question Like an academic paper, we recommend working with headers and subheaders to impose a structure. md) file that you can format text using a a plain-text editor. In this building block, we provide you with a template and some examples you can use for your own projects. Your README thus not only serves for documentation, but also for marketing purposes.Īnd while we all loathe sheazy marketing, documentation can’t be sleazy because it solves a real purpose: teaching everyone about the project. A great README not only gets people to jump into your project much quicker, but also helps your project to stand out from the sea of open source software on Github. It’s the first thing a person sees when opening your repository. A README is like the book cover of your project.