Format
Page setup
| Font | 12 pt Times New Roman |
|---|---|
| Spacing | Double-spaced throughout |
| Margins | 1 inch on every side |
| Header | Last name and page number, top right of every page |
| First page | Names, school and date at top left, then a centred title |
| Length | Ten pages at most, not counting Works Cited |
| File | One PDF |
| Code | One .zip, Python only, 150 MB max |
MLA help: Purdue OWL formatting guide · sample paper · MLA Style Center
Sections
| The problem | 1 page | Who has it, why it matters, and why machine learning fits. |
|---|---|---|
| What you tried | 3–4 pages | Data, baseline, each change, and what you changed course on. |
| Results | 2–3 pages | Honest evaluation on held-out data, including what did not work. |
| Deployment | 1–2 pages | Users, running costs, failure modes, and whether it is worth deploying. |
| Works Cited | Extra | Every paper, dataset, model and library you used. |
Clarity of writing is worth 10 points across the whole report. Full rubric
Citations, code and AI
- Cite in MLA style: in-text (Author page) and a Works Cited list. Purdue OWL covers in-text citations and the Works Cited page.
- Submit your code as one .zip file alongside the PDF. Python only, 150 MB max, including any data.
- End with an AI-use note, as the AI policy requires.
After the olympiad
- A strong report can later be fitted to a conference or workshop.
- Move it into the venue’s template, such as NeurIPS, ICML or ACL.
- Convert MLA citations to the venue’s style, and cut or extend to its page limit.
- All three 2025 IMLO medal papers also appeared at workshops.