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Comp517 Project Proposal

Written proposal for the project that states the problem you will address, the motivation for why this is an interesting problem, the goal of your project, the relationship between your project and other work, the plan and methodology for your project, and the resources needed to carry out your project. Include a set of incremental milestones that you will achieve in carrying out the project and a schedule for meeting these milestones.

Assignment Requirements

You will write a proposal with the following high level section:

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Methods and Plan
  4. Milestones

The proposal should be no longer than 5 pages. Each major section is described below.

Introduction

You will write an introduction with the following key points (closely related to the Seven Key Questions). These questions mirror the research questions you expect to pull out of any original scholarly work. Each of these should be approximately 1-2 paragraphs. The following sections will provide elaboration of these elements.

  1. Problem + why it's important
  2. Research context or gap in existing approaches
  3. The aim/goal/hypothesis (typically a single sentence, but can be longer)
  4. The proposed solution: how will you solve it?
  5. How you will evaluate it?
  6. Anticipated Contributions

Background

Detail a few specific elements of the problem that are necessary to understand the work. This can be an expanded version of the problem as mentioned in the introductory paragraph.

Proposed Approach and Evaluation Plan

Detail the early design of the solution. Also describe how you plan to evaluate it.

Expected Resources

What will you need to accomplish your goal?

Milestones

Itemize a list of deadlines that allow for incremental role out of the work.

Grading Rubric

The proposal will be evaluated in the same way that each research paper we read is. Key elements will include:

  1. Does the proposal clearly articulate the problem and its importance,
  2. related work on the problem,
  3. a novel hypothesis (claim about the method/idea to solve),
  4. a method for demonstrating the hypothesis,
  5. a feasible and strong plan for evaluation,
  6. and a plan for carrying out the work.

The proposal will receive equal weighting for the above elements. I will also grad with regard to clarity of writing, but will place less emphasis here, however, note that to clearly describe those points you must have clear writing.

Notes on Proposal Writing

There are many ways to brainstorm for writing a proposal. I have used all of these in my writings before. The above requirements and rubric most closely follows the CARS method while including a plan element.

Abstracts

Abstracts are tiny texts that allow you to explore the entire argument distilled into a few statements. They typically have a form like the following (examples included):

  • Locate/Context: C memory safety research provides powerful protection against adversaries
  • Focus/Condition: However, all existing approaches use imprecise analysis and thus attacks remain
  • Main-Claim/Response: This paper presents an approach that eliminates all imprecision by getting developer annotations. The core insight is...
  • Report/Methods: A prototype of the system is produced that obtains zero imprecision with [costs] and addresses all threats.
  • Argue: Overall, we find our approach to significantly address the problem without costing too much and can lead to future work in securing our systems through ...

The abstract is one of my favorite texts to write because it forces me to be focused and to distill the problem to only the essential aspects of the work. It is a key writing in the development of the scholar as it forces you to take a position of authority in the conversation and make a claim to contribution.

CARS

Projects may optionally include a CARS section. This section lays out an argument for the work. It is typically a precursor to a full paper, but is a mini-write up that allows the argument to be played with at scale.

It typically has a few parts:

  1. Problem and relevancy; trend
  2. Show the gap: existing work tries to do something but fails to adequately address some problem
  3. Fill the gap: our work will resolve this problem by doing X

Please see links for further exploration of the CARS method.

Sketch

Some projects may just be half baked and need to get a quick statement on them to share the basics of the idea. This can be done with a sketch.

  1. Problem?
  2. Simple insight/hunch
  3. Expected outcome

A sketch is similar to an abstract, and may be one. This could also be described as answering Heilmeier's Catechism.

Heilmeier's Catechism

  • What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
  • How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
  • What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
  • Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?
  • What are the risks?
  • How much will it cost?
  • How long will it take?
  • What are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success?

Griswold How to Read

  • Motivations: 1) People problem, 2) Technical Problem + why isn’t solved, 3) Research question
  • What is the proposed solution: hypothesis
  • How will you evaluate it?