Writing Proposals

Whether you want access to telescope time (radio,optical, X-

ray, whatever), money to travel, money to build instruments,

money to run conferences, resources to build instruments, …

in fact in order to obtain most of the resources you need to be

an astronomer, you will have to write

PROPOSALS!

Your proposals will almost always be evaluated alongside

other proposals, which means your success as an astronomer

will not depend on how good those proposals are, but how

much better they are than your competitors.

Overview

Telescope Time Allocation

Although proposal writing skills are something you’ll use over and

over again, I’ll concentrate on the process of writing proposals to get

telescope time as a specific example

Remember, you are experimental scientists … learn from your

experience

How proposals are evaluated

How to Write your Proposal

Formulate your experiment

What you put in (dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s).

A suggested outline

Hints

How not to Write your Proposal

How Proposals are Evaluated

Proposals are almost inevitably reviewed by a committee

and that committee is composed of people

committees make every effort to be unbiased, objective, perceptive,

intelligent and diligent (the optimist assumption)

subject to all the same frailties as you and me (the cynical assumption)

In practice, you should assume your proposals will be read

By people who have no background in your research

who don’t care about your research

who don’t have enough time to read your proposal properly

who are just looking for a reason to ignore it

(this is probably the safe assumption)

Telescope Time Allocation

Time is competively sought after … very competitively.

In any one semester the applications for the use of any large optical

telescope will exceed the available time by a factor of at least four …

more for VLT, Gemini and HST.

Time is awarded by time assignment committees (TACs),

They read all the proposals (usually between 50 and 200), and evaluate

them for scientific merit, feasibility and timeliness.

TACs are charged with maximising scientific return (ie publications)

for the observatory.

Proposals are graded relatively.

Telescope Time Allocation

In any one round of proposals

a few will stand out as being clearly the best, and a few will stand out

as being clearly the worst.

Most fight it out in the middle.

Proposals are graded by several people, grades are discussed,

then combined, ranked and time is allocated.

The final grade is an estimate, a “measurement” of the worth of a

proposal.

It therefore has uncertainty (eg. rms ~ 0.3-0.5 / 5 is common)

Proposal grading is an imperfect estimation process.

Small differences in the proposal (as opposed to the science) can make

all the difference.

They can also make all the difference in whether your brilliant science

is understood.

Astronomers are Scientists

When writing a proposal, you should always keep in mind that

you are a scientist

ie you should make hypotheses, and then test them

You are not (or should try to pretend that you are not) just

observers.

You shouldn’t write proposals aiming to “discover” things

Or work out what’s going on after you have the data.

You should be trying to establish whether something is true or not.

You should not be trying to find the first “something”.

Time Allocation Committees want to see proposals which will cleanly

show something to be true or false in a finite amount of telescope time

Imagine you’re buying something with your hard earned

money… who do you hire?

First, formulate your experiment

Before you even put pen to paper (or finger to key board), you

need to develop a clear idea of the problem you want to attack

“What question am I trying to answer?”

“Is it interesting?”

“Is it timely?”

Then determine what finite set of observations are need to

answer that question.

If the question, or the set of observations, becomes too big, then break

it down into a series of smaller problems, and attack each of those in

turn, with a separate project for each.

It is essential these things are clear to you, so that you can

clearly explain it to someone who does not have your expert

background in the field.

Writing

Clear Expression

Use of language - keep it clear and simple.

Layout - the reader must be clearly led through the text. Remember this

is one of a hundred proposals the TAC member is reading

Length - minimise the length! Don’t use all the available space just

because you can

Well Reasoned

Your thought processes must be clearly expressed.

Eg.

Here is the scientific background, therefore we have

A Question we’d like to answer, which can be done with

The Observations we’d like to carry out, which will give us

The following positive or negative results.

Writing

The project itself must be

A well defined experiment with clear positive and negative outcomes.

Ideally the experiment will be constructed such that either result is

interesting and worth publication. That way the TAC gets a guaranteed

publication.

Finite - TACs hate to see the same proposal again and again. If your

proposal will take time in more than one period, then estimate how

much and say so, and why. TACs will avoid starting projects which

look like they might turn into continuous applications for time.

Use Figures

They save words, and can be much, much clearer.

Make sure your figures are well annotated.

Notations on the figure are better than in the caption. Eg. use xfig,

Word, Powerpoint to add notes, arrows etc to GIF or Postscript file.

The Proposal Itself

“Form” Section

Names, institution, address etc of proposers

Abstract - spend time on this after you’ve written the Science Case.

Technical stuff

Instruments, dates, positions, fluxes etc (Don’t make mistakes here)

Results from previous allocations, related publications, etc

This is your chance to show that you are productive.

“Text” Section

Scientific Justification - this is where you make the pitch for your

project

Technical Justification - this is where you prove your observations are

feasible.

A Suggested Science Case Outline The Scientific Background

Why the objects you want to look at are interesting and astronomically

important. If they are at all obscure, explain what they are.

Explain all acronyms, classes of objects, symbols.

What has been done to date … from which should follow

The Oustanding Question(s) to be answered.

That is, the questions you want to answer in this work.

The Observations proposed

How they will answer your questions. Make sure you define your

positive and negative results - if both are significant your proposal will

be that much stronger

Conclusion/Summary

recap for those “skimming” the proposal. Which will be most readers!

Abstract - yes, write this LAST!

A Suggested Technical Outline

Technical Justification

Why have you chosen the instrument you have? If you can point out

that the instrument is somehow unique, then you strengthen the case

considerably.

You must justify the time you ask for

How bright are your targets?

How many of them are there?

What S/N do you need to achieve your scientific goals? How long

do you need to expose (based on the Observatory’s sensitivity

estimates, and/or your experience with the set-up)?

Remember

Use figures - especially schematics of any complexities in your science

case or observations, as much as possible.

Keep it brief.

Useful stuff to be able to use

That the observations can only be done with this facility.

Useful to “massage the ego” of the Observatory.

Observations which can be done elsewhere are easy to reject.

Essential when applying to places you don’t get time as of right (ESO,

HST, UK facilities).

Concise, but readable, Abstract and Conclusion.

Clear divisions in your text

Use sections, headings, emphasized text, etc to make the thought

processes “flow” through your proposal.

Show you’ve completed and published previous work in a

timely fashion.

Clearly delineate your experiment with +ve and -ve results

Useful stuff to be able to use

Check archives to ensure this data doesn’t already exist.

And insert a short note to this effect if you have any reason to believe

the TAC may believe these observations already exist

Use on-line resources (NED,SIMBAD,etc)

This is really just doing your homework, and making sure you know all

about your targets. But it may allow you to shorten your program, or

provide essential information for your science case

A really cool figure

A well constructed figure can explain an entire project in seconds to the

reader. You should think hard about whether you can make a

meaningful and useful figure.

Use notes on the figure

Use schematic drawings

After the TAC meets

Lets assume for a moment that after all this, you’ve still

managed to write a proposal which got rejected.

The next thing you must do is find out why!

Many TACs (eg. ATAC and PATT) provide feedback on the TACs

evaluation.

If you didn’t get time you need to revise your proposal for next time

taking these comments into account

You can also contact TAC members to ask if they have any comments

on what you can do to improve the proposal

Above all, don’t get depressed and assume its all a conspiracy to sink

your project. Or get mad and assume they are too lazy or stupid to read

and understand your project. The TACs are composed of people.

Usually if you ask for their comments and/or help, they’ll give it.

In any case, its your job to make the proposal understandable, not the

TACs job to understand it.

The “worst case” TAC

Someone will ask, “why do they need 24 objects?”

Someone will think all research in your area is a waste of time

Someone will only have read the abstract and conclusions and

looked at the pictures

Good reason to make your figures explain the proposal.

Someone will ask “can’t they do this on another (usually

smaller) telescope?

What NOT to do

“These objects are really cool, and we’d like to learn more

about them …”

“We’d like to discover the first _______ .” (Insert brown

dwarf, z=8 galaxy, black hole, …..

Avoid a “blizzard of questions”

it is better to concentrate on 1 or 2 things you will answer than 4 or 5

things you might answer.

Nothing reflects as poorly as stupid mistakes

Like appplying in the wrong semester, with the wrong instrument,

or a no longer current detector.

Or leaving out essential information (like how bright or how many

are your targets).

What NOT to do

Don’t submit proposals which are badly written - if English

(or French or Spanish nor whatever) is not nyour first

language, get a colloborator who can proof-read/rewrite it for

you.

Don’t plow into an obscure discussion of a peculiar class of

objects, without placing them in context.

Don’t present dense blocks of undifferentiated text

Avoid programs aiming to obtain data and to then perform a

postiori determinations of what’s going on

Make a hypothesis and test it.

Don’t say we’ll work out what’s going on once we have the data.

This is one of the most common failings of lowly ranked telescope

proposals.

Conclusion

Remember you are a scientist.

Your proposals should reflect a clear hypothesis and testing, with

clearly defined positive and negative results.

Make sure these are clear to you before you start writing.

Remember TAC members are people.

They read lots of proposals, and will not make the effort to understand

a poorly explained concept, or a poorly written proposal.

Try to make the logic of your proposal as clear and simple as

possible.

Try it out on a friend who doesn’t know the field. If they can’t follow

it, neither can the TAC.

If you don’t get time, find out why, fix it, and try again.

When writing a proposal you are “marketing” your project.

So try to en sure your marketing is better than your competitors!