Course Project#
Outline#
The goal of the class project is for you to start reading the primary literature, and to get some practice in writing and speaking. The final product will be a science proposal and a short 15 minute talk to the class describing your proposal. In order to stay on track I’ve set the following milestones for you to meet.
At each step you turn something in on Brightspace and talk to me about it, either via email or in person.
The project#
The final project is to submit a research proposal based on the results of a recent journal article. It is very rare for a piece of science to not leave unanswered questions. Your project is to understand a paper, discern the questions that it leaves unanswered, or could use further work, and to write a proposal that tackles some aspect of that further work.
The science carried out in the proposal should be relatively detailed. You will need to decide on your approach, be it a field program, numerical modelling, or laboratory work. Your proposal should be practical, which will mean demonstrating some grasp of the limitations of the approaches. By “practical”, I mean consuming less than $1 million dollars of resources. (It doesn’t require any ingenuity to come up with a sampling plan requiring 30 ships, or a simulation requiring use of 20,000 computer nodes for a year).
Example proposal#
My colleagues at Scripps and UW have been kind enough to share a proposal they wrote based on modelling results from a GRL paper. This was a major proposal to the US National Science Foundation for almost $3M. Of course it underwent very critical peer review, and was written by two of the brightest oceanographers in the field. So, it is much more polished than what I would expect from you (or even myself!). However, it gives a good idea of what is involved.
Late policy for milestones and project#
As for the rest of the course, 10% per day including weekends. If you require an academic concession please contact the instructor.
Milestones#
Milestone1: Choose a “recent” paper#
Grading: 2= good; 1=marginal; 0=unacceptable
The first task it to choose a recent short paper in physical oceanography from Science, Nature, or Geophysical Research Letters. All three are available in the library and online from UVic.
This list is by no-means exhaustive. If you have a paper that you think appropriate please check with me (sooner rather than later).
Please let me know as soon as you have chosen a paper. I will not allow multiple folks to do the same paper, so first-come, first-served. There is (will be) a list of papers chosen by folks here.
5% of project grade
URLs to search:#
Nature: http://nature.com Science: http://sciencemag.org/ Geophysical Research Letters: http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
You can get PDFs from all these journals if you are on a UVic subnet, or using a proxy server (https://www.uvic.ca/library/use/connect/index.php). It would help me if you could try to submit URLs to the PDF files.
Please note, avoid paleo-oceanography and climate studies. These are important and interesting subjects, but not the focus of this class. Papers should be based on observations, models, or theories of how the ocean is now, or at least in the recent past.
At the this point you should turn in (via Brightspace):
your paper author, year, title, journal, volume, pages.
Milestone2: Assemble background papers#
Have background papers assembled, and a first pass at reading them completed.
You might find https://scholar.google.ca/ useful, or the library’s database searches.
At this point you should hand in (via Brightspaces):
a bibliography of papers you have looked at (use an approved bibliography style i.e. https://www.agu.org/publish-with-agu/publish/author-resources/text-requirements#references
an annotation for the bibliography entries, outlining the points of the papers you have assembled, and how these papers fit into your subject. This should give you a feel for what is known about the subject, what approaches have been used, and what still needs to be done. Save time by not using an essay style for this - I really just want to see your reading notes for each paper.
any questions for me about aspects of the problem you don’t understand.
We will schedule short appointments to talk about your progress.
10% of project grade
Milestone3: Choose a problem and write proposal introduction#
This is the hardest part of the assignment and you have 4 weeks. By this point you should have identified a “next step” that will advance the problem discussed in your “recent paper”. This “next step” will be the focus of your project proposal.
At this point you should hand in:
a draft introduction to your topic. This should be about 10 typed pages (double spaced, 1” margins, not counting figures). It should include a couple of figures. Schematic sketches are always helpful and demonstrate an understanding of the phenomena.
outline the science problem.
outline the previous results and progress on this problem.
outline what next steps should be taken to advance this topic.
Comments on your draft from another student in the class. You should incorporate these comments after you receive them. It is acceptable, and expected, for you to trade papers. Comments can be informal, but should be typed. The student’s name and student number should be included, as this is part of their grade.
15% of project grade
Milestone 4: Talks#
See also the talk rubric for how I will grade this.
You should have a draft of your proposal done at this point. You will be asked to trade papers again with someone else, and they will need some time to comment.
During class, the week of Nov 25, you will give presentations. These will be about 15 minutes each, with another 5 minutes for questions. 15 minutes corresponds to about 8 slides. With 8 slides, you should be able to:
Explain the basic physical problem you are trying to solve State what has been done State what you will add with your proposal. Please practice your talks at least once. I don’t expect perfect recital, but if you don’t practice the timing, you may not finish, and its very hard for me to grade you well if you don’t finish.
15% of project grade
Milestone 4: Final paper#
Proposals will be due on Brightspace. You should also turn in the comments of the person you traded with. Please turn in PDFs.
The final proposal will consist of your reworked introduction (Milestone 3), your proposed work, and your expected results. Grades will be determined as follows:
Introduction (8-12 pages: 22/50)#
States goal of research (4/22)
Concisely but with enough detail that reader understands what your research problem is and how you propose to solve it They need not understand all the details or subtleties at this point. This should be a couple of paragraphs. Be specific about your project so the reader knows where it is going i.e. “we are planning to investigate the formation of arctic water by quantifying its formation at ice leads using a line of moorings”.
Motivates proposal (6/22)
Why is this an important problem worth funding?
Where does this proposal fit into the larger scheme of things?
Explains previous knowledge (6/22)
What is known about this problem?
What approaches have been used to address the problem?
Explains what is still not known (6/22)
What gaps are there in our knowledge of your research problem?
What controversies exist around this subject?
These should generally lead into your proposed work, though it is balanced to also point out issues that you won’t address.
Proposed Work (3-6 pages: 7/50)#
Explain how you are going to make an advance on this subject.
Include some detail:
If you are going to perform measurements, what technique, where, and approximately how many. What time of year will you make your measurements?
If you are going to perform numerical simulations, what type of model will you use, and most importantly, what parameters you will keep fixed, and which you will vary.
Forego some detail:
Don’t feel obliged to look up manufacturers or model numbers of instruments, or specify specific computer clusters to perform your analysis. This would be in a real proposal, but its not necessary here.
Expected Results (2-4 pages: 6/50)#
Explain what the measurements will yield that will advance your research problem.
Explain what will still be left uncertain.
Overall Presentation (10/50)#
Good paragraph structure (most important)
make sure paragraphs have good topic sentences so the reader knows why they are reading the paragraph.
Good english grammar and spelling (sliding scale depending on native tongue).
Good use of figures and tables
Proper citation and bibliography
Comments on classmate’s paper (5/50)#
You are expected to trade papers with a partner and provide comments. These should be helpful so that they can submit a better paper.
55% of project grade