Proposals For Oral Exams in Physical Chemistry

In preparation for taking their oral exams, students are required to submit to the physical chemistry graduate advisor a written research proposal. The notes below outline the basic requirements for writing your proposal and gives a few tips that will hopefully help you to write an acceptable proposal with the fewest revisions. It also explains what you can expect from me, your graduate advisor.

In short, a proposal is a discussion of what research you intend to pursue. It is expected that the science involved in your proposal is substantively different from the research you are already pursuing for your thesis work. What we are looking for is a demonstration on your part that you know how to identify an interesting question on your own, and how to critically design experiment and/or theory to test the idea. In a proposal, you should be able to explain to the reader what scientific question you will address and how you will address it. You should be able to justify why that question is interesting and how the research you propose to do will address that question. In addition, it is important to situate your proposed research in the broader scientific community by discussing the current state of knowledge as it pertains to your proposed work and the question that you address. More specifically, I outline below the details of proposal format and submission guidelines in section I. In section II, I give some tips for writing a successful proposal.

At the end of this document, you will see a list of links to accepted proposals. Each link will provide you with a pdf copy of the document in question. Feel free to use those as examples to help you gauge the appropriate tone, format, content, and level of detail expected in the discussion. You can certainly choose to examine similar physical systems in your proposal, but I will expect you to develop novel questions and methods to distinguish your proposal from the ones that appear on this list.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, your graduate advisor, by email or phone.

The current graduate advisor for Physical Chemistry is:

Alex Levine
Young Hall 3044A
Phone 1 310 794 4436
Email: alevine@chem.ucla.edu

Starting: August 2009
Ending:

I. Requirements and what you can expect of me:

A. Proposals will be submitted to graduate advisor by email in pdf format.

B. Proposals will be no longer than four (4) single spaced pages in 12pt font, not including references. References should be provided in the standard Physical Review style and take no more than one (1) page. You certainly do not have to exhaust the space available!

C. You must include your name and names of the members of your committee in your email to me.

D. I will respond to your email in a timely manner (within a day usually, but always within the week in which I receive your email) and arrange a time to meet with you regarding your proposal. After we discuss it, I will either approve it or ask you to rewrite it after explaining specifically why I do not feel that I can accept your proposal as it currently stands.

II. What must be included in the proposal: Successful proposals can be written in many different ways, but, to help you organize your thoughts, you might find the outline below helpful. Certainly, all of these questions must be addressed in some manner by successful proposals.

A. The proposal must explain what is the basic scientific question to be addressed by the proposed experiments or calculations. Please explain why this question is interesting. Interest is, of course, a subjective concept, but it is reasonable to address the question of interest in two ways. (i) Why are you interested in this problem? (ii) Why do you think other physical scientists would want to learn the results of your proposed work? Perhaps it would help to imagine that you are explaining your choice of a research program to an intelligent and well-read colleague. What would you say?

B. Introduce the physical system or theoretical model that you intend to study. Explain why this system/model is well suited to address the question you posed above. The proposal must briefly explain the relevant history of research in this area. How has your question (or a closely related question) been addressed in the past? What in the current state of knowledge regarding the system/model to intend to explore? Please provide what you consider to be the most relevant references.

C. Explain as precisely as possible what you propose to do in order to address this question. Provide an outline of the experimental technique(s) you will use or the calculations you will perform. Have these techniques been used previously, and, if so, in what context? Provide references.

D. Explain what you expect to calculate or measure. Explain how these results or data will address the question you initially posed. We all know that scientific research has lead at times to entirely unexpected results; moreover, some of these unexpected results have proven to have the most far-reaching and transformative effects on our thinking. However, finding what you do not expect cannot be your expectation. If this mind-warping assault on logic does not sufficiently disturb you, then you must admit that, if you have no reasonable expectation for what you will find, then you can never be in a position to recognize surprising results and their significance.
It is essential to explain what you, based on current theory, expect to measure in your experiment. If you propose theoretical work, it is equally essential that you discuss the experimental implications of your work. How will your theory be tested? Finally, you should be able to conclude by explaining to the reader how your expected results will address the scientific question posed at the beginning.

III. Approved Proposals

Below is the list of students whose proposals have been approved.

Student Name Date PDF of proposal

Zhu, Xiaoming 08/31/2009 Zhu, X. Proposal

Mayoral, Kenny 11/09/2009 Mayoral, K. Proposal