Candidacy Proposal Requirements
October 2021, supersedes Appendix A1 of the graduate requirements in chemistry and biochemistry, August 2017 version
Cover Page
Must contain the title of the project, the name of the student, advisor(s), committee members, and semester/year when the student started their degree.
Proposal
The structure of the proposal is based on guidelines from the National Science Foundation. Proposals cannot exceed 15 pages. Font must be Times New Roman 12 or Arial 11, with the exception of table and figure captions which can be Times New Roman 11 or Arial 10; single line spacing; margins must be at least 1 inch wide. For reference, a 15-page proposal contains approximately 10,000 words. There is no minimum word count, as long as all criteria listed below are met. Figures must be wrapped into the text to minimize blank space in the proposal (see illustration).
A. Objectives(up to 2 pages, 1 page recommended). The first paragraph should contain the main objective. Having 3 “aims” or “sub-objectives” that provide a path to solve the main objective is typical; these aims should be summarized after the main objective.
B. Background and significance(up to 3 pages), i.e., what is already known, why it is important, and why objectives stated in section A are innovative and relevant to the field (i.e. how they fill a critical knowledge gap)?
C. Preliminary results(i.e., what I have done in my research group so far to meet the main objective and aims; up to 5 pages)
D. Detailed description(minimum 5 pages), i.e., what will I do until I graduate to meet my objectives, what are the expected outcomes, what are potential pitfalls, what are the specific fallback options if the proposed experiments fail, etc.? The description should have subheadings for each aim listed in section A)
E. Time line(typically half a page); the typical format is a timeline chart, with month/year on the x axis, and aims on the y axis, with a few added notes and figure captions.
F. References (not included in the 15-page limitation). ACS formatting style applies, article titles and DOI link must be cited. See the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communications for details.
A reference management software must be used (i.e. references cannot be entered manually or with the “footnote/endnote” feature in Word. For more information on reference management software, see:
a. Mendeley: http://csl.mendeley.com/styles/3459151/american-chemical-society-DOI ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e6Uoo2g300 );
b. Endnote: https://support.clarivate.com/Endnote/s/article/EndNote-Windows-and-Mac-Style-Editing-Guide?language=en_US
c. Zotero: https://libguides.library.ohio.edu/zotero