Research Proposals for CSE 495 Why a research proposal: A year is a short time. I want you to be able to hit the ground running. A research proposal will help you to do so. Your research proposal should have these sections: (1) Your Research Adviser. (2) Problem that you want to solve. (3) Background of your research area. (4) Anticipated Products and Results. This means basically writing an abstract for a paper that doesn't (yet) exist. (5) Initial steps. What is the first step you take once the project begins. (6) Low-risk results. What is a result that you could achieve in, say, 2 to 3 weeks. You know that you'll be able to obtain these results after the CSE 495/496 sequence. (7) Anticipated results. What do you realistically hope to achieve during the project. (8) Stretch-goal results. These are the results that you hope to obtain if your work goes smoothly and you have a little luck. ------- Having this structure for a research proposal enables you to have more fruitful research conversations with your advisor. You may have heard that the trick to having good conversations is to ask questions. So here is a good sample question: "Professor, I need to write down some low-risk results, something that I could do in about two weeks. What do you think I should write? Also, what do you think should be our stretch goals?"