Comps Exams for 2007

For an example of a proposal click here

The exam dates will be May 21-25, 2007. Each exam will be scheduled for 2 hours. You should prepare a 20 min oral presentation with mo more than 6 transparencies (NO PowerPoint/electronic materials). The oral exam will begin by exploring your proposal but is not exclusive to details in your written document. Committee members will ask questions regarding your proposal as you speak and following your presentation. You are expected to have a broad base of knowledge of all content and background related to the proposal.

Written Comps proposals will be due on April 6, 2007, and returned to you with comments by April 20th, 2007. You will receive either full approval or guidelines for revisions from the committee. If revisions are required you must re-submit the revised proposal for another round of evaluation by April 30th. The committee will return it to you by May 7th. A final accepted version must be submitted by May 14th or your exam will be cancelled.

In general, five main areas of the comps exam will include: Understanding of the experiments in the proposal, knowledge of the literature pertinent to the proposal, quality of your oral presentation, your ability to answer questions during the exam, and overall quality of the written proposal. You will either pass or fail. The examining committee will provide you with a written evaluation of the exam within one week of the completion of the last exam. The committee will also be available to discuss the evaluation with you. In the event of a failure, oral re-examination (if indicated) must be completed before the beginning of the fall semester. There should not be need to rewrite proposals that have already been approved by the May 14 deadline. You are permitted only one re-examination. A second failure will prevent your attainment of candidacy for a Ph. D.

Instructions on Writing a Comps Proposal
Your proposal should include sufficient information to permit an effective review by Comps Committee Members, who will mostly be from research areas other than that of your proposal. The proposal must be double-spaced and in Arial 12 point font, and have 0.5-inch margin on all sides. The entire document including tables, figures and references must not exceed 10 pages. The proposal must include the following six sections:

1. Abstract (250 words or fewer)
State the broad, long-term objectives and aims of the research proposed. Describe concisely the research design and methods. This should serve as a succinct and accurate summary of the proposed work when separated from the proposal.

2. Specific Aims (one page maximum)
State the specific purposes of the research proposal and hypotheses to be tested

3. Background and Significance (2-3 pages suggested)
Sketch briefly the background literature. State concisely the importance of the research proposed by relating the specific aims to broad, long-term objectives. Use figures and diagrams and focus only on the background relevant to your research.

4. Preliminary Data (optional-2 pages maximum)
Use this section to provide an account of preliminary studies pertinent to the proposal. Include information that will help to establish your experience and competence for performing the proposed experiments. Preliminary studies are NOT necessary for a successful proposal, but may include your own or other’s unpublished work from your laboratory. Be sure to credit the appropriate individuals.

5. Research Design and Methods (5 pages suggested)
Briefly describe the following for each aim or sub-question in turn.

• Research design and procedures to be used to accomplish the specific aims
• Tentative sequence for the investigation
• Statistical procedure by which data will be analyzed (if applicable)
• Potential problems and alternative approaches to be used in case of problems
• A time line for the proposed experiments. The timeline should be inclusive for the entire project.

6. References
Provide literature citations at the end of the research proposal. Each citation must include names of all authors, titles, book or journal, volume number, page numbers and year of publication.

Important Issues to consider while constructing your proposal
Topic:            The topic may be any interesting and relevant area, including but not limited to your thesis proposal.

Questions:            You should be able to succinctly state the objective of your entire proposal as a single question. The specific aims should reflect the sub-questions you are prepared to address. A genetic screen, purification of a protein, derivation of cell lines, or production of transgenic or knockout mice does not represent questions. These are technical strategies that may be integral to attaining the scientific objectives (i.e. Specific Aims) but cannot represent an entire aim.

For each major experiment, consider the following:

• Justification of the experiment in terms of your stated question (why are you doing this and how will it help you achieve your objective).
• The best outcome(s) (what you want) and how the result will lead to the next experiment
• The worst outcome. In this case, you might consider providing alternate approaches.

The rules state clearly that you thesis advisor cannot read the proposal. However, you may discuss it with your advisor. Any one else from your lab or other labs may read and comment on the proposal. We suggest strongly that you seek comments and advice from students, post-docs and faculty who have written proposals before. We also suggest that you view proposals from previous years to get ideas about the scope and depth of typical proposals.