Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
A. Statement of Purpose
In no more than a paragraph (i.e. 150-175 words), this section asks you to
capture the big picture of your project in as small a space as possible,
answering the following questions:
Purpose/product: What will the final product of your research be? A senior
thesis? An art project? New software? A public service project? Specify.
Question
I want to find out (what?) Remember your question should really be something
you dont know yet not a foredrawn conclusion that you want to prove; it
should be a how or why question not just what happened, but what
caused it to happen or what is the effect? Art projects: what issues will
you be exploring? Engineers/public service: what improvements will you
make over the current solutions?
Justification
Its an important question because ...
Why have you chosen this particular case to examine? Is it an anomaly?
Typical of a trend? Chosen b/c lots of previous research on it? Influential?
Other reason?
What gap in the literature are you filling? Building on/departing from what
other efforts?
Method
How will you narrow your topic down into a manageable case studyor
sample to focus on? Procedure/type of method used for gathering data and
analyzing it (see "Summary of Social Science Methods")? Sequence of phases?
Rationale
What will be some of the larger implications of your findings?
Also be on the lookout for review articles, with titles like "Recent Research On
(Your Topic)". These summarize recent writings in the field and put them in
"clumps", i.e., show the relevant trends and debates within the field. They are
usually found in specialized journals, e.g., if you're planning to do a high
school classroom ethnography on teacher/student race dynamics, you might
look for a title like "Journal of Research on Secondary Education".
Once you have a few recent, relevant readings in hand, trace the bibliographies:
any works cited by all of the articles you've found, probably you should
read. Also, you may want to look up these authors in the library but also on the
web. Often, professors' web sites list their most recent publications.
More hints
Justification sections often use one of these different rhetorical strategies to
explain how you came to your question and to your hypotheses or approach (or
hunches about what you will find, in the case of humanities people):
1) Adding a piece to the collective puzzle: We know A, B, and C about this
phenomenon, but we dont yet know D. This implies a sense of consensus and
collective purpose in the field rather than a raging debate. This model is the
probably most common in the sciences/engineering.
2) Debate and adjudication: Some people think A is the cause of this
phenomenon; others think B is. I want to find out whos right. This is more
common in social science, esp. quantitative social science.
3) Synthesis: Im borrowing this from theory A, this other thing from theory B,
and this other thing from theory C to create a new approach. Probably more
common in social science and humanities.
4) Extending a theory/approach to a new case: This approach works
wonderfully to explain this kind of cases can it explain this other kind of
cases, and if so, how will it need to be altered?
5) Improving upon an existing model: There is an existing technology that is
useful in these ways. However, it has this drawback. With this alteration, which
has worked in these other cases, we might be able to improve upon it. (This
model is quite common in engineering, and also works for public service
proposals if you substitute the phrase "social intervention" for technology.)
Sequence
A format often used for this section is to describe first the authors whose work
is farthest from your own (but still relevant); then those closer to yours, then
those closest to yours but still not quite right; then your own
hypotheses/approach and how you derived it. Science proposals often move
from the macro to the micro and at the same time from the oldest findings to
the latest ones.
For each approach named, say what you use from it, then why it still isnt quite
right.
For projects involving human subjects, you will want to discuss your
responsibilities to them to avoid causing them any harm; you will also want to
discuss your plan and timeline for writing and submitting the protocol to
Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, and getting it approved.
See "Overview of Human Subjects Review Process" for hints.
Item total
RT SFO-Dublin
$800
$100
Travel
$
Equipment
Tape recorder
$50
$150
$
Supplies
10 books @ about $20 each
$200
$70
$30
$
Services
Payment to 20 subjects @ $20 each
$400
$
Other
Internet access while in Dublin, 30 hours @
$1/hour
$30
TOTAL
Maximum amount that can be requested for the Haas Scholars Program:
$5,000.00
General Tips
Aim for a budget that is realistic but not extravagant, luxurious, or wasteful.
The general cultural expectation for students is a somewhat ascetic existence,
i.e., making do with less. Especially equipment expenditures should be
carefully justified. Money not spent by you is money that can fund future
scholars.
Use real numbers, for example go to a web site to specify the exact tape
recorder you plan to buy and its exact price, rather than just posting a ballpark
figure. That shows youve done some research.
Haas Scholars Budget Policies
Timeline
Unless you have received an explicit exemption to this policy from the Haas
Scholars Program Coordinator, all of your expenditures must take place
between June 1 of the year you are selected and the last day of finals in the
following spring semester, i.e., almost a year later. Do not include expenditures
for the spring when you are applying on your budget. Once you have been
selected and confirmed as a Haas Scholar, you may ask permission to make
some expenditures before June 1, especially airfare for summer travel.
Travel
The university has special regulations governing allowable travel expenditures,
as follows
Meal ceiling per day: $46.00 (receipt for any meal over $20). Note that this is a
"worst case scenario", e.g. a conference at an expensive hotel in Europe where
there is no possibility of walking to a cheaper restaurant. Normally, we will
expect scholars to be more thrifty than this.
Private car mileage reimbursement: $ 0.51/mile for February 2012 proposals, as
per university policy. However, private car reimbursement is permissible only
if this is the cheapest transportation option.
Tolls, taxi, parking: actual cost (within reason)
Car rental: generally, public transportation will be cheaper and we much prefer
you go this route. If you ask for car rental, please justify why the additional
cost is justified in your case. Include the entire actual cost including rental, gas
and insurance required by law. Students without credit cards or younger than
24 will have difficulty renting cars.
Conference limit: The Haas Scholars Program will pay full expenses for you to
travel to one conference; if you wish to attend a second conference, we will pay
for registration fee/membership only. The applicant may propose to attend a
conference as late as June of the year of graduation, but not beyond.
Hotel reimbursement maximum is $100/day. If the hotel room costs more than
that, plan to have a roommate (or two), or stay at a cheaper (non-conference)
hotel. This is what grad students and even faculty do.
Note that while food and lodging in a place other than Berkeley can be
considered a research expense, we expect you to cover food and lodging in
Berkeley out of your summer living stipend. If you will travel for an extended
period of time, we encourage you to sublet your apartment to save money.
It's OK to include the cost of a visa in your project expenses, but not the cost of
renewing or getting a passport, which is considered a personal expense.
Equipment
Haas Scholars Budget policies for equipment:
Laptops: $2,000 limit, including all tax, peripherals, and pre-installed software;
expense beyond this should be justified
Normally, if scholars will be going into the field and will need a computer
there, purchase of a laptop is viewed as acceptable. Laptops are not normally
approved for laboratory projects without special justification. If students want a
more expensive computer, they can take the money out of their summer
stipend.
All other equipment not discussed specifically in the rest of this section:
generally also a $2,000 limit. It is recommended that you discuss these large
budget items with the program coordinator before turning in the application.
Expensive equipment should always be justified in the budget narrative and
must be central to your project.
Printers: $175 limit (or justify any higher amount)
Camera: $200 limit (unless it is a photography project or there is some other
reason why a higher quality camera is essential to the project)
-The visual component must be central to the project
-Justification for a digital camera is required
-Justification is needed for any camera over $200
Transcribing machines: $300 limit
Tape recorders: $150 (or justify any higher amount by reference to special
needs)
Voice recognition software: Justifiable only for transcribing the scholars voice,
not interviewees (software must be trained to each voice.)
Occasionally the need arises for a Haas Scholar to buy equipment which will
stay in the lab after s/he graduates. In this case, the maximum that the scholar
may contribute toward the purchase of such equipment is $1,500.
Services
The Haas Scholars Program does not usually allow payment to for others to
transcribe your interviews, except under exceptional circumstances. Payments
to subjects are permissible, within reason: usually $10-20/interview is the
acceptable range.
Charges to publish in an Open Access Journal: the scholar may propose to pay
proportionately to his/her extent of authorship, e.g. if the scholar will be one of
four authors, s/he may contribute 25% of the fee to publish the article.
Child care: up to 20% of a scholar's research budget can be devoted to covering
child care costs.
Supplies
Books: $200 maximum to purchase books. If your book budget needs go
beyond this, you should plan to request that the library purchase them, or get
the books by inter-library loan. Maximum expenditure of $45/book. If a book
costs more, you should justify why the book is especially expensive, and also
why the book is central to your project.
Normally there will be a maximum of $150 on non-book supplies (binding your
thesis, photocopies, toner, etc.)
G. Selected Bibliography
This optional section provides an opportunity to demonstrate your familiarity
with the literature in your field(s). You may list books, articles and other
resources that you have read or consulted in the course of preparing your
project proposal. Works should be listed alphabetically by author, using the
accepted manual of style in your discipline/s. Think of this appendix as a
supplement to the background and justification section of the application.
Select the most important, recognized, widely cited, and/or relevant works to
the project you are undertaking. In general, your bibliography, if you decide to
include one, should list no more than ten works.