Obsidian/2.1 GSA Meeting Notes/QSG 2025 Sprnig/2025-02-14 - Goals and Outcomes.md

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Total Time 1hr 15 minutes
# Review from Last Week (25 mins 10:20-10:45)
- Everybody go around the room with Heilmeier questions.
- Go up to Podium
# Goals and Outcomes Presentation (35 mins 10:45-11:20)
- This is the first section of your proposal[^1]
- This will be the first thing that people read, so honestly its one of the most crucial sections of your proposal
- It's the tablesetting for the rest of what you're going to talk about too. If you write something in your G&O, you better talk about it later
- Tell em what you're gonna tell em, tell em, tell em what you told em
- So what goes into a G&O section?
- First Paragraph(s)
- First sentence
- RESEARCH GOAL!!!!
- The first sentence you write is critically important and should explicitly say what you're going to do, no bs
- 'The goal of this research is to ...'
- *Explain what you're trying to do, using absolutely no jargon*
- One to three sentences. Be concrete. You should be clear in the goal, specific enough to seem feasible, but not too too narrow.
- Rest of paragraph based writing
- Briefly cover other sections. How will you get to your goal, what will be done, and who will care?
- This is basically an ad for your researcher. The reviewer of your proposal wants to know, if this project is approved and funded, what are they going to get.
- What are they buying?
- What is the product of your effort?
- What will you achieve?
## Outcomes Based Approach (ME)
-" If we are successful, we will able to do the following:"
- 3-5 clear and concise **capabilities**.
- What is a capability? It's what we'll be able to DO after the research is successful, that we cannot do now.
- One liner about the capability - rest of language explaining a little bit
- Good capabilities are clear, verifieable, and concise
## Hypothesis Based Approach (MSE)
- Some MSE professors really love hypothesis
- Similar to outcomes but instead of creating capabilites you're creating observable knowledge
- By doing X thing we can introduce Y change in Z behavior
- Must be falsifiable and specific!
- Then explain more specifically how you would measure such a thing, and briefly! why that change is posisble given the literature.
- You will talk more about this in SOTA and RA, so give a preview and not an expansive discussion
## Big Takeaways
1. **Clarity is Key** - State exacty what you want to, with as little fluff as possible.
1. You are smart. You know a lot of words. But reading all of them is a lot of effort on the reader.
2. **Your reader is lazy**
1. Not a dig on professors because everyone here is working hard.
2. But reading takes effort, and ultimately good writing and a good GO section should be easy to read. The easier it is to read your writing, the more of your meaning will be absorbed by the reader
3. **Tablesetting as a Narrative**
1. Your GO should set up the rest of your proposal. Give the reader a preview and a sample of what you're going to talk about.
2. Set things up, and get your GO almost like a prologue.
[[GO Presentation Outline]]
# Open Questions / Chit Chat (11:20 - 11:30)
- Goal for next week
- Have a rough draft of your goals and outcomes (~1 page)
- Keep working on other sections as you can. Keep reading and outining!
[^1]: Well technically it's preceded by your summary but whatever