Due: 2015-02-11 @ noon
Thesis proposal
a 1-2 page description with three references, written after a discussion with your thesis advisor.
Your thesis proposal will be a 1-2 page description of what you will do for your thesis. For most of you, this will be a description of what problem you are addressing, why the problem is an important or interesting one, and a plan for what you specifically will be doing over the course of the semester. If you are struggling with mapping your topic into this framework, please talk it over with either me or your thesis advisor. These should be detailed, but short and to the point. One page is the sweet spot and two pages should be considered the upper bound.
In order to write this proposal, you will have to do some initial work (this is why I am telling you this now). There are three things that you should do before starting to write this. First, you need to do some actual research. This should involve reading some papers or books about your topic to help you understand the current state of the art and to give your topic focus. Your proposal should include three references. Second, you need to do some actual thinking to figure out what it is you actually want to do. Finally, you should have a meeting with your advisor and talk about what you are going to do before you write it all out. Ideally, this meeting should be after you have found and read at least one of your sources so you have a better idea of what direction your work will take.
Please submit your work as a PDF on Moodle.
A thesis is a big time commitment and it is not like any class experience you have had. I set the deadline for the first deliverable so early because your life will be much easier if you are already fully engaged in your thesis work before the semester starts. Do not squander this time by figuring this is something that you can put off until the first day of classes. The writing of the document is the least of it – this will require reading, thought, and discussion.
Since this is a relatively new experience, you may struggle a little finding your first references. There are a number of ways to get started. Both Google and Wikipedia can be fantastic resources, but these should be seen as ways to get to more serious references. Google Scholar, the ACM digital portal, and IEEE xplorer are all good tools for finding actual reference papers. Don’t neglect the place downstairs with all of the physical papery things either.
Once you have your first paper or two, finding new papers gets easier. Look at what papers the papers you have already found cite. You can usually work backwards this way to find the seminal papers on any particular topic that everyone cites. If you start with one of the seminal papers, tools like Google Scholar and the others can help you work in the other direction to find papers that cite it. Ideally, you should end up with a collection of literature that is a mix of seminal papers and new results or interpretations (i.e., the current state of the art). If you are really struggling with finding a starting place, you can always ask your thesis advisor for some suggestions.