Spring 2014
ICS
Research Practicum
CSCI
7412/7422 | EDUC 6506/6516 | LING 7415/7425 | PHIL 7415/7425 | PSYC
7415/7425
Milestone 1
Assigned 9/3/2014
Due 10/1/2014
Our first milestone involves articulating your long term research
goals. Of course, these goals will change over time. But there is
still great value in this exercise because (a) it provides you with a
narrative when you talk to other researchers, (b) it provides the
foundations of a research statement which you will need when applying
for jobs, and most importantly, (c) it forces you to step back from the
daily grind and look at the larger picture of how your research relates
to other work in the field and what contribution it makes; it also
provides you with some direction about where you should be headed and
on what your time is well spent.
I would like you to write no more than three paragraphs which gives an
overview of the area of research you work in and where you hope to make
contributions. There's a fine art to writing these paragraphs. On
the one hand, it must be general enough that a broad audience (say,
other cognitive scientists, or at least researchers in other subfields
of your primary discipline) will understand why what you're doing is
important and what it will contribute. On the other hand, it must
be specific enough that your research goals are distinguishable from
others' goals within your subfield.
I'll provide you with half a dozen examples of research statements from
our colleagues in cog sci at CU. You can find more examples if you
search on the web; many faculty either include these research
statements in their CVs or post them on their web pages. I want
you to write what would correspond to the first few paragraphs of a
research statement. (The paragraphs that follow go into more
detail about specific projects you've worked on, the results, and your
accomplishments. Those paragraphs are relatively easy to write.
They are like abstracts of papers.)