Proposal review ("Time Allocation Committee", ie TAC) assignment

You will act as a time allocation committee and choose two proposals to be awarded time.

The proposals can be downloaded here.
First, each of you will act as lead reviewer on one proposal, and secondary reviewer on another. These assignments will be sent out in individual emails. For proposals which you are lead or secondary reviewer, you must write a ~ 1 page (ie 2-3 decent paragraphs) review of the proposal, focusing on things listed below. You also must give the proposal a numerical rating: 1 (bad) --> 5 (excellent).
You must read and familiarize yourself with all other proposals.

CONFIDENTIALITY RULES:

Do not reveal to others which proposals you are primary and secondary reviewer on.
You cannot talk about the proposals with the author while you are reviewing (this is redundant with the rule above, but is worth spelling out explicitly!)
Your review will be shared with the author after the TAC process is complete, but your name will be redacted from your review.

Your written reviews are due to me (in the form of a plain text email) on Oct 21st.

The TAC will meet in class on Oct 26th. On this day, each person should bring a copy of their written reviews for use in the TAC discussion. At the TAC meeting, the primary reviewer for each proposal will summarize the proposal and lead the discussion. When a person's proposal comes up for discussion, that person must leave the room. After discussing each of the proposals, each TAC member will privately grade the proposal from 1 (bad) -- 5 (excellent), and at the end of the TAC meeting, each member will give me their score sheets, at which point I will tally averages. Note that the primary/secondary reviewers are allowed to change their score from what their original review stated, if they feel that is appropriate based on the discussion.

The top two proposals will be "awarded time" (in the form of a prize to be determined....)

Review Criteria

Major points:

Is the scientific question clearly presented? Is it compelling? Is it interesting?
Is the scientific plan described well? Is it clear how the data will be used to address the scientific question?
Does the technical observing program make sense? Does it use the correct telescope, the correct instrument, and make a request for the proper amount of time?

Minor points:

Figures: are the figures clearly described? do they help the proposal? are there figures that should have been included (i.e. would have helped the argument), but weren't?
Writing/grammar/spelling/style: is the proposal well written? does the writing flow? are there many mistakes? Does it seem like a carefully prepared proposal, or does it seem sloppy?
Referencing: does the proposal give appropriate referencing? Are important points justified through references, or are the lots of gaps in the referencing?

General Guidelines

Make sure you explain what worked and what didn't. Your written review should match your numerical rating: Don't rate a proposal a 4 and then point out nothing but problems, and don't rate a proposal a 1 and then feel bad for the proposer and simply say nice things.
Give suggestions for what might improve it -- these suggestions can range from strategic/conceptual ("I think your sample of galaxies could be better defined by...") to technical ("I would have found the proposal more compelling if you had included an estimate of exposure time") to presentation ("Figure 4 was really confusing; it would have been easier to understand if you had presented <something else> instead...").
Commenting about typos etc is fine if there are too many of them, but don't give a laundry-list of typo corrections. Just say "Proposal needs proofreading" and move on. If your review consists of nothing but lists of typos, it's not very useful.
Think about the entire range of criteria we talked about: technical feasibility, compelling science, proper academic presentation, etc.
Make the review substantive and carefully written -- a shallow or poorly written review is as bad as a poor proposal. Remember, I will be evaluating both the quality of your proposal and the quality of your reviews.
Make sure your ratings have discrimination power -- i.e., the numerical rankings should show a spread in quality. This doesn't mean that you have to give *someone* a 1 and somebody else a 5, but it does mean that you shouldn't simply rate all the reviews a 4, for example.

Grading: your written reviews will be judged against these standards, and will be factored into the final grade on the Observing Proposal writing assignment. Note also that you cannot take the late assignment on this.