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%  Version 1.0    22 February 2010
%  Version 2.0    28 August 2015
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%%% definitions for math terms and journals
\def\kep{{\it Kepler}}
\def\aap{A\&A}
\def\aj{AJ}
\def\apj{ApJ}
\def\apjl{ApJL}
\def\apjs{ApJS}
\def\apss{ApSS}
\def\araa{ARA\&A}
\def\icarus{Icarus}
\def\mnras{MNRAS}
\def\nat{Nature}
\def\pasp{PASP}
\def\pasj{PASJ}
\def\gca{Geo. Cosm. Acta}

\newcommand{\inlinehead}[1]{\medskip\noindent{\bf #1: }}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\Large\bf Template for CfA OIR Telescope Proposals
\end{center}

The following is a simple template for CfA OIR telescope proposals.  The 
detailed instructions are appended to the end; you can keep them
from printing by including a strategic \textbackslash end\{document\}.

Please do not change the default point size of the type (12 pt),
the line spacing, or the size of the margins (1" all sides).

As long as you maintain the page limits, font size, and margins, 
you may use another font style or template if you prefer.

Recall that you will use the CfA proposal submission web interface
to generate the cover page.

\section{Scientific Justification}

Describe the background and goals for your project.

\section{Experimental Design}

Describe the proposed observations and the targets.

\section{Figures} 

Include figures with captions, for example using the latex \textbackslash includegraphics command.

\clearpage
\section{Addendum}

This section includes ancillary material as relevant for your program.

\inlinehead{Progress Report}

\begin{itshape}
Example: Our photometric survey for young stellar objects in Orion is complete;
low (high) resolution spectroscopy is roughly 80\% (60\%) complete. 
We have identified 450 new young stars and several FU Ori candidates. 
De-veiling of high res spectra is complete. Fitting detailed SEDs is
in progress.  Preliminary HR diagrams suggest stellar ages of 1--4~Myr,
comparable to a previous survey of Taurus-Auriga.
\end{itshape}

\inlinehead{Previous Time Awards \& Publications}
\begin{itshape}

Example: For this program, we have had 8/15 useful nights on the MMT
and 9/17 useful nights with the FAST queue. All of the data
have been reduced and analyzed. We have 11 publications in
the journal, 2 on the arXiv, and 1 submitted. 

We have no other programs on CfA facilities.

List of up to 5 papers (omitted here).
\end{itshape}

\inlinehead{Student Thesis/Project Description}

\inlinehead{Description of Collaboration}

\inlinehead{Target List}

\begin{itshape}
Example:

\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{lccccc}
\\
Name & RA & Dec & R & Exp (min) & Visibility \\
\hline
AE And & 00:43:03 & +41:49:12 & 17.5 & 40 & Sep-Oct \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\vskip 4ex
\end{itshape}

\section{References}

You can use the bibliography style file `apjtitles.bst' to
include references with titles from a BibTeX file created with 
ADS.  Other approaches are fine too, such as the custom ADS output
formats listed in the instructions.

The preamble for this form includes definitions for major 
journals.  You can add more as needed.

% the set of commands surrounding the "\bibliography" 
% eliminates a "References" heading 
% This example assumes reference information in a file
% named papers.bib - modify as needed
% to get the final dvi file:
% latex prop ; bibtex prop ; latex prop ; latex prop
% the set of four commands is needed to get the bib info 
% correctly placed in the output file
%
% Then include these lines to make a bibliography
% \begingroup
% \renewcommand{\section}[2]{}
% \bibliography{papers}
% \endgroup


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\begin{center}
\Large\bf Instructions for CfA Telescope Proposals \\
\large (revised for 2016A, 9/23/15)
\end{center}
\medskip

While the CfA OIR Time Allocation Committee does place considerable
value on keeping the proposal process light-weight, the TAC is
finding that its deliberations are often being affected by common
imperfections and uncertainties in the proposals, as well as some
substantial variations of assumptions between proposals.  Therefore
we are issuing this new set of instructions.

Even if you are an experienced observer/proposer, please read these
instructions, as there are some substantive changes, largely in the
Addendum.  For example: the Proposed Work section including figures
is limited to three pages; bibliographies must include titles;
non-CfA collaborations must be explained; student theses described.

The TAC reserves the right to downgrade or even summarily reject
proposals that do not comply with these instructions.

As a preamble, the TAC seeks to rank proposals foremost according
to their likelihood of yielding strong science relative to the
telescope time invested.  This of course is a combination of many
factors and inevitably hinges on the judgement of the committee.
The quality of the science opportunities of the proposed observations
is the most important factor in the decision.  However, these
instructions request additional information intended to help the
TAC judge the effectiveness of past allocations, the opportunities
for student training, and the ability of the proposal team to conduct
the observations and produce high quality results once the data
have been acquired.  We note that these instructions are more
specific than in the past so that proposers can more uniformly
understand what is expected.

\medskip

Before appying for time, please check the instrument status and the
range of dates available for each telescope.  At FLWO and the MMT,
we allocate time for four-month trimesters, starting in January,
April, and September (with August typically closed for long-term
engineering during the Arizona monsoon period).  At Magellan, we
allocate time for six-month semesters, starting mid-January and
mid-July.

\medskip

The proposal continues to have three major parts.  The first is
the cover page, which is generated by the online web page.

The second part, referred to here as the Proposed Work, should have
two sections, describing the Science Justification and the Experimental
Design.  The maximum length is 3 pages (total), of which at most 2
pages can be text, the rest being figures and/or tables.  Large
proposals requesting 6 or more nights on the MMT or Magellan or 14
or more nights on the FLWO telescopes may use an extra page for the
Proposed Work, i.e., a maximum of 4 pages with at most 3 pages of
text.

The third part, referred to here as the Addendum, contains all
other materials, most notably (where relevant) a summary of progress
on the continuing project, a summary of previous use of OIR facilities,
a description of any proposed collaboration, a table of targets, a
bibliography, and a thesis description.  We expect that the Addendum
should total no more than 2 pages and preferably less, but the TAC
will waive this limit in more complicated cases.

The Proposed Work and Addendum should be in 12 point font,
single-spaced, with 1" margins.  We prefer a one-column format.

\medskip

Within these sections, please adhere to the following instructions:

1) The PI of the proposal must be an eligible CfA proposer for the
bulk of the timester/semester when the proposed observing would
occur.  Eligibility requires a) that the CfA be one's primary
affiliation and b) that one is resident at a CfA facility.  CfA
staff on leave or sabbatical may also apply for time.  Sabbatical
visitors at the CfA for the bulk of the trimester/semester are
welcome to apply.

For people moving to or from the CfA, note that one becomes eligible
to apply before one arrives, so long as one will be in residence
for the bulk of the observing period.  E.g., if arriving in September
2016, one may apply to the 2016C MMT/FLWO trimester or 2016B Magellan
semester.  Conversely, if one is leaving for a new job in August,
one is not eligible for these periods even though the proposal
deadline is before one departs.

Rationale: CfA facilities are typically oversubscribed and are 
intended to support the science programs of CfA researchers.

\medskip

2) The PI and all co-authors must have their affiliations listed.  
Be careful that the co-author list is not truncated by the limited
space on cover page!  If needed, continue the co-author list in the 
Addendum space.

Proposers moving to or from the CfA should list the affiliation
appropriate to the observing season being proposed for.  E.g., if
one is moving in August, then a C trimester proposal should use the
new affiliation.

Rationale: It is impossible for the TAC to know everyone at the CfA,
and we don't want to try to guess affiliations.  Collaborations with
non-CfA scientists are an important strength of many proposals, but
we want this to be explicit.

\medskip

3) If the proposal involves non-CfA co-authors, then the Addendum
must include a Description of Collaboration.  This can be brief,
but it should describe in broad terms what parts of the project
will be done at the CfA and what will be done elsewhere.  It is not
necessary to itemize the role of each person.  This section should
also list external telescope resources being used or requested.  We
expect that one paragraph will suffice in most cases.

Rationale: Multi-institution collaborations are common and of course
offer many important opportunities.  However, the TAC wants to be
assured that the CfA PI and co-authors will have a substantial role
in the project and to understand what work will be carried out at
the CfA and what will be done elsewhere.  It is often unclear what
resources are being brought from outside sources.

\medskip

4) Proposals marked as being part of a student thesis or research
exam must carry a paragraph in the Addendum summarizing of the
thesis/project plan and explaining how the proposed observations
will serve the larger plan.  The paragraph should state the names
of the student and their research advisor(s), give an expected
graduation or defense date, and identify whether the student is a
Harvard student, a SAO pre-doctoral fellow, or has some other
affiliation.  If a proposal is serving more than one student's work,
include one paragraph per student.  We do not require a signature
from the advisor.

We note that while the TAC does endeavor to support theses of
CfA-based students, approval of a thesis plan by a thesis committee
does not ensure approval of a telescope proposal by the TAC.

Rationale: The TAC is not otherwise briefed on thesis plans, and
proposals are often unclear as to how the proposed time fits in to
the fuller scope of the thesis.  We note that just because a student
is involved doesn't make the proposal part of a thesis.  For example,
observations proposed for the last semester of a graduate career
may not be appropriate for the thesis (but the finishing student
certainly is eligible to apply for time!).

\medskip

5) CfA telescopes routinely schedule projects for partial nights or 
queue observing.  Therefore, the time requested should be based on
the total number of hours, divided by a suitable number of hours
per night.  That is, if you need 3 half nights of time, request 1.5
nights, not 3 nights.  You should scale the number of hours in a 
night to values typical of the season and lunation.  

Hectospec, Hectechelle, and soon MMIRS and Binospec are typically
operated in a queue, and nearly all observations with the FLWO 1.2
and 1.5 meter telescopes are in a queue.  This gives substantial
flexibility in applying for time: we can schedule monitoring projects
and can programs with limited RA ranges of targets that would
otherwise not fill nights.   Therefore, you should apply for the
time you need; do not pad out with inefficient observations to fill
nights.  Hectospec and Hectechelle proposers should assume 25 minutes
of overhead per fiber setup, with no more than 3 hours on target
before another setup is needed.

Proposals should calculate the time required for the project assuming
clear weather and typical seeing conditions.  The TAC intends to
include some unassigned time in the observing queues so as to
provide a hedge against weather losses.  The TAC will similarly 
consider augmenting time requests for classical observing, but the
correlations in the weather patterns make this difficult in most
cases.

Rationale:  Queues and partial nights provide a great deal of
flexibility in observing but have led to some confusion in cover
pages.  For a queue covering weeks of time, weather impact is
unavoidable.  We prefer to give some allowance so that projects
have a better chance of finishing, while not being so pessimistic
that the queue would go empty.  Classical nights unfortunately are
subject to more variance.

\medskip

6) The position and fluxes of targets should be included, if known.
A table is a concise way to give this information for single targets;
to be clear, this table is part of the Addendum and does not count
toward the page limit of the Proposed Work.  Truncating long lists
is acceptable, but please be clear about the range of positions and
fluxes.  For multi-object work, describe the sky position of the
pointing(s) and the range of fluxes; one does not need to include
a list of the individual objects.  The proposal does not need to
give exact positions, and the proposers are not expected to have
run the fiber or slit configuration software before proposing.

The position and flux ranges must also be entered on the cover page.

Rationale: This information is important for judging the observational
viability of the program and for the construction of the telescope
schedule, both for classical and queue modes.  Rough sky positions 
are fine; this is for scheduling.

\medskip

7) Many proposals are continuing.  These proposals must use the
Addendum to give a clear Progress Report.  The report should include
the number of nights already used in the project and indicate the
state of the analysis and list publications and the key results
derived from the earlier observations.  When possible, the report
should indicate the future scope of the project and an estimate
of the number of future nights to be requested.  This estimate
should also be included on the cover page.

Rationale: The TAC typically sees proposals for continuing projects
call after call.  We want to understand the progress on the work:
What has been learned from the data collected thus far?  How much
more is needed to reach a satisfactory finish line?  Rather than trying
to trim ongoing work, the TAC is seeking to get projects finished.
But this is hard to justify if proposals are vague about their current
status.

\medskip

8) The Addendum must contain a Previous Use section that reports on all
use by the PI of CfA OIR telescope facilities in the last 3 years.
For continuing proposals, this should additionally include all past
allocations for the project at hand.  A summary of the total
allocation is fine; it is not necessary to itemize for each observing
run.  The report should include the status of data reduction,
analysis, and publication of data obtained.  Notably this refers
to all projects led by the PI, not simply a report on the past
allocations to the particular continuing project.

If the number of relevant papers exceeds 5, please supply the total
number and then give specific information about a recent set of 5.
One can include this list of papers in the bibliography or in a separate
list, as desired.

Rationale: The TAC is responsible for monitoring that past allocations
of telescope time are leading to publications.  Past performance on
publication is an important factor in ongoing allocations.


\medskip

9) Bibliography listings must include the title of papers.
Bibliographies do not need to be extensive; it is better to focus
on a short list of papers that speak to the current frontier of the
field or that support important assumptions in the proposal.
Truncation of long author lists is fine, but it is better if short
lists are given in full rather than truncating to only the first
author.

For those using ADS, one can generate \textbackslash bibitem and \textbackslash item lines
with titles using custom formats, such as
\begin{verbatim}
\\bibitem[%\4m%(y)]%{R} %\5.3l %\Y,%\({\\em )T\(}, )%\j,%\V,%\p\n
\\item %\5.3l %\Y,%\({\\em )T\(}, )%\j,%\V,%\p\n
\end{verbatim}

Alternatively, one can configure BibTeX to include titles; we're 
supplying a modification of the apj.bst file called apjtitle.bst to do that.

Rationale: Titles and co-author listings allow the TAC members to
recognize the papers more easily.

\medskip

10) Finally, the TAC offers the following reminders about proposal content.

The Science Justification should be accessible to TAC members who
are not expert in the proposal area.  Be sure to describe how the
success of the project will advance the field; low-ranked proposals
commonly end at an empirical deliverable without connecting to the
key science questions.  Be as specific as possible about the
hypotheses being tested and why the project requires the proposed
scope.  Describe how the proposed work compares to past results
from you and from others.

The Experimental Design section should describe the observational
plan: sample sizes, filter choices, target selection, fiber/slit
assignment details, S/N requirements, exposure times, required
lunation, expected success rates, etc.  Offer quantitative
justifications when possible.  Proposals that fail to justify their
exposure times, make surprising lunation choices, or are unclear
on their observational strategy tend to be ranked poorly.

Be sure that your figures are adequately described.  Figures with
lots of extraneous information tend to be less effective.

Remember to proof-read the cover page.  Common errors include
truncation of the co-I list, TeX errors in the abstract, and 
a failure to update information from past proposals.

The TAC chair is available to give feedback on proposals after the
selection meeting. 

\end{document}
