The 'Scientific Justification' page allows the Principal Investigator to specify a detailed scientific justification (or 'Case for Support') for the observations requested. This section generally includes text describing the context of the proposed observations with respect to previous work in the field (often called the 'Background' section) and details of the observations requested including why they are being proposing and their scientific importance (often called the 'Current Observations' section).
Classical-mode proposals that request good conditions (better than IQ=85% and CC=70%, or WV=80%) must include an attachment giving details about a poor-conditions backup program. Include a brief description of the science, the relaxed observing conditions, a justification of why this can be done under the relaxed conditions, and a target list.The length of the scientific justification section is partner country dependent. Details of partner limits can be found in Gemini Observatory Partner Country Proposal Submission Information (on the external web site).
The text of the classical-mode backup program should not exceed one page. The target list can extend to more than one page.
The 'Scientific Justification' page is divided into two areas, at the top there is a white area, entitled the SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION TEXT section, which will include the text of the scientific justification, while below it is an area entitled the ATTACHMENTS section. In the SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION TEXT section there are five icon buttons, from left to right, 'Open', 'Save', 'Cut', 'Copy' and 'Paste'. Click on the above links for information on using these buttons. These buttons refer explicitly to the SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION section, not the whole proposal.
To define the SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION TEXT you have two options:
Option 1 is to click in the large white SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION TEXT box and type in your scientific justification text.
Option 2 is to include a previously prepared justification from an ASCII/text file. To include text from a file click on the 'Open' button. A window will appear entitled 'Open' and will list the contents of the current directory. Navigate through your directory structure using the 'Up' and 'Home' buttons or by double-clicking on the green folder icon next to the folder name. Once you have located the file containing the justification select it by clicking (once) on it and click the 'Open' button at the bottom right of the 'Open' window or double-click on the file icon next to the name. The text from that file will be included in the white text area of the justification. To manipulate the text in the abstract box, use the 'Cut', 'Copy' and 'Paste' buttons.
References (to previous work by the author and other researchers) should be included in this section at the bottom of the page. References should be explicitly referenced in the text (e.g. Smith et al. 1992).
Many researchers are used to writing their scientific justification (and other sections of proposals) in a TeX/LaTeX form using embedded TeX/LaTeX commands. This is acceptable under one caveat namely that the TeX/LaTeX commands included should not reference ANY user-defined macros/definitions. Using user-defined commands will make processing of the TeX/LaTeX scientific justification (as will take place in some partner countries) impossible and will result in an invalid proposal.
You can attach files (e.g. figures, formatted tables, images, etc of previously acquired data) to the scientific justification using the lower section on the 'Scientific Justification' page called ATTACHMENTS. Currently, the supported formats for attachments are GIF and JPEG (image format files), PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format files) and TEXT (simple ASCII/text) files. Postscript (PS and EPS) attachments are no longer supported, please convert postscript files to another format (PDF is recommended) before attaching. To define an attachment click on the 'New Attachment' button. Select the file format to be attached using the 'File Type' drop-down menu then click 'Choose'. This displays a small window called 'Add' which allows you to interactively locate the file you want to attach. You may also enter descriptive text in the box labeled 'Caption'. Any text entered here appears below the attachment in the PDF summary. Once defined, the attachment appears in the green window directly below the ATTACHMENTS heading. Allowed formats for attachments are partner country dependent (see the Partner Country Proposal Submission Information on the external web site).
The number of attachments that can be attached to a proposal is partner country dependent. The partner limits and can be found in Partner Country Proposal Submission Information (on the external web site).
To remove a previously defined attachment (say you attached the wrong file), highlight the attachment to be removed in the area directly below the ATTACHMENTS heading (highlighted files appear green) and click the 'Delete Attachment' button.