---
title: "Project Proposal — [Working Title]"
subtitle: "STAT 540 · Computing in Statistics · Fall 2026"
author: "Your Name"
date: today
format:
  html:
    toc: false
    number-sections: true
    theme: cosmo
    embed-resources: true
---

::: {.callout-important}
## Read this, then delete every instruction box

**Two pages. No code required in this file** — it is plain markdown and renders
with no R, Python or Jupyter.

The proposal exists to catch the one failure this project cannot recover from:
**an analysis too simple to translate wrongly.** One group mean and a scatterplot
will translate perfectly, you will find nothing, and there will be nothing to
write about. Section 3 is where I check for that.

Submit this and post your dataset and question to [the question board] at the
same time.
:::

# The question

**Primary question (one sentence):**

> …

**Why I want to know:** one or two sentences.

**What I expect to find, before looking:** one sentence. Write it down now so
the findings section of your report can be honest later.

# The dataset

| | |
|---|---|
| **Dataset** | e.g. `SleepStudy` (Lock5Data) / DASL "Hot Dogs" / ACS 5-year Table B19013 |
| **Source and vintage** | package version, download URL and date, or product + year |
| **Collected by, from whom, when** | … |
| **One row is** | … |
| **Size** | … rows × … columns |

**Variables I plan to use** — from the codebook, not from guessing:

| Variable | Type | Units / levels | Missing code | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|  |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |

**What this dataset cannot tell me:** one or two sentences.

# What will make my analysis worth translating

::: {.callout-warning}
## Tick at least four (delete this box)

A trivial analysis translates trivially and gives you nothing to find. Your
analysis must include at least **four** of the following, and you commit to
which four **here, in this proposal** — not later, once you have seen what is
easy.

Every one of these is a place where two languages can legitimately disagree, and
most are also places where **both can be wrong together**. That is the point.

Tick the ones you will have, and say in a few words where each one appears. "I
will probably have some missing values" is not an answer; "`Distance` is missing
for two commuters and it is the denominator of my derived variable" is.
:::

| ✓ | Element | Where it appears in my analysis |
|:-:|---|---|
| ☐  | Missing values that have to be handled deliberately | … |
| ☐ | A derived variable (a rate, a difference, a recode) | … |
| ☐ | A grouped summary with counts as well as means | … |
| ☐ | A categorical variable with three or more levels | … |
| ☐ | A statistic with a divisor or definition convention — a standard deviation, a variance, a quantile, a correlation | … |
| ☐ | A filter or join that changes the number of rows | … |
| ☐ | A percentage, with a denominator you had to choose | … |
| ☐ | A figure built from aggregated data | … |

**Number ticked:** …  *(fewer than four and this proposal comes back)*

# Language pair

| | |
|---|---|
| **I will write the analysis in** | R / Python / SAS |
| **The assistant will translate it to** | R / Python / SAS |
| **Why this pair** | one sentence |
| **Assistant I plan to use** | name it; models change, so this goes in the report with a date |

# Question board

| | |
|---|---|
| **Posted on** | [date] |
| **Questions already on the board using my dataset** | … (or "none") |
| **How mine differs** | … |

# References

Codebook or help page, download URL and date, and anything else you have leaned
on so far.