Tips for Writing a Winning Proposal

1
Tips for Writing a Winning Proposal

• Prof. Ziad Al-Saad and Nizar Abu-Jaber

2

• It takes more than good ideas to get funding for
  your research. You need to explain your good
  ideas to a panel of reviewers in a way that will
  convince them that your work is important and
  that it will likely succeed.
• You also need to convince them that your ideas
  are better than everbody elses

3

• As you prepare your proposal, keep the following
  points in mind. Remember, many ideas fail to gain
  support not because they were not good ideas but
  because they were not clearly and convincingly
  presented.

4
Write with your reviewers in mind.

• - Make sure your argument is easy to follow and
  clear.
• - Do not waste the time of your reviewers get
  right to the point.
• - Include only essential information.
• - Write in a clear, engaging style.

5
Be the Master of Form as well as Substance

• Beware Most granting agencies strictly enforce
  formatting requirements and may return improperly
  formatted applications! Don't risk having your
  application rejected because you exceeded the
  page limits or used an improper font, font size,
  or margins.

6
General Goodies

• Make sure your idea is not too broad. Your
  hypothesis must be testable during your three-to
  four-year award with the level of resources you
  are requesting.
• Keep in mind that your topic should fit with the
  mission of the granting agency.

7
General Goodies

• Reviewers also want to see how your project fits
  into the big picture in your field. Make this
  clear and explicit. Search agency databases to
  see what other projects in your field are funded,
  so you can carve out your niche.
• Don't confuse your hypothesis with your methods.
  Methods are the means for performing your
  experiments. Your experimental results will prove
  or disprove your hypothesis

8
Develop Solid Hypotheses

• Choose an important, testable, focused
  hypothesis.
• It should be based on previous research.
• An example of a good research hypothesis
• Analogs to chemokine receptors can inhibit HIV
  infection.
• Examples of a poor research hypothesis
• Analogs to chemokine receptors can be
  biologically useful.
• A wide range of moleculescan inhibit HIV
  infection.

9
Focus, Focus

• Sharpen the focus of your application. Applicants
  often overshoot their mark, proposing too much.
• Make sure the scale of your hypothesis and aims
  fits your request of time and resources.
  Reviewers will quickly pick up on how well
  matched these elements are.
• Your hypothesis should be testable and aims
  doable with the resources and time frame you are
  requesting.

10
Formulate clear research questions early in your
proposal.

• - What do you want to know?
• - Why is it important to gain the insights or
  information you are seeking?

11
Be explicit about the relevance of your work

• - Which areas of interest are you addressing?
• - How will your proposal further the objectives
  of the research program?
• - Is you work relevant to any particular agency?
  If so, be explicit about this connection.

12
List and discuss prior research that has been
done by you and others.

• - Where does you proposed work stand in relation
  to other similar research?
• - What conclusions has prior research reached?
• - How will your work build on and advance
  research in your particular area?

13
Make sure your research methods are clearly
described, understandable andrealistic?

• - Provide a clear outline of what you will do and
  when.
• - Give sufficient detail so a reviewer can judge
  the feasibility of your work.
• - Anticipate questions about your methods and try
  to answer them.

14
Make sure your research team has the expertise
needed to carry out the work.

• Be explicit about who will do what work.
• Provide information that will allow others to
  assess the abilities of your research team (CVs
  may not be enough).

15
Discuss limitations and possible problems and how
you will deal with them.

• - What problems might you encounter in your
  research?
• - How will you deal with these problems?
• - Are their important questions that you will not
  be able to answer during the proposed research?

16
Make sure your abstract clearly and precisely
summaries your project.

• - Briefly summarize your aims, methods, and
  anticipate conclusions.
• - Take care to avoid technical language that
  makes your abstract difficult to understand.

17
Carefully check your application for grammar,
style, and argument.

• - Have you described your research in a logical
  order?
• - Are your paragraphs clear and organized around
  a single point?
• - Have you checked carefully for careless errors,
  the misuse of words, and other common writing
  problems?

18
Have someone who is not familiar with your work
read over your proposal

• For clarity and style.
• - Can someone who is not familiar with you work
  follow your description of your proposal?
• - Did they find your proposal interesting and
  easy to read?
• - Choose somebody who will tell you things you
  dont want to hear.

19
Psychiatric Intervention is a Good Thing

• You WILL get frustrated, angry with the world,
  mad as hell, short tempered with your wife, kids
  and so forth as you write your grant.
• In fact, you will become clinically deranged at
  times.
• But, you will recover (in most cases..).

20
You Have Finished a Draft

• Eventually, you will have a draft narrative
  (unless your computer crashes and you forgot to
  back up your files.)
• Set it aside for a time.
• Go back and rewrite it so that it makes sense.
• Repeat this process until you are sick of looking
  at it.

21
In Your Spare Time.

• Besides narrative, there is a bunch of other
  stuff that you have to do. This means the
  administrative form pages. This is good stuff to
  do when you are brain dead from writing your
  science narrative.

22
Budgets, Budgets

• Another good thing to do at some point during the
  process is your budget.
• Prepare your budget after you have written your
  research plan and have a good idea of what the
  costs of your project will be.
• Request only enough money to do the work.
  Reviewers will judge whether your request is
  realistic and justified by your aims and methods.
  
• Significant over-or under-estimating suggests you
  don't understand the scope of the work.

23
More Budgets, Budgets

• As a new investigator, you should request a
  relatively modest budget. Be a cheap date but
  dont make your budget so low that you cannot do
  the work proposed if you are funded.

24
You Have a Decent Draft

• Remember those two colleagues?
• Now that you have a decent draft, give it to
  them.
• If they are good colleagues, they will be
  critical.
• Dont get upset by criticism, thank them. Its
  better that they point out the flaws than the
  reviewers.
• Consider their comments and revise accordingly.
• But its ultimately your grant application and you
  know the subject matter better than anyone else.
• So be as objective as possible. Consider the
  comments of your colleagues but they wont
  (shouldnt) be offended if you dont accept each
  comment.

25
The Deadline is Now!

• At some point, the deadline will be approaching
  fast. You will be clinically insane and obsessed
  with polishing each and every sentence into a
  gem. But it cant go out the door until its
  routed through Research Administration.
• Please remember that your Research Administration
  staff are human beings.
• In any case, you need that signature on the face
  page before it goes out the door.
• So dont take it to Research Administration at
  430 p.m. on the deadline day and expect them to
  sign off without having a chance to review it.
  Plan ahead!

26
Its Out the Door. Now what happens?

• Your baby goes to a peer review panel. The
  members of the panel get a big box of grant
  applications, at which time they mutter
  expletives which cannot be repeated here.
• The box with the grant applications sits on the
  reviewers desk (or the floor) until the time
  before the meeting gets short. Eventually, the
  time comes and your grant application undergoes
  peer review

27
How Dare You Call my Baby Ugly??!!!

• Odds are, especially for your first application,
  that is will not be funded on the first try.
• So, get mad for awhile.
• Then, get over it and plan a revised application.
• A revised application may or may not permit you
  respond to the previous critique.
• Follow the guidelines.
• Be positive in your response, thanking the panel
  for their insightful advice.
• But dont be afraid to point out your
  disagreement, doing it respectfully, if
  appropriate. Dont be selective by responding to
  some but not all pertinent comments in the
  critique.
• Involve your two colleagues in the process.
• Send it back.
• The most important word in grantsmanship is
  persistence.

28
(No Transcript)