Writing Successful Science Proposals

Andrew Friedland & Carol Folt

Yale University Press 2000

Notes based on the book titled,

Getting Started

• Think Big• Avoid tunnel vision• Dream• Take your time

• Think of using starting exercises – critique proposals, accomplish administrative tasks, search the web for grant opportunities

Know your audience

• Basic research proposals – NSF, NIH, EPA, NASA

• Program initiatives

• Corporate funding

• Private non-profit organizations

• Call the program officer?

Authorship & Responsibility

• Discuss expectations from the onset

• Appreciate what goes into research

• Understand the responsibility of 1st authorship

• No one owns ideas, right? Learn the conventions of your field

Ethics and Research

• Responsibility and accountability

• Understand your obligations

• Give appropriate credit

• Remain objective

• Spend money appropriately

• Treat your co-workers with respect

Four Precepts for Communication

• Organize

• Highlight

• Funnel

• Focus

• All parts of the proposal from the summary to the methods benefit from these precepts

Basic Organization

• Project Summary

• Table of Contents

• Project Description– Prior results– Problem and significance– Introduction/Background– Research Plan– References

Pitfalls

• Failure to establish significance• Too many details about the wrong aspects of the

work• Failure to provide testable hypotheses • Good idea but weak design/approach• Inadequate skills of the investigator(s)• Poor presentation- messy, crowded, small font• Typos and other errors

Cornerstones of the Proposal

• Important questions

• The best and most appropriate methods

• Effective analysis and application

• Synthesis and timely dissemination

Titles

• Clear and concise

• Avoid jargon

• Buzzwords – good or bad?

• Cute and informal – good or bad?

• Questions

Weak Titles

• Does tectonic activity cause global extinction?

• Mathematical modeling of non-linear systems

• Erosion in streams- slip, sliding away?

• In search of the solar constant

Stronger Titles

• Analysis of pesticide transport pathways and degradation in natural wetlands

• Predicting the response of landscape modification in new England and Florida

• Reconciling molecular and fossil evidence on the age of angiosperms

• Spatially efficient management of a seawater-intruded aquifer

The Significance Statement

• This is the heart of your proposal

• Several ways to craft a strong statement:– Breadth and generality – Concrete contribution– Demonstrate basic and applied uses– Short and long term applications

Project Summary

• Not the same as an abstract to a paper

• Provide the template for the reviewer

• Check conventions in your field

• The two-paragraph model– Context, significance, succinct description– Techniques, important details, outputs,

summarize contributions

Objectives and Hypotheses

• What are the differences?

• Observe the conventions of your disciplines

• Placement in the proposal- several options

• Link your objectives and hypotheses to your significance – essential!

• Make sure your methods/design truly tests the hypotheses or meets objectives

Linking throughout the Proposal

• Title• Project Summary• Introduction/Background• Significance• Research design and methods

• Reinforce your goal, deepen and focus several places in the proposal

Introduction/Background

• Relevant literature review

• Preliminary data

• Conceptual or empirical model

• Justification of approach or novel methods

Introduction/Background

• Lay the foundation for your proposed work

• Key concepts

• Previous work (yours and others)

• Funnel from general to specific

• Follow parallel organization

Other issues in the Introduction

• References – how many, which ones?

• The role of models

• The role of figures, data, schematic diagrams

• The physical layout

• Funnel to your objectives/hypotheses

Problems with References

• Too many, too few

• Too old

• Too many to yourself or your advisor

• Poorly placed

• Mis-cited

Research Plan

• Overview of design

• Objectives, hypotheses and methods

• Analysis of expected results

• Timetable

Important Points for Organizing

• Provide roadmaps• Use parallel language and organization• Repeat a bit but add detail as you go• Organize,Highlight, Focus, Funnel• Use headers• Vary sentence length• Don’t put reviewers to sleep; make

everything easy for them!

Experimental/Research Design

• Give enough but do not get bogged down in detail

• Questions reviewers want to know:

- are these the best methods for this question?

- are methods proven and cited?

- feasible?

- precision?

Plan for the Unexpected

• Discuss expected and unexpected outcomes

• Do not have a proposal that rests on a single outcome for its importance

• Suggestions:– Expected results & significance– Future direction– Related research

Timeline

• This is a reality check for you and the reviewers