1、 207-209 Mary Bucholtz Tips on writing grant/felowship proposals (and other research proposals) Mary Bucholtz (Department of Linguistics) bucholtzlinguistics.ucsb.edu 1. Start early. Proposal writing is extremely time-consuming, especialy when youre first starting out. Know exactly what you need to
2、supply, and line things up wel in advance. For an external granting agency such as NSF or the SRC, alow thre months or more to develop and revise your proposal. For shorter applications (e.g., UCSB funding) alow at least a month. 2. Know your granting agency. Read guidelines carefully and follow the
3、m. Use the appropriate specialist terminology (i.e., jargon) for the agency, which may be diferent from the jargon of your discipline. You need to be able to speak the language reviewers understandnever force them to adapt to your worldview. Most granting agencies for the social sciences have a stro
4、ng science orientation, so youre usualy safe in framing your proposal scientificaly, with discussion of hypotheses, methodology, data, and analysis. This style is more chalenging for interpretive and qualitative projects, but not impossible; just make clear that your methods are sound, appropriate,
5、and iluminating for your research question. Be aware that some granting agencies (e.g., Wenner-Gren) may reject science-style proposals, so read the guidelines carefully to ensure youre framing your project appropriately. 3. Be original, but not too original. Granting agencies are almost always a bi
6、t conservative by nature; they want to be sure that their money wil be wel spent. Your work should either use new theories/methods to investigate a familiar isue or should use familiar theories/methods to investigate a new isue, but if your proposal is either too new or too familiar, it wont be a go
7、od candidate for funding. Advisors can help you frame the project early on so you can develop an efective proposal. 4. Tel a good story. Design your proposal so that its clear that your project is the crucial next step in advancing knowledge: start broadly, foregrounding why the isue is important, h
8、ighlight gaps or weakneses in the existing literature (but do so cautiously; se item 10 below), and explain what new approach is needed and why. This approach, of course, should be the one youre taking. But avoid building suspense: within the first sentence or paragraph you should explicitly and bri
9、efly state the goals of the proposed study. This wil help the reviewers to follow the discussion. 5. Put your project at the center of your proposal. This is your opportunity to ofer your perspective on the field. Dont let other researchers agendas drive your discussion: focus on what maters for you
10、r study. In particular, one common mistake in grant proposals is to survey previous literature without clearly stating its relevance to the proposed study. Every detail you include should be explicitly tied to your project one way or another. And dont forget to cite your own previous research (e.g.,
11、 a masters thesis) if appropriate. 6. Sound more confident than you (probably) are. You should aim for an authoritative scholarly voice, not the voice of a tentative beginner (even if you fel like one). State your research plans with as much certainty as you reasonably can without hedging or qualify
12、ing, but never misrepresent the facts. Dont worry that youre promising to do a study that may turn out quite diferently from your description. Reviewers know that proposals are just that, not guarantes of what wil emerge from the research once you 2 actualy undertake it. Its expected that things may
13、 turn out a bit diferently, and often such surprises lead to the most important new ideas. Finaly, dont undermine your proposal by confesing what you se as weakneses in your plan; present the details in the most positive light possible and let the reviewers decide for themselves. 7. Be specific. The
14、 best way to convince reviewers of your competence is to incorporate as many specific details as you can about al aspects of the project. Your aim should be to offer support or evidence for everything you say. Since space is limited, each sentence should cary a great deal of information. Your propos
15、al should be extremely information-rich; inevitably, this means it wil be very dense reading, but thats the nature of the genre. To save space and keep the focus on your own research, introduce others work mainly through parenthetical references (or footnotes for humanities funding); strings of mult
16、iple citations help show the depth of your familiarity with the field. You should also cite several bodies of relevant literature, not just one. When describing your research context and design, include as many specific facts as possible: dates, numbers, locations, a detailed and realistic timeline
17、for your plan of work, and a clear justification for each of your budget items (the later is often a separate document, but if not, part of the proposal narative should mention the resources needed for the study). These details help reviewers to se that you know your research situation very wel and
18、have anticipated what you need to do to cary out the project succesfully. 8. Tel the reviewers who you are. The proposal should demonstratenot asertthat youre the best person to cary out this research. You should describe your qualifications for doing the proposed work in depth, but do so objectivel
19、y and leave evaluation to the reviewers. Dont be modest about your acomplishments, even if you dont fel that they amount to much (se item 6 above). Mention any special skils or experience you have that help prepare you to cary out the research (e.g., language skils, technical training). Selectively
20、cite and briefly describe your own previous research and make clear how the proposed project contributes to a coherent research agenda. 9. Be clear, explicit, and redundant. Reviewers often read quickly and cursorily; make sure they se the key information repeatedly and that its clearly explained an
21、d defined. Write in a simple, clear style (although your prose can be a bit more complex in the more humanistic fields), and dont aim for a more elevated style than youre comfortable with; it wil ring false. Dont asume that your proposal wil be read by a specialist in exactly your field, so briefly
22、define key terms. Dont asume that readers wil find key information buried in one paragraph of the proposal, but dont just repeat yourself mechanicaly, or it wil look as though you dont have much to say about your ideas. The best way to lay out key information is to introduce it briefly early in the
23、proposal, develop it at length in the body of the proposal, and then refer back to it in a later section. Come up with a few varied ways to refer to your core idea or isue, but with similar enough wording that readers wil easily recognize it as the same concept. 10. Be gentle in your critiques. You
24、never know who wil read your proposal, so dont say anything in the proposal that you wouldnt want the target of your critique to se. In general, avoid any explicit negative evaluation and describe any gaps or weakneses in a way that you think the author would view as a fair reading of their work. If
25、 anything, you should understate your criticism. Academics are adept at reading betwen the lines; theyl understand when you consider a particular study to be problematic. 3 11. Connect up to big isues and curent trends. Granting agencies understand the value of basic research (i.e., scholarship with
26、 no imediate applications to presing problems), but they stil want the research they fund to have some connection to current isues, not only in your field, but in academia broadly. Some agencies (e.g., NSF) also ask you to specify the broader impacts that your work wil have on society in general. Yo
27、u should state some plausible ways that your research contributes to both knowledge and the beterment of humanity, even if the benefits are somewhat tenuous or speculative. And if you can adjust your research plan to achieve such benefits more directly, this wil often enhance the projects fundabilit
28、y. 12. Look at some examples. The best way to learn to write a proposal is to look closely at a few succesful ones for the funding source to which youre applying. A number of funding sources make sample proposals available to applicants and some books on grant writing offer examples. The ideal sourc
29、e is peers or advisors who may be wiling to share their own recent, succesful proposals to similar agencies. 13. Get fedback from experienced grant writers/reviewers. This is not the time to cal on your peers; faculty wil be most helpful, especialy those who have recently received funding or who hav
30、e experience with reviewing proposals. Give them plenty of lead time (at least a month for a major proposal) in order to get detailed and high-quality fedback. Ask them to read it as a reviewer and to be as critical as possible. Then incorporate their suggestions. 14. Submit to as many sources as yo
31、u can, but adapt your proposal accordingly. Once youve done one grant proposal, its much easier to write the next one for the same project (as wel as for other projects). Since grant funding is very competitive, its wel worth applying to several funding agencies, but you should always adapt your pro
32、posal to the specific guidelines and concerns of each agency. This may mean reframing your project a bit, including diferent references, highlighting diferent angles, but the heart of the proposalthe actual research planshould not change. More resources for grant writing Przeworski, Adam, & Frank Sa
33、lomon (1995). “The Art of Writing Proposals: Some Candid Suggestions for Applicants to Social Science Research Council Competitions.” The title says it al. Also relevant for grant writing generaly. Chapin, Paul G. (2004). Research projects and research proposals: A guide for scientists seking fundin
34、g. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres. Despite the title, the book is aimed at researchers in the social sciences as wel as the sciences. The author is a former program director for the National Science Foundation. Locke, Lawrence F., Waneen Wyrick Spirduso, & Stephen J. Silverman (2007). Proposals that work: A guide for planning disertations and grant proposals. 5th ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Specificaly aimed at graduate students and scholars beginning their carer. Gives special atention to qualitative and more humanistic research.
