[null, {"document_url": "http://gblog2.academicladder.com/2012_11_01_archive.html", "unformatted_src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-afIq4MjJhWw/ULbkXAqJNzI/AAAAAAAAANg/_s8BHh1-CVs/s1600/teachers.jpg", "src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-afIq4MjJhWw/ULbkXAqJNzI/AAAAAAAAANg/_s8BHh1-CVs/s1600/teachers.jpg", "formatted_filename": "teachers"}, null, null, null]

What it's like to be a grant reviewer (and how to make your reviewer's life better) As you develop your next grant, I'd like to ask you one thing: have you really considered what it's like to be your grant reviewer?

Most grant writers don't give that nearly enough thought. They write as if they're submitting their proposal to some big, anonymous "machine" at the other end that simply sorts, collates, and ranks proposals.  But it is not a machine. There are real humans involved, and what you say, how you say it, and how you present yourself have a lot to do with how you make those humans feel.

How you make your readers feel has a lot to do with whether they're going to support your grant or not.

Yeah, I know, we academics aren't supposed to talk about feelings. That sounds woo-woo and touchy-feely.  It's not proper.

That is why most writers overlook this most basic of human phenomena, which drives nearly all of our day-to-day decisions… decisions that include whether to support your grant … or not! Yes, feelings….

Let's talk about what it feels like to be a reviewer.

After your job is done, your reviewer's job just begins. Your reviewer must slog through a whole big pile of grants (including yours), and pick out the one or two gems to fight for at study section or review panel meeting.

The one they pick is, ultimately, just a "gestalt" or a "feeling" about which one is most interesting, exciting, and compelling (versus those that are not). You have to make it easy on them to get this gestalt, without putting a whole bunch of barriers in their way.

That's what most people do. By writing a deadly serious, overly fact-ridden proposal, you put up barriers between your proposal and your reviewer. The more barriers, the more likely it is that you'll push the reviewer in the opposite direction of thinking yours is the most compelling proposal.

A fantastic proposal is transparent. What do I mean by that?

I mean that the writing doesn't get in the way of the story.

Think about a great movie or a great novel. When you encounter one of those, the fact that you're in a movie theater, or sitting with a book in your hands, becomes irrelevant. It becomes a personal interaction between you and the characters in the story. You feel that you're immersed in it.

The medium becomes transparent.

It's the same way with a great proposal. While only a few, rare grant writers can achieve this, when they do, the results are phenomenal. Especially when that kind of transparency is mixed with a great project.

How can you do this? Well, I've spent years teaching people like you how to do this, using every way I know how. I can only scratch the surface here, with some key pointers and reminders.

First, remember that your reader doesn't care about all the little details you feel compelled to put into your proposal. Why are you giving them all of those facts?

Usually, it's to prove that you know what you're doing.Your reader doesn't care about most of those details. She only cares about a few questions: Is the project interesting? Is it relevant? Is it feasible? Are you capable? Is it more interesting that the other proposals in the pile?

No amount of fact spewing is going to make up for a missing or poorly explained "why is this proposal interesting and important?" No amount of "proof" is going to convince them that your proposal is more interesting than others in their stack.

Worse, too much fact, acronym, and buzzword spewing is going to have the opposite effect of that which you want. All that does is serve to make your message more opaque. When your message becomes more opaque, your score sinks.

It really is that simple.

Yet, time and again, that's what I see people doing. I see "top-heavy" proposals where the writer feels that they need to jump right into the nitty-gritty details of the project, long before they've got the reader on board about "why is this interesting?"

So, you might say, how can I be more transparent? Here are some quick pointers to achieving this.

Beyond the issue of clarity, I just want to hit on the sleep thing for a moment.

It is tempting to miss lots of sleep as you come up on a grant deadline. Realize that if you get too far into sleep deficiency, you're going to start moving backwards. You cannot think nor write clearly after you've missed too much sleep for a few nights in a row. You'll make mistakes, and you'll work more slowly. Just don't do it. Instead, make sleep a priority, and exclude other activities - especially those that can wait until after you write and submit a great grant. Sleep will not wait for that.

I wish you all the best of success with your next grant proposal!

By Morgan Giddings, PhD

posted by Gina Hiatt, Ph.D. @ 8:14 PM   0 comments links to this post 


Check Out My Web Site!