Grant writing a review of SSRC advice

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Grant writing a review of SSRC advice

• Professor Celis
• Arcadia University

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Note

• Much of the advice in these slides is parochial
  to grant writing. However, you will notice
  strong corollaries to certain other types of
  technical writing.

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The Art of Writing Proposals

• From Some candid suggestions for applicants to
  Social Science Research Council Competitions
  Przeworski (NYU) and Salomon (U Wisconsin)
• www.ssrc.org/artprop.htm

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Background Cognitive Cultural Aspects of Grant
Writing

• Idiosyncratic peculiarities of a certain culture
• But also general cognitive demands

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Culture

• Simply put, be hyper-aware of who you are writing
  for.
• More specifically, be cognizant of any
  conventions parochial to your audience/culture
  you are writing for. May be important to
  demonstrate mastery of these conventions.
• This includes, e.g., assumptions, terms that
  dont need to be spelled out for sake of
  exposition, formatting guidelines, etc.
• Note that issues of culture are often partially
  tacit, for a variety of reasons. For this
  reason, you are strongly advised to perform some
  investigation into these conventions before
  writing.

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Cognition

• Also be sensitive to more general cognitive
  demands your audience is subjected to.
• Is the audience an intelligent lay audience, a
  professional audience, or the general public?
  These may affect expectations about the sort of
  cognitive load they can reasonably be expected to
  bear.
• As far as you can predict, what will the
  circumstances of their reading your document be?

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Possible cognitive issues

• Incomprehension among disciplines
• Work overload
• Severely stressed attention span
• Polemic hostility (though less usual)
• Problem (in case of grant writing) of equitably
  judging proposals that reflect unlike social and
  academic circumstances

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Writing for an academic culture

• What is the function of a proposal?
• To persuade a committee of specialists not
  necessarily from your discipline that the
  project shines with three crucial values.
• These values largely arise out of an attempt to
  best manage the situation grant evaluators find
  themselves in (e.g. limited time)

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The Big 3 for proposals

• Conceptual innovation
• Methodological rigor
• Rich substantive content

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Capture your audience/reviewers attention by
making sure you answer these questions

• What are we going to learn as the result of the
  proposed project that we do not know now?
• Why is it worth knowing?
• How will we know that the conclusions are valid?

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Pound your value points in until their ears are
ringing

• Why? Because they may not read your entire
  document.
• Working through a tall stack of proposals on
  voluntarily-donated time, a committee member
  rarely has time to comb proposals for hidden
  answers. So, say what you have to say
  immediately, crisply, and forcefully. The opening
  paragraph, or the first page at most, is your
  chance to grab the reviewer's attention. Use it.
  This is the moment to overstate, rather than
  understate, your point or question. You can add
  the conditions and caveats later.

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Questions

• Questions that are clearly posed are an excellent
  way to begin a proposal
• Are strong party systems conducive to democratic
  stability?
• Was the decline of population growth in Brazil
  the result of government policies?
• Workers do not organize unions unions organize
  workers. The success, and failure, of Corazon
  Aquino's revolution stems from its middle-class
  origins.
• Population growth coupled with loss of arable
  land poses a threat to North African food
  security in the next decade.

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Think of how you want to be remembered

• Limits to this approach
• The Message

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Aim for clarity

• Remember you are likely writing for a mixed
  audience of intelligent laypersons or specialists
  from different areas (e.g. engineers and
  designers).
• You must meet these people halfway, and your
  prose must reflect this.
• The reward of a reviewer is often your
  lucidly-guided tour of a particular business or
  research frontier.

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Aim for clarity

• Avoid jargon, unless the jargon is in common
  circulation by all members of the audience even
  then, exercise caution. It is frequently helpful
  to at least explain your jargon early on.
• Argue ideas not lingo.
• Consider a glossary.

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Show why you are special

• What is special about your proposal?
• Why should you get money or the time of day?
• This must be pounded in.

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Background

• Be sure to exhibit your grasp of both the history
  and current state of the problem (where
  applicable e.g., any sort of pitch involving
  technical knowledge).
• This is also a convenient way to connect with
  your readers.
• For example state of the market, state of the
  literature.
• Consider a good bibliography if electronic,
  hyperlink. Or hyperlink to appendices or
  glossaries.

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What, ultimately, is the payoff?

• Your pitch should reflect this.
• It may answering one troubling question.
• It may a practical solution.
• It may be both.
• It may be a lot of money for investors (in the
  case of business proposal).
• It may be enhanced risk management with steady
  income (in case of business proposal).
• Be aware of different sorts of payoffs.

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Use a fresh rhetorical approach for pitches

• For example open with a provocative question.
• Or open with a surface contradiction.
• or an enigma.
• Consider challenging stereotypes.

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Use a fresh rhetorical approach for pitches

• Surprises, puzzles, and apparent contradictions
  can powerfully
• persuade the reviewer whose disciplinary superego
  enforces a
• commitment to systematic model building or formal
  theorizing
• "Given its long-standing democratic traditions,
  Chile was expected
• to return to democracy before other countries in
  the Southern Cone,
• and yet . . . Is it because these traditions were
  already extinct by
• 1973 or because the assumption on which this
  prediction was based
• is false?" "Everyone expected that "One Big
  Union"--the slogan of
• the movement--would strike and win wage increases
  for workers.
• Yet statistical evidence shows just the contrary
  strong unions do not
• strike but instead restrain workers' wage
  demands."

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(Culture) Be aware of the background of the
activity

• Show how your idea grows out of a certain
  familiar tradition but adds a productive twist.
• Show how you might be able to bring together
  diverse audiences / consumers.

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Describe your methodology

• Explicitly specify the methodological operations
  of your project.
• Discuss how you will interpret any results of
  these operations, or, e.g., how you will turn
  them into data or money.
• Do not just say what you mean to achieve tell
  how you will spend your time while doing it.
• Justify your methodology / lists of tasks. Why
  is your task list better than those already out
  there.
• Do not use vague expressions like looking at
  specify what looking at means in your project.

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Describe your methodology

• Be as specific as possible.
• Most proposals fail because they leave the
  reviewer lost as to what the person is actually
  proposing to do (as opposed to achieve).

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Ending your proposal

• Return to original theme.
• Consider hammering in your core 3 values.
• How will your research procedures and their
  products finally connect with the central
  question?
• How will you know if the ideas was right or
  wrong, or can you tell at all (some indeterminacy
  may be ok, depending on culture).

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Sample

• Sample Anger Management Project