Effective Proposal Writing

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Effective Proposal Writing

• An excellent proposal consists of an exciting
  idea, well expressed with a clear indication of
  methods for testing the idea a means to make
  the findings known to all who need to know them.
• The Key Make your proposal be REWARDING to read
  so that it stands apart from the crowd

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Topics

• Choose your topic
• Know your Audience
• Break the proposal down into sections
• Analyze your reviews

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Topic Selection

• Sit down, take a deep breath and ask yourself
• What are you passionate about?
• How are you the best in the world? What makes you
  unique?
• Play your strengths
• Dont ever play the lottery

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Turning on the light

• sharp enough to make the content of the research
  clear what answer would be but not so narrow as
  to be un-interesting
• It can be regional, it cant be provincial
• Your proposal should make a NON-INCREMENTAL
  contribution to a BIG idea

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Getting off the ground

• Novel vs. Grounded
• Only truly novel work can make the kind of
  contribution to humanitys knowledge that merits
  the support of the peoples money (and, also,
  attention from your busy colleagues)
• It must also be grounded enough for reviewers to
  have confidence that the project is feasible

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Feasible

• Ooops
• Superconducting Super Collider
• Ocean Observatories Imitative (?)
• NEON (?)
• Proposals need to lie just at the threshold of
  feasibility.

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Fish or Fruit

• Avoid a fishing expedition
• Do search for low hanging fruit
• Dont just collect data and hope for the best
  have a question in mind even though, of course,
  the question will evolve once you know more.
• Your question should create I wish I thought of
  that! in your audience

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Your Audience

• Know your community!
• What are the BIG Questions?
• Be a reviewer
• Ask for informal reviews from your colleagues
• PARTICIPATE in meetings
• Discuss your ideas with your P.D.
• Panel/ad hoc ?

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ENTHUSIASM

• Panelists fund proposals they remember
• They remember what they enjoy
• They enjoy learning something new
• Thats easy Be a teacher!

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Sections of the Proposal

• Statement of problem its significance
• Background of knowledge
• Hypothesis
• Research Plan
• Expected Results

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Statement of the Problem its significance

• In the first page or two, gain the interest
  sympathy of your audience.
• Balance optimism confidence with modest
  understanding of its impact
• Be able to describe in a few sentences why we
  should care
• If you cant convince the people in this room
  that its exciting, keep working!

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Background of Knowledge

• Show the reader that you can teach them (an
  expert!) something interesting
• A complete discussion of some aspect of the
  problem
• Relevant
• Accessible
• Interesting
• REWARD the REVIEWER so that they WANT MORE

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Hypothesis

• A Concise description of a possible solution to
  the problem you have posed reviewed
• Craft this!
• Dont be trivial!
• Its possible to have an interesting/important
  question several possible answers
• What if youre developing a new technique? The
  same criteria apply
• GOALS ARE PLACED IN THE CONTEXT OF A CLEARLY
  DEFINED PROBLEM THAT WILL ADVANCE OUR KNOWLEDGE

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Research Plan

• A sequence of steps that lead directly to your
  goal
• This is often where reviewers find a fishing
  expedition. Avoid that!
• Any item that shows up in the budget needs to be
  part of this plan
• Everyone understands that the project may develop
  differently once more is learned still provide
  evidence that you will know what to do when the
  time comes

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Expected Results

• A clear promise regarding deliverables are
  particularly important to funding agencies
• It can, by necessity, be speculative, but it must
  contain a clear plan of dissemination of results
  an indication of how society will benefit from
  this expenditure of the peoples money

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After its written but before its submitted

• Read the announcement again
• What are the goals of the program?
• What are the review criteria?
• HIT THESE HARD

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Its back. Now what?

• Shelve it! (rant about the unfairness of it all,
  cry, secretly fear that you will never be able to
  do research again, curse the stupid reviewers,
  remember the colleague who walked passed you in
  the meeting without saying hi decide that youll
  write a nasty review yourself back)
• WALK AWAY

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Some time later analyze your reviews and ASK

• Was the review SUBSTANTIVE?
• No, if vague and brief
• well-qualified
• interesting
• experimental design wasnt clear
• Yes, if detailed
• leader in the field because of work which
  demonstrated (new paradigm)
• ground-breaking will test fundamental
  question
• horizontal resolution is inadequate to resolve
  the eddies which drive the circulation which
  advect the sediments

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Crushing Truth

• Its easier to write a substantive negative
  review than a detailed positive review
• Many reviewers give top scores but dont back
  up their sentiment with the words to support
  their rating
• WORDS matter far more than the score

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Fatal Flaws

• Examples
• Non-rotating Lab experiment
• Existing dataset is inadequate to address the
  question (square peg/round hole)
• The model/instrument is the tool you have rather
  than the right tool (Keep expanding your tool
  box!)
• Fatal Flaws are like cancer they require major
  surgery everyone recognizes the proposal is ill

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Presentation Errors

• Unclear what data will be used
• Unclear what the limitations of the instruments
  are
• Extraneous experiments that are not germane to
  the big question

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RESUBMIT (this is not a lottery)

• Talk to your Program Director!!!!
• This is NOT the same as resubmitting a paper
• Your reputation matters and every proposal you
  submit is putting your name out in your
  community. Be proud of your work stand by it
  DONT PLAY THE LOTTERY for feedback
• The majority of funded proposals are FIRST TIME
  submissions
• Beware of a dog

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Two Big Truths about research
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Research is an enjoyable privilege

• Most proposals fail not because of technical or
  discipline-specific issues but because they lack
  sparkle by which I mean
• Is the question significant? Are the results
  unambiguous? Are the techniques cutting-edge (or
  do they just happen to be what you know?)

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Relationships Matter

• A funded proposal a successful project depends
  on relationships between you your community,
  including your program director.
• Be a colleague with something to offer!