Compelling Writing
for Persuasive Grants
Dianne Donnelly, Ph.D.
USF Associate Director of FYC, Grant
Writer/Reviewer/Workshop Leader
Published Scholarly Writer, Creative Writing Pedagogy
ddonnelly@usf.edu
The Stakes
Funding Rates Reflect
Competitive Climate
"To maintain our edge . . . we've got to protect our
rigorous peer review system and ensure that we
only fund proposals that promise the biggest bang
for taxpayer dollars . . . that's what's going to
maintain our standards of scientific excellence for
years to come."
Remarks by President Barack Obama on the 150th
Anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences,
April 29, 2013
Why is Compelling Grant Writing
So Important?
• Committees review
many grants
• Even in times of
plenty, there are more
meritorious
applications than can
be paid
• Reviewers are very busy
people with limited time
to make the case for
your grant
Positioned for Success:
The Grant Process
Crafting the Compelling Story
Academic Writing
Focus: aligns with
priorities of
agency/grant
program
Past-Oriented:
completed research
Future-Oriented:
Research plan
Audience: Likediscipline peers
Audience: PO’s &
both narrowly &
broadly defined
peers
Specialized
Terminology
(“inside jargon”)
Accessible
language (broader
audience)
Grant Writing
Focus: on scholarly
pursuits of writer
Allocation of Time
•
•
•
•
•
Approximately 1500 person hours/year
120 hours/grant *
360 hours/year for 3 grants
360/1500 = 24% dedicated to grant writing
1.9 hours/day dedicated to grant writing
* Grant writing also informs your teaching,
publishing, and presentation efforts
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect
• When we learn a new skill, we’re changing the way our
brain is wired on a deep level.
• In order to perform any kind of task, we have to activate
various portions of our brain through practice.
• Our practice helps the brain optimize for this set of
coordinated activities, through a process called
myelination.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect
• The QUANTITY of grant writing practice is important to
improving your skill but so is the QUALITY of the
practice—do it often and do it effectively – perfect grant
writing practice makes perfect.
• Practicing skills over time causes specific neural pathways
to work better.
Persuasive Grant Writing
Knowing Your Audience
• Panelists (experts) vs.
ad hoc
• Interdisciplinary vs.
multidisciplinary
• Fair vs.
prejudicial/biased
Thinking Like a Reviewer
• Readability is the key
• Assume the audience is
well-educated, but don’t
assume topical knowledge
• Aim the application at
both the expert and the
generalist – a wider
breadth of audience
• Write in a single voice, so
the proposal is a coherent,
well-integrated story
• Make sure terms are well
defined when you use
them
Knowing What Reviewers Want
• WHAT are you
proposing to do?
• WHY is this
important?
• Can YOU do it?
NIH Review Criteria
• Overall Impact: “sustained powerful influence on the
research field”
• Score Review Criteria:
• Significance: “how will scientific knowledge, technical
capability, and/or clinical practice be improved?”
• Investigator: qualifications, experience, credibility
• Innovation: “novel theoretical concepts, approaches
or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions?”
• Approach: “overall strategy, methodology, and
analyses well-reasoned and appropriate to accomplish
the specific aims of the project”
• Environment: facilities, equipment & institutional
support
NIH Peer Review Revealed
What Makes a Grant Compelling?
• It tells a persuasive
story
• Clear, concise,
confident, cohesive
• Evidence-based
• Follows guidelines
• Guides the reader
• Objectives are
measurable
• Investigator is credible
• Timelines are
reasonable
• Visuals propel the
story forward
• Considers its audience
Craft a Compelling Story
• Start with an appealing, magnetizing title that stays in the
mind of the reader
• Begin with the pitch: Sell your idea!
• Get and keep the attention of reviewers at the onset
• Identify the importance – stress the need
• Don’t bury important information
• State your solution
• Describe the concept
• Establish credibility
• Describe your project’s purpose
• Create a Vision
• Show how your work will advance the field
Goals and Objectives
• Formulate specific, measurable objectives
• Goal: general statement of the project’s overall
purpose(s)
• “Our aim with this innovative curriculum is to
improve the supply of graduates with National
Registry certification.”
• Objective: A specific, measurable outcome or
milepost
• “At least 90 per cent of course graduates will pass
the National Registry Examination”
Crafting the Compelling Story
• Compel reviewers to read your proposal more carefully.
• Create conflict – what is and what is not or what is and
what should be, or could be
• Balance between clarity and depth
Delivery, Design, Documentation
• Delivery (following the guidelines, guiding your
reader, presenting confidence, and providing
concision, cohesion, clarity)
• Design (conveying visual messages)
• Documentation (delivering facts & evidence)
Delivery – Following Guidelines
• Organize to meet expectations of guidelines and
review criteria
• In fact, use headings with exact wording from
grant guidelines
Delivery: Guiding the Reader
• Use topic sentences that both introduce and
summarize the info in a paragraph
• Bold section headers and subheaders and critical
components to guide your readers.
• Propel your message forward with your visuals
and captions.
Delivery: Concision
• Incorporate Direct, Concise Language
• “The PI of this grant application has engaged in pilot work that
tracked students throughout the chemistry degree path based on
participation in a PLTL first semester general chemistry course.”
• “In a previous pilot study, the PI of this proposal tracked those
students across their chemistry degree path who had completed a
first semester general chemistry course that used a PLTL
approach.”
Delivery: Concision
• Incorporate Direct, Concise Language
• “However, GBS offers an order of magnitude more fragments to
characterize the genome (e.g. tens to hundreds of thousands).”
• “However, instead of hundreds of fragments resolved from
AFLP, GBS typically provides 20,000-50,000 fragments to
characterize the genome (Narum et al. 2013).”
• Consider Brevity (the fewer words it takes to convey the
information, the better)
Delivery: Cohesion
• Simplify sentences – break up long sentences, but keep an
interesting rhythm to avoid choppy, staccato sentences
• Vary future tense (“We will”). For example, We plan to ….The
project aims to…I propose to…
• Construct parallel structure – create expressions of similar
content and construction. For example, (written as an aim),
“Immobilization of enzymes into mesoMOFs and evaluate the
performances of enzymes…
• Immobilization of enzymes into mesoMofs and evaluation of
their performances in enzymatic catalysis.
Delivery: Confidence
• Use active verbs
• For example, "It has been reported by the NIH that the India
proposal was found to be complex," becomes, in the active
voice: "The NIH found the India proposal complex.“
• Sound confident, but not arrogant
• Global warming is an on-going problem; the world needs to
learn more about how global warming works and what the
consequences are. Then we can combat global warming.
• The project proposes a series of experiments and models that
will expose how global warming works and what
consequences exist. This research will lead to better ways to
combat global warming.
Delivery: Confidence
• Use power packed
words/phrases
• provide, prepare, direct,
significant, empowering,
catalyst
• Vary your sentence
structure and word choices
• complex, compound,
simple
• Craft concrete “visual”
language
• Limit adjectives and
adverbs
• Watch clichéd words
• state of the art, in the
final analysis, think
outside the box, in the
current climate, etc.
Delivery: Clarity
• Subject Verb Disagreement
• In addition, the rigor associated with STEM disciplines and the
cost to benefit ratio associated with pursuing studies in the
disciplines plays a significant role in decisions to persist.
• In addition, the rigor associated with STEM disciplines and the
cost-to-benefit ratio associated with pursuing studies in the
disciplines play a significant role in decisions to persist.
• In addition, the rigor associated with STEM disciplines along with
(or as well as) the cost-to-benefit ratio associated with pursuing
studies in the disciplines plays a significant role in decisions to
persist.
• Make pronoun usage clear rather than vague or ambiguous
Your Turn: Change
Passive to Active
• It has been demonstrated by research
that….
• The SAP Program is being implemented by
our department this year.
• Following administration of the third
dosage, measurements will be taken.
Informational Design
• Figures, Images, Arrows, & Tables help show the flow of
ideas/aims, highlight important points, & convey your
thinking and approach
• Make it easier for reviewers to understand your ideas and
appreciate the immediate visual impact
• Connect the graphic to the aims of the proposal
• Convey the amount of time and effort that was put into the
grant proposal
• Establish the “identity of the project” by broadening the
medium that the project is being viewed in
Informational Design
• Note the following in visuals:
• What’s in the figure?
• Explanation of any artifacts in the figure
• The concept/problem the figure addresses (why is the
figure included?)
• Label all axes in tables and graphs – show if a low or
high number is good and why
• Be careful of boxes. If possible, leave the sides open so the
reader has visual entry.
Informational Design
Informational Design:
Concept Figures
Figure 2. Framework of the
proposed integrative SWFBIS
research and education program.
The SWFBIS study seeks new
insights on the understanding of
BI sustainability through interdisciplinary research on the
coupled human-natural BI
systems. The SWFBIS program
integrates 4 research aspects,
including physical-geologic
processes, ecosystem functions
and services, social-political
dynamics, and engineeringinfrastructure vulnerability.
Documentation
LOIs and Letter Proposals
• Speak to WHY you, WHY this grant
• Write succinctly – brevity is key
• From 15 pages to 1, 3 or 5 pages
• Not an abstract of a full grant
• Avoid technical jargon and acronyms
• Bold statement of positive language
• Know and define your purpose
Letters of Inquiry
& Letter Proposals
• Triage – selective LOIs
• Gauge response – all LOIs move forward
• Know the art of the elevator speech
•
•
•
•
Form a clear introduction
Tell a story
Hook your reader
Conclude with a call to action
Typical LP/LOI Structure
• Project Title – descriptive, impactful, succinct
• Project Summary (Opening paragraph)
• Project Description – systematic, foundationspeak, assertive
• Summary budget – Clear, reasonable,
competitive
Project Summary
• Third-person description of objectives, methods,
significance.
• 1 page limit
• Be sure to include and label a section on
Intellectual Merit and a section on Broader
Impact.
Project Description
• Page limit awareness
• A broader theoretical framework that works down
to one or a few focal questions
• A well-specified, scientifically sound research
plan to test answers to the focal questions
• Clear and believable statements regarding
prospective intellectual merit and broader impacts
• A sound management plan and descriptions of
who will do what work
ACTIVITY: 10-15 mins.
• Consider your current project or research interest
• Pitch your idea. Why you and not another
investigator? Persuade me to fund you idea. What
would result if you were funded?
• State your purpose and case for need up front; build a
compelling argument
• “This proposal aims to …
• Write your objective section.
• Share with your colleague(s)
Intellectual Merit
• Why is your research important for the
advancement of your field?
• Questions
•
•
•
•
What is already known?
What is new?
What will your research add?
What will this do to enhance or enable research in your
field or the field of others?
Use Short Summary Statements
to Help Reviewer
• This work is important because …
• The investigators are well qualified on the
basis of their background and experience…
• The most creative aspect of the proposal
work is…
• There are potentially transformative aspects
of the proposed work, which if successful,
could…
ACTIVITY: 10 - 15 mins.
• Develop your Intellectual Merit section
• How is your work going to advance knowledge
in your field?
• Speak to your qualification as a PI
• Are you addressing gaps in the knowledge
base? Do you have evidence of that gap?
• Share with your colleague(s) This work is
important because…
Broader Impact
ACTIVITY: 10-15 mins.
• Review the NSF Broader Impact Review
Criterion in your handout.
• In pairs, try to develop a broader impact(s)
that thematically extends beyond your
particular research study.
Thank You!
Resources
• Stay current with the research news and what’s trending at the
federal funding agencies… one way is through GUIRR, the
Government University Industry Research Roundtable
• The Foundation Center posts the text of its Proposal Writing Short
Course.
• The University of Michigan hosts a useful Proposal Writer’s
Guide.
• The Human Frontiers Science Program posts its monograph on
the Art of Grantsmanship.
• This ACLS article outlines the essentials of proposal writing for
fellowship competitions.
• Michigan State University has a listing with links to over 100
proposal guides, including ones that focus on specific disciplines or
on applications to specific agencies and organizations.
Resources
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