Tips for Applying for an NIH K

Last week, ORDE hosted an NIH K Panel seminar. K awards are NIH's mentored career development awards. Our panel was made up of K01, K23, and K99 awardees. As the discussion unfolded, the panel offered several good nuggets for those who are considering applying for a K award.

• Apply for smaller funding first: Work your way up; try applying for smaller grants to build your success.
• Write your application so it's broadly understandable: Make sure all the reviewers will get your research (some may not be experts in your area).
• Have a member of your mentoring team that specializes in every part of your project: For every method, technique, and approach have a known expert on your mentoring team.
• Start applying for your R award three years into your K: Don't wait till you're out of money to look for your next grant. Some K awards will even let you keep your K funding when you get your R.
• Show that your career path is different from your mentor's: Make sure your reviewers know that you and your research are unique and innovative.
• Look up your study section and guess who will be your primary reviewer and cite them: The NIH posts their study section members; you can figure out who will likely be assigned to be primary on your application so cater your writing to them.
• Include a timeline visual: It's not enough to write out your plan; put together a visual that shows your timeline.
• The best time to apply for a grant is when you've just published something great: Once you've published, the field will be abuzz with talk about your great work, so seize on that!

Always remember that the K grants are meant to take an early career scholar with lots of potential and provide them the mentoring and career development they need to be an independent researcher, which for the NIH means you are competitive for an R01 or like award. In all things, show them that you have that potential and that you will be successful with a little help from your K!

Resources:

Research Career Development Awards (K kiosk) - NIH

Ins and Outs of NIH Career Development Awards - Gregory Sempowski (Duke)

Overcoming Writer's Block

I'll be honest, I didn't feel like writing the blog today. I couldn't think of something new to write about. I had, not only writer's block, but I also had idea block or maybe thinker's block? As I mulled over what to write about it, dreading how all my ideas would just be things I've written about, I thought, "How do I get over this writer's block?" And, eureka! I have my blog topic. So, without further adieu, here are five ways to overcome writer's or thinker's block.

1. Just start writing
I realize that this is the most annoying tip, but for me, it's always the most useful. My writer's block often stems from my dreading the task of writing. I may not be sure I know what I want to write or my angle or I've been mulling things over a bit too long and have now moved into procrastination mode. In these situations, the best way out is often to just sit down and start writing. Whether you're free-writing or putting together an outline, just the act of writing can allow the wheels to start turning and the writing to start flowing.

2. Find an accountability partner
Many faculty I know, particularly early-career faculty find that having a thought partner or a writing group can give them the accountability they need to get writing. Having deadlines for yourself sometimes just can't get you writing, but sometimes being accountable to a colleague or colleagues is enough to get you to keep at it!

3. Read
There are those times when you are writing and you find yourself stuck or running out of steam. When this happens, sometimes you just need to do a bit more research to get yourself humming again. Sometimes finding more evidence for your work or even getting a sense of how others have structured their argument or developed their case can give you the fodder to keep you writing.

4. Take a walk
Sometimes staring at a screen when nothing is coming becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where the longer you sit there, the more lost or blocked you feel. Break this cycle by going for a walk or exercising. This can get your blood flowing, including to your brain. I've found that oftentimes I'm able to solve a puzzle, make a decision, or plan out a proposal or manuscript when I'm walking or running around.

5. Start drawing
When you're not sure where to go in your writing, sometimes creating an outline can help, and if you're not quite ready to outline, perhaps you're ready to start drawing. Create a mind map or conceptual diagram of your argument or all the pieces you can think of. This can help you decide what you want to include and the order in which you want to tackle all your points.

There is a theme that connects all of these strategies - the idea of switching it up. When you're able to look at a problem or your writer's block from a different situation, sometimes it helps you to see around it!

Resources:
How to Overcome Writer's Block - Goins, Writer
How to Overcome Writer's Block - reedsy

Making your writing easy to read

Your research is likely complex and/or complicated. But, when it comes to grant proposals, you need to write about your research simply. This can sometimes feel like an insurmountable feat. This blog today won't give you a silver bullet for boiling down your research, but I thought it would be useful to offer you some simple writing strategies that can aid you in making your writing easier to read.

Use white space: In grant proposals, everyone struggles with how to fit everything in and it's oh so tempting to move those margins and cut the white space from between your paragraphs to get in all those valuable words! But, there is a cost. Documents without white space are much harder to read and follow. So, always consider your reviewer and making it easy on them before you start filling every blank space on the page.

Don't justify the right margin: Many faculty hate this one; they just love to have a nice clean margin on the right as well as the left. However, research has shown that it's harder to read writing that is right-justified. Don't believe me? Try it yourself. Print out two copies of someone else's Project Overview or Specific Aims, one copy right-justified and the other with a jagged edge. See which one is easier to read/follow.

Break up long sentences: I always get annoyed when I'm writing and Word starts underlining sentences that it deems have gotten too long. Often, on further investigation, I realize that I have one run-on sentence that fills an entire paragraph. Oops! So, use the annoying Word cues to break up those long, sometimes slightly rambling thoughts.

Use headings: Headings are essential to orienting your reviewer to what they're going to be reading about in a particular section. But, they also help your reviewer navigate your proposal, particularly if they're jumping around the document.

Tell them before you tell them: Along with using clear and consistent headings, it is also helpful to preface your work with a few sentences that orient your reviewer to what you're going to describe. This will make it easier for them to follow your thoughts throughout a section.

Use images: Showing people instead of telling them something usually makes it easier to grasp, so if at any point you can create a clear and understandable figure or chart to demonstrate what you're saying, by all means, do it!

Pull out jargon: We've all had the experience where we're reading along and we come to an abbreviation, acronym, or term that we don't recognize. And if our author doesn't let us in on the definition, we will remain lost and without a crucial piece of the puzzle. To address this, try to replace jargon with more common language, and if you have to use technical terminology, define it upfront and use it consistently.

These relatively simple tactics are not a silver bullet, but they are fairly easy to implement to make your writing easier to read. So, try them out in your next proposal. Your reviewers will thank you for it!

Resources:
11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing - Dean Rieck
Improve the Readability of Your Writing in 60 Seconds - The Readable Blog