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