A couple of weeks ago, we had our last e-seminar of the spring semester. But, in case you missed it or any of our other seminars this year, you can now find recordings for most on our Vimeo page. We've had some good ones this year, so I wanted to highlight my favorites and encourage you to check them out!
Grant-Writing for the Layperson (Non-expert)
In this seminar, Rachel Sturtz, our resident Research Communications Specialist and Journalist, and I offer strategies for making your grant writing more accessible and easier to read. We offer examples from NIH and NSF proposals and workshop these examples to demonstrate how they could be written more clearly. We offer little tips for implementing these best practices into your own grant writing.
Grant Writing Symposium
Our Fall 2019 Grant Writing Symposium on the Anschutz Medical Campus was like three seminars in one - and so is the video. It begins with me giving an overview of the grant development cycle. Then, Adit Ginde, Professor in the School of Medicine, offers points on how to engage and work with Program Officers to hone your proposal. Jennifer Kemp, Director of Research in the Department of Medicine, offers strategies for crafting a competitive Specific Aims page. Andrew Thorburn, Professor in the School of Medicine closes with a presentation on 'What Reviewers Really Want."
These seasoned faculty members offer clear strategies in these key aspects of grant development, as well as their own personal experiences and insights to help you build your grants game!
Revising and Resubmitting Your Grant Proposal
In this seminar, Jean Scandlyn, Associate Professor in Health and Behavioral Sciences and I discuss how to accept feedback from reviewers (even when it comes with rejection) and use it, along with your Program Officer's advice to revise and resubmit a more robust and competitive proposal.
Stay tuned for our upcoming e-seminars, but in the meantime, catch up on some oldies but goodies!
Resources:
ORDE highlighted seminar recordings
ORDE Vimeo page
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Friday, May 22, 2020
Summer is coming
Summer is coming...and for many, it's here. But, what does summer even mean amidst stay-at-home or safer-at-home, and most likely, work from home mandates? The good news is that even when you're stuck at home, summer goes fast. The bad news is that even when you're stuck at home, summer goes fast. By my calculation, we have 13 weeks before the start of the Fall 2020 semester at CU. And, at risk of repeating a cliche, given these uncertain and unpredictable times, it's important to strategize, even when you feel like doing anything but.
Below, are things to consider as you look to the summer and trying to build and maintain your health and positive mindset, but also begin to think about re-crafting your research agenda given the current climate.
Take a Break
Particularly if you've been in the throes of moving courses online quickly for the spring semester, and even if you haven't, you've likely been in the throes of everything else, you need to take a break from work. So, give yourself that! Set down the courses, papers, proposals, reviews, etc. and rest. You won't find any productivity if you burn out.
Go back to your long-term goal
Once you've properly rested, chances are you have some reconfiguring to do. How is your research agenda being affected by COVID and how do you anticipate it will be affected moving forward? To plan through this barrier, it's good to think back to your long-term research goal. Likely your overarching research objective is still the same, but perhaps how you'll get there will change or you need to take more time to get there. Being realistic about what's possible will help you to hone in on where your focus should be this summer.
Set summer goals
Once you've honestly reassessed your research agenda, identify what benchmarks are reasonable for you to make steps forward during the summer. What can you do so you are feeling strong and prepared to continue moving forward in the fall? Maybe now is a time to get your articles submitted and to start doing the footwork for planning for your next grant proposal. Maybe COVID has presented a research opportunity and you can continue with your research in a slightly different direction.
Create a schedule
Once you've identified what might be reasonable for you this summer, create a schedule. You might want to start off just trying to write an hour a day and then gradually increase that to about three hours a day. Make sure that you stick to your schedule and find a place to work that you can focus. Once you have your schedule and your place, continue your routine to build your habits. I'm reminded of Steven King's habits of sitting in the same place every day, having a glass of water and taking a vitamin. He does these simple things ritually to let his mind and body know that it's time to write. Try building these sorts of habits.
If you miss a goal, let it go
Although these habits and repetitive scheduling can help you to be productive, it's important to not let it be the determiner of your success. For instance, if you're not able to meet a goal or not able to write for a full hour one day, let it go, and come back the next day. And, don't try to force yourself to make up for it by writing twice as much the next day, just let it go and carry on.
Remember, in all, be patient with yourself and your loved ones. Your research will move forward and be great; it just might look a little different.
Resources:
Time Well Spent: How Researchers Can Stay Productive in the Time of COVID-19 - Deborah Watkins Bruner
Harness Your Clean Slate Moment - Katelyn Knox
Planning a Productive Summer - The Chronicle of Higher Education
No More Post-Summer Regret - InsideHigherEd
Below, are things to consider as you look to the summer and trying to build and maintain your health and positive mindset, but also begin to think about re-crafting your research agenda given the current climate.
Take a Break
Particularly if you've been in the throes of moving courses online quickly for the spring semester, and even if you haven't, you've likely been in the throes of everything else, you need to take a break from work. So, give yourself that! Set down the courses, papers, proposals, reviews, etc. and rest. You won't find any productivity if you burn out.
Go back to your long-term goal
Once you've properly rested, chances are you have some reconfiguring to do. How is your research agenda being affected by COVID and how do you anticipate it will be affected moving forward? To plan through this barrier, it's good to think back to your long-term research goal. Likely your overarching research objective is still the same, but perhaps how you'll get there will change or you need to take more time to get there. Being realistic about what's possible will help you to hone in on where your focus should be this summer.
Set summer goals
Once you've honestly reassessed your research agenda, identify what benchmarks are reasonable for you to make steps forward during the summer. What can you do so you are feeling strong and prepared to continue moving forward in the fall? Maybe now is a time to get your articles submitted and to start doing the footwork for planning for your next grant proposal. Maybe COVID has presented a research opportunity and you can continue with your research in a slightly different direction.
Create a schedule
Once you've identified what might be reasonable for you this summer, create a schedule. You might want to start off just trying to write an hour a day and then gradually increase that to about three hours a day. Make sure that you stick to your schedule and find a place to work that you can focus. Once you have your schedule and your place, continue your routine to build your habits. I'm reminded of Steven King's habits of sitting in the same place every day, having a glass of water and taking a vitamin. He does these simple things ritually to let his mind and body know that it's time to write. Try building these sorts of habits.
If you miss a goal, let it go
Although these habits and repetitive scheduling can help you to be productive, it's important to not let it be the determiner of your success. For instance, if you're not able to meet a goal or not able to write for a full hour one day, let it go, and come back the next day. And, don't try to force yourself to make up for it by writing twice as much the next day, just let it go and carry on.
Remember, in all, be patient with yourself and your loved ones. Your research will move forward and be great; it just might look a little different.
Resources:
Time Well Spent: How Researchers Can Stay Productive in the Time of COVID-19 - Deborah Watkins Bruner
Harness Your Clean Slate Moment - Katelyn Knox
Planning a Productive Summer - The Chronicle of Higher Education
No More Post-Summer Regret - InsideHigherEd
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Don't bury the lede
At our e-seminar last week, we offered many tips on grant writing for a lay audience. One of these, was "don't bury the lede." Now, before you think that I don't know how to spell "lead," I'll tell you that 'lede' is the spelling that journalists use to talk about the lead. Apparently, they wanted to have their own special way of saying 'lead' or 'lede,' so there you have it.
But, although burying the lede is an age-old journalistic warning, it is also an age-old mistake made in grant writing. To bury the lede in your grant writing is to lose the main point of your proposal, to make it difficult for your reviewer to find what your project is all about. This happens particularly when you're trying to describe your project in a proposal and don't take the time to step back and ask why does my work matter? And, more importantly, why does it matter to the funding agency and the reviewers? So below, I offer some strategies to consider for your next grant proposal so that you don't bury your lede.
Show how bad the problem is (or how big the opportunity is)
Oftentimes, PIs forget to communicate how big the problem is that their research is confronting. For researchers focused on a big problem day in and day out, we sometimes forget that not everybody knows how big it is. So, it's our job to spell out the big problem and show how big it is. Offer numbers to quantify how many lives are affected or how much money is wasted. Bring your reviewers along your line of reasoning and be explicit about the why of your research.
State your project goal in the first few sentences
I've seen proposals where the PI does a fantastic job explaining how dire a situation is and setting themselves up for why their research needs to be done. But then, they forget to tell us exactly what their research project is about in the Specific Aims or Project Overview. This can be a fatal flaw. Reviewers are usually reviewing many proposals at a time and trying to get a sense for what they're about quickly. We need to help them out by stating what the research project is we're proposing in the first few sentences. It's great to set up your problem, but make sure you cue your reviewers into the solution as well and don't make them hunt for it.
Bold/highlight wisely
Bolding, underlining, and italicizing can be a nice way of highlighting the goal, hypothesis, or aims in your proposal, but it doesn't take a whole lot to overdo it and instead create a sort of bolded/highlighted soup where your reviewer isn't sure where to look. To avoid this, make sure you're selective about what stands out, and also make sure you're highlighting the important text not the text saying it's important. I've reviewed proposals before where the writer wrote something along the lines of "This objective is very important." Now, I don't think it's a great practice to say something is "very important" in your proposal. If however, there is something worth bolding, bold that information instead of the text that says it's important.
Researchers often want to share a lot of important information all at once, but take your time to identify what your reviewer needs to know first and foremost, focus on that, and don't distract them from it.
Resources:
Grant Writing for the Layperson - ORDE e-seminar recording
The Anatomy of a Specific Aims Page - Bioscience Writers
How to Write Goals and SMART Objectives for your Grant Proposal - Joanne Fritz
But, although burying the lede is an age-old journalistic warning, it is also an age-old mistake made in grant writing. To bury the lede in your grant writing is to lose the main point of your proposal, to make it difficult for your reviewer to find what your project is all about. This happens particularly when you're trying to describe your project in a proposal and don't take the time to step back and ask why does my work matter? And, more importantly, why does it matter to the funding agency and the reviewers? So below, I offer some strategies to consider for your next grant proposal so that you don't bury your lede.
Show how bad the problem is (or how big the opportunity is)
Oftentimes, PIs forget to communicate how big the problem is that their research is confronting. For researchers focused on a big problem day in and day out, we sometimes forget that not everybody knows how big it is. So, it's our job to spell out the big problem and show how big it is. Offer numbers to quantify how many lives are affected or how much money is wasted. Bring your reviewers along your line of reasoning and be explicit about the why of your research.
State your project goal in the first few sentences
I've seen proposals where the PI does a fantastic job explaining how dire a situation is and setting themselves up for why their research needs to be done. But then, they forget to tell us exactly what their research project is about in the Specific Aims or Project Overview. This can be a fatal flaw. Reviewers are usually reviewing many proposals at a time and trying to get a sense for what they're about quickly. We need to help them out by stating what the research project is we're proposing in the first few sentences. It's great to set up your problem, but make sure you cue your reviewers into the solution as well and don't make them hunt for it.
Bold/highlight wisely
Bolding, underlining, and italicizing can be a nice way of highlighting the goal, hypothesis, or aims in your proposal, but it doesn't take a whole lot to overdo it and instead create a sort of bolded/highlighted soup where your reviewer isn't sure where to look. To avoid this, make sure you're selective about what stands out, and also make sure you're highlighting the important text not the text saying it's important. I've reviewed proposals before where the writer wrote something along the lines of "This objective is very important." Now, I don't think it's a great practice to say something is "very important" in your proposal. If however, there is something worth bolding, bold that information instead of the text that says it's important.
Researchers often want to share a lot of important information all at once, but take your time to identify what your reviewer needs to know first and foremost, focus on that, and don't distract them from it.
Resources:
Grant Writing for the Layperson - ORDE e-seminar recording
The Anatomy of a Specific Aims Page - Bioscience Writers
How to Write Goals and SMART Objectives for your Grant Proposal - Joanne Fritz
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Much ado about jargon
I often discuss the importance of cutting out jargon in your grant proposals. But, I also think that many PIs that I work with really aren't sure if that's possible for them. And, in truth, many researchers need to use jargon to discuss their work even in a grant proposal. However, chances are they can still cut some out.
Before I go on, what the heck are we talking about when we discuss jargon? Out of curiosity, I went to Merriam Webster to see the definitions:
the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group
obscure and often pretentious language marked by circumlocutions and long words
They list other definitions and synonyms but suffice it to say that jargon, is hard-to-understand words and terminology. This means that what constitutes jargon actually changes depending on who you're speaking to or writing for. This is reason 543 why it's important to know who you're writing for, who is your audience?
So, given that what is jargon changes based on what language is easily accessible to your audience, here are some ways to identify, cull, or at least mediate your jargon.
When in doubt, use an alternative:
Even when you read a piece of technical terminology in your proposal that you think, "probably all the reviewers will understand that," it's probably a phrase that's not worth the risk. Instead, consider spelling out what you're trying to say with the phrase in question. This is particularly the case if you're not using the jargon in question extensively in your proposal. Say it in a simpler, clearer way. For example, one day I emailed some feedback on a proposal, saying "I worry about these proposals taking a deficit perspective." The recipient of my note wrote back to say he didn't understand what I meant by deficit perspective. I replied that it "refers to looking at minoritized people as a problem." I could have saved us both some time and some annoyance on his part if I'd just spelled it out at the start.
Define it, define it again, and use it consistently:
Many researchers can't avoid the use of some jargon; I'm thinking particularly about health research or Dark Matter research. There are a host of technical terms related to the body or physics that I'm not going to learn any time soon. And, certainly, if these researchers can describe the processes they're focused on in simpler language, by all means! But, chances are that all of the reviewers will understand most of the terminology needed to adequately describe the research. In these cases, when you can't get around the jargon, define it. While you always want to define the term the first time you use it, you may want to define it again in other sections of your proposal. Re-defining is a good practice because it reminds people of your definition, but also reviewers tend to flip around to different sections of your proposal and read them out of order. So, if it's a phrase they might not know, give them ample opportunities to understand it. And, once you've defined it, use it consistently. Make sure that you don't slip into other uses of a phrase that you've defined one way, or you'll quickly confuse your reviewer.
Rethink abbreviations and acronyms:
I'm not sure why, but in academia, folks love acronyms. Some are good at making acronyms, like the NSF with their EAGER and INCLUDES grants, and many are not very good at it. As a reminder, the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation is you pronounce an acronym as a word, and for an abbreviation, you say each letter, e.g., FBI. The trouble is when you start to give too many things an abbreviation or an acronym, your proposal begins to look like alphabet soup. Your reviewer cannot be expected to continue going back to the first time you spelled something out to remember what it meant for every other word. And, if you do expect them to, they're likely going to get annoyed with you and your proposal right quick! So, even though making abbreviations for things makes them feel official or saves you space, try not to do it, and definitely not in abundance!
It's important to bear these pointers in mind as you decide what is jargon in your proposal, but it's also a good idea to have multiple internal reviewers look at your proposal before submission to make sure they easily understand the terminology you're using.
Resources:
Writing a proposal they will want to read
The most overused words in grant writing
Before I go on, what the heck are we talking about when we discuss jargon? Out of curiosity, I went to Merriam Webster to see the definitions:
the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group
obscure and often pretentious language marked by circumlocutions and long words
They list other definitions and synonyms but suffice it to say that jargon, is hard-to-understand words and terminology. This means that what constitutes jargon actually changes depending on who you're speaking to or writing for. This is reason 543 why it's important to know who you're writing for, who is your audience?
So, given that what is jargon changes based on what language is easily accessible to your audience, here are some ways to identify, cull, or at least mediate your jargon.
When in doubt, use an alternative:
Even when you read a piece of technical terminology in your proposal that you think, "probably all the reviewers will understand that," it's probably a phrase that's not worth the risk. Instead, consider spelling out what you're trying to say with the phrase in question. This is particularly the case if you're not using the jargon in question extensively in your proposal. Say it in a simpler, clearer way. For example, one day I emailed some feedback on a proposal, saying "I worry about these proposals taking a deficit perspective." The recipient of my note wrote back to say he didn't understand what I meant by deficit perspective. I replied that it "refers to looking at minoritized people as a problem." I could have saved us both some time and some annoyance on his part if I'd just spelled it out at the start.
Define it, define it again, and use it consistently:
Many researchers can't avoid the use of some jargon; I'm thinking particularly about health research or Dark Matter research. There are a host of technical terms related to the body or physics that I'm not going to learn any time soon. And, certainly, if these researchers can describe the processes they're focused on in simpler language, by all means! But, chances are that all of the reviewers will understand most of the terminology needed to adequately describe the research. In these cases, when you can't get around the jargon, define it. While you always want to define the term the first time you use it, you may want to define it again in other sections of your proposal. Re-defining is a good practice because it reminds people of your definition, but also reviewers tend to flip around to different sections of your proposal and read them out of order. So, if it's a phrase they might not know, give them ample opportunities to understand it. And, once you've defined it, use it consistently. Make sure that you don't slip into other uses of a phrase that you've defined one way, or you'll quickly confuse your reviewer.
Rethink abbreviations and acronyms:
I'm not sure why, but in academia, folks love acronyms. Some are good at making acronyms, like the NSF with their EAGER and INCLUDES grants, and many are not very good at it. As a reminder, the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation is you pronounce an acronym as a word, and for an abbreviation, you say each letter, e.g., FBI. The trouble is when you start to give too many things an abbreviation or an acronym, your proposal begins to look like alphabet soup. Your reviewer cannot be expected to continue going back to the first time you spelled something out to remember what it meant for every other word. And, if you do expect them to, they're likely going to get annoyed with you and your proposal right quick! So, even though making abbreviations for things makes them feel official or saves you space, try not to do it, and definitely not in abundance!
It's important to bear these pointers in mind as you decide what is jargon in your proposal, but it's also a good idea to have multiple internal reviewers look at your proposal before submission to make sure they easily understand the terminology you're using.
Resources:
Writing a proposal they will want to read
The most overused words in grant writing
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