Arvid Hunze

arvid@grantconsultingnz.com

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Category: home-baner

Editing programs – Are they any good?

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Editing programs – Are they any good?

I tested a few of them before starting my business to find out if they can streamline and improve the process and writing. As expected, they can help to tweak and improve the writing structure, grammar, and punctuation, but cannot take off the main burden of organizing and writing a solid narrative.

Some programs and tools I tested are (the links are below):

Hemingway

I tested a few of them before starting my business to find out if they can streamline and improve the process and writing. As expected, they can help to tweak and improve the writing structure, grammar, and punctuation, but cannot take off the main burden of organizing and writing a solid narrative.

Pro Writing Aid

The is the program I use to check grammar and basic style elements. It has a lot of functions to get your head around. It integrates with Word. Premium yearly subscription is around 50 US$.

Grammarly

Probably best-known program due to massive online advertising. I tested it and was not convinced that it is better than Pro Writing Aid. Premium version starts at around 10 US$/month.

The writers diet test

A nice little online tool to check if your writing needs a “work out”. After a few iterations you are more aware of your style and weakness in your writing. I use it to check critical passages. It is based on a book written by Helen Sword. She is a poet, scholar, master teacher, and international expert on academic and professional writing across the disciplines at the University of Auckland. Helen assured me that the text you put in is not analysed or stored.

AI writer

Intriguing idea to let an Artificial Intelligence to improve your writing. I believe this will be the future for non-creative documents soon. Who knows what it can do in a few years? I tested this specific program. The texts and rewrites are a bit off, but I will watch the space. The website does not claim that it can replace a human yet but will save you 1/3 in writing time.

The power of headings and subheadings

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The power of headings and subheadings

Pretty much every book I read about grant writing talks about the power of title, headings, and subheadings.

It makes sense. They are like signposts helping to guide the busy reviewer trough the document. They indicate what will come next. But the most important advantage is often forgotten: It helps the writer to organize the writing. Most people do not make use of them.

The first thing I do when I edit a proposal is using headings and subheadings to structure the document for myself. It helps me to see the main parts, to make sense of the whole story and move sentences and paragraphs to the right place. It provides also a very quick and simple way to check if we have considered all criteria from the Request for Proposal.

So, what makes a good heading and subheading?

In its simplest form it is only a description of what is next like “Background”, “Methodology”, “Excellence”. A better way is to extend by a very short summary of what the section entails for example “Excellence – A new way to do xyz”. Again this prepares the reader for what will come. It also helps to refer and find passages when they discuss the proposals during a reviewer board meeting.

How many headings and subheadings do we need?

That depends on word and page limits, no simple answer. But for a typical grant a good rule of thumb is a main heading every 1-2 pages and 1-3 subheadings per page. More and it gets busy. I tend to put the main headings in bold and the subheadings in italic.

Words and expressions to avoid when writing a research grant proposal

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Words and expressions to avoid when writing a research grant proposal

-“To the best of our knowledge”

Problem: Reviewer might think: “Do they know their field? What do they know anyway?” Better: Describe what you did to validate the statement. “We performed a literature search via abc / We searched in database abc with keywords xyz and found …”

-“if”, “may”, “might”, “could”

Problem: They express too much uncertainty. Better: Be clear and forward looking. “We will…”, “Our goal is…”

-Any superlatives “Our strong/interesting/clever…”

Problem: The reviewer might not agree with your statement. It will put them off. Better: Describe your idea/science/impact and the context and let the reviewer decide on its merits.

-Unnecessary adverbs “really”, “very”, “extremely”

Problem: They are just fill words and do not add much. Better: Avoid them.

5 reasons research grant proposals are rejected

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5 reasons research grant proposals are rejected

It happens to everyone who has ever written a proposal for a competitive grant. Rejection is part of the game. Dealing with a rejected proposal is one of the hardest and most frustrating parts of the process. There are probably as many reasons for rejection as rejected proposals. Often good proposals fail. Bad luck is part of the game, but there is not much we can do about it.

However, there are of course some things we should and can avoid.

Here are my top 5:

1. Insufficient time allocated

Writing a good proposal is a big job. It takes time to develop ideas and relationships. Last-minute jobs hastily put together are usually not good and miss crucial components.

2. Did not follow the instructions

I am sure that a lot of applicants do not read the request for proposal and crucial documents properly. Often, they forget or misinterpret things.

3. The research idea is not good enough.

Comes also back to the first point. Developing a good idea involves screening literature, discussions and rechecking, reviewing and refining the proposal with colleagues. It takes time and should not be done in a hurry.

4. The need or narrative is not clear

A good bid needs a good overall narrative and clear description of the need. There are techniques to improve this. A quick good start is the for example a “Message box”. https://www.compassscicomm.org/the-message-box-workbook

5. It is a “fishing expedition”

Fishing expedition means that the proposed research is exploring rather than targeted: “Let’s try this and see what happens.” This often comes down to missing a research hypothesis.

The Science Board/Expert Panel and the decision making process – A few links

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The Science Board/Expert Panel and the decision making process – A few links

The science board, committee, council or whatever it is called is an important part of every grant application process. Often, they make the funding decision independent of the funding body. The receive important input from the expert reviewer(s) but they make the final call.

It is important to understand the working mechanisms and factors influencing their decision. Knowing the nuts and bolts of the process can help you to write a better proposal.

Unfortunately, it seems like a black box to most applicants. I did some google research and found a few publications and an interesting little video providing a little bit more insight.

 A 15 min video of a mock National Institutes of Health grant panel (USA) is a good watch for your lunch break.

The one single thing to make your writing more engaging and alive

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The one single thing to make your writing more engaging and alive

Amazingly simple: Use the active voice!

What is the active voice?

Active voice: I eat an apple.

Passive voice: An apple is eaten by me.

Test: If you are unsure and you can add “by zombies” it is the passive voice. It also reminds you that passive voice is a bit lifeless.

This recommendation is nothing new see Rule 14 in “Elements of Style” published in 1920. The Elements of Style was listed as one of the 100 most influential books by Time Magazine in its 2011 list.

Active Voice is also a good writing practice for journal publications. Have a look at the Nature research web page How to write your paper – Instructions for authors: “Nature journals prefer authors to write in the active voice (“we performed the experiment…”) as experience has shown that readers find concepts and results to be conveyed more clearly if written directly. “

My top 5 tips before start writing your next grant proposal

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My top 5 tips before start writing your next research grant proposal

– Start early and don’t just start writing

You have a great idea and a grant funding round is coming up again. You feel like just opening up a word document, copy paste the application template and start writing. I don’t think this is a good approach. I’ve done it this way several times myself, but i always regretted it. A few days before the deadline I was trying hastily to tidy up what seemed to be an intangible mess of great ideas, outputs, outcomes, impact, benefits. Nagging comments from internal reviewers, who told me the whole thing is non-sense anyway, whispered in the back of my head. I learned… Now before grant writing comes around, I do a few things, which helps me to start writing from a clear mindset and very strategic place.

I tried to condense them into 5 tips:

1. Start with the problem and define the narrative – 4-5 whys or what will do

What do I mean by that? Pretty much always the obvious problem has several layers below and above. It is just part of an overall larger narrative. Let me illustrate this with an example. A company manufacturing equipment for the electricity sector is approaching you. They want to develop a new sensor solution for their product. Your partners tells you, that the problem is that current system is not selling. Customers tell them it is just too expensive because of this and this …. My first instinct was just to dive in, dissect the sensor and propose a better solution. This is pretty much the last thing, you want to do…. Firstly you need to get right, “Why do they want this?” Client: “Oh, our customers tell us that they need a solution which is cheaper. They monitor just a few of our products at the moment but need to know more….”

2. Throw your ideas around – they will get better

Often grant writing starts out with a basic idea how to solve a problem. After definition, I usually write the narrative and a few sentences down to have a starting point. Next question I am asking myself is if there is a simpler solution. If yes, I explore that route or find reasons why it won’t work. Then I do some research how novel the idea is and write my findings down.

3. Read all documents relevant to the grant – meticulously

If you don’t understand, what they want and why, you can’t address why your research should be funded. A research grant is a sales pitch. You sell a promise and a vehicle how to get your “customer” from the current to the desired state. Therefore, you need to listen. Government organisation put a lot of effort into designing a system, which helps choosing the right research. They try to support major overarching goals of the current government. A good request for proposal (RfP) tells you which documents you need to read. They don’t want to waste your time by listing all these documents. What they want is the right understanding and right mindset to align your research with these major goals.

4. Plan–use basic project management skills

Now you have your narrative, a great idea and know what the grant structure looks like. Rest is easy, isn’t it? In principle yes. But one thing I saw too often done wrong is this next step, simple planning. The great thing about grants is that they have a very clear structure and often a timeline. They tell you deadlines, sections you have write, who to involve and even how many words you can use. What I don’t get is, why most people don’t plan and execute this like any other project.

5. Think about what they need not what you want – who and what

So now everything is clear, and you can go ahead, pull out that template and write; not quite yet. You need to be clear what the purpose of writing is in the first place, and what it means for you. The purpose of writing is persuading the reader to do or feel something. To share knowledge, immerse in other worlds, transport information, express your opinion etc. is all part of that. But in the end there is always something you want your reader to do.