It’s easier to get started on a project with a good start on getting started.
Getting one foot in the door is crucial for anyone trying to make it into the guarded world of academia, a world historically shaped by exclusivity and discrimination, and grants are that foot in the door. To be specific, wisely submitted and well-written grants, and grant-writing is not something an outsider can hit perfectly with their first try without insider knowledge. Betty S. Lai, familiar with the “hidden curriculum” of inside scholar knowledge through years of experience and on-the-job learning (among other things, over seventy peer reviewed articles), sets out to train hopefuls through The Grant Writing Guide: A Roadmap for Scholars.
Beliefs that immediately limit young/new scholars include the following: grants aren’t worth the effort of learning about them, who needs the cash that they won’t get anyway, and this kind of training is too vague. But learning how to write grants can play a huge role in shaping careers. A person will never know whether they’d get (almost certainly necessary) grant money unless they try, and once a scholar has the writing skills, they can use them for whatever purpose they have in mind.
First things first: what’s out there for those seeking grants? Federal grants, funding through the government and generally well-esteemed institutionally, through agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency. Foundation grants, private or public funding, with funders such as the Spencer Foundation or Jacobs Foundations, and they will all have different priorities or amount of money to give (and thankfully, there are databases to find the right one). Internal grants are from the scholar’s own institution, and as such require a serious discussion with someone already very familiar with the institution to provide the necessary information on topics such as competitiveness and what’s likely to make a pitch successful.
Getting potential funders to care why a project is important is far more critical than what the project is about. And making that “why” pitch needs to be done in a brief summary of the key ideas and aims of the grant. Some call the pitch a “one-pager” (others the “specific aims” page), but it can be up to three pages long. This is the opportunity to hook reviewers who might not be reading the entirety of the grant. The massive amount of pressure in such a short text means that a structure is necessary to make it easier. The first two sentences need to be the hook for the hook, grabbing and generating excitement, and from then on out, it’s on the scholar to lay out a plan. What has been done in the area, what’s the perceived problem, what’s the best way to solve the problem, what are the tasks that the scholar plans to use to solve the problem in a practical and innovative way, what will be the outcomes of the scholar’s work. Lai gives a couple examples of her past grants to see how she placed this basic structure into action and then encourages the reader to be original and constructive in creating their own pitch based on that structure.
No matter how terrific an idea might be in itself, pitching an idea to a funder won’t be about the idea’s strength, but rather how said idea (and its execution) will be strong and effective in furthering their mission and program priorities. As such, it is not only acceptable but encouraged to submit to a funder’s program officer even before the actual submission and/or a full grant draft; the “one pager” will be enough. Walking into a meeting, the scholar needs to have an understanding of the program’s goals, priorities, and recent projects, and the funder’s mission and operations; when the scholar walks out of a meeting, they should understand whether their work seems appropriate for the program, whether it aligns with the funder’s mission and priorities, and have learned any other tips or recommendations that the program officer can provide.
Grants need to be written in a clear and straightforward manner for reviewers and writing that can often be blurry and confusing for writers. A scholar needs to keep the purpose of their grant in mind when writing: to not show off knowledge but rather provide the necessary information for evaluation, to not impress readers through flowery language but with ideas, to lead a reviewer on a journey rather than discuss that of the writer. Reviewers need to see a solid and detailed plan, with the right methods, and the right person able to do the work. Grants are all about guidance.
The research plan (other names include research strategy, project description, or methods section) part of a grant lays out the details on what happens when/if the project is funded: methods/rationale, plan for collecting data, necessary items, analysis plans, and more. This is the largest and most substantive portion of the grant, and it needs to answer these main questions:
- Who is the study’s subject?
- How many subjects will be assessed?
- What methods will be used?
- When will the activities occur?
- Where will the study be performed?
- How will the data collected be analyzed?
Grants can feature figures, but scholars should only use figures that add value rather than add more obstacles through too many figures and not enough writing. Figures can better organize information, show something that words can’t easily explain, and better demonstrate how well the work ahead has been thought-through and planned. But figures should stand alone; reading the entire manuscript around it should not be necessary for context.
The statistics (the book provides a few) show that the odds are not in the favor of those seeking grants. But that’s why The Grant Writing Guide is so essential: to encourage resilience and help scholars display their project’s potential and their own promise in a way that makes them stand out in a crowd of scholars with muddled and unclear grants. Lai’s book is comprehensive yet clear, well-organized and easy to follow, detailed just the right amount: everything a good grant should be.
By Grace Dietz
