The posts discuss 8 themes:-

1. How to write a Grant Application
2. Strategy for writing grant applications
3. Writing Style for Grant Applications
4. Giving and Receiving Feedback on Grant Applications
5. Dealing with referees reports and with rejection
6. Interviews and Talks
7. Software
8. Academic Life and Afterlife

How to Write a Grant Application

• This post describes the on-line workshops that I developed in 2020 and explains why the interactive on-line workshop is better than the face-to-face workshops I used to deliver between 2013 and 2020.
• The posts described below explain the approach to grant-writing that I teach in the on-line workshops:-
  • This post explains why it is unwise to write your case for support so that only an expert can understand it. 
  • This post explains why the readership problem is the most important problem to consider when you are writing your case for support.
  • The magic formula for a case for support that solves the readership problem.
  • This post explains how the distinctive structure of the case for support ensures that committee members extract the information they need from it without reading it carefully.
  • Before you start writing you need to design your research project. 
  • Start by getting the structure of your case for support as a set of key sentences.
  • A recipe for the key sentences
  • How the key sentences work.
  • Key sentences work so well for the reader so you should use them to structure your case for support even if they don’t help you to write it.
  • Make sure that the aims match the objectives
  • Why you need a good introduction and how to write it
  • How the Background sells the project
  • A good summary will help a committee understand your application
  • An exercise to generate a good opening sentence
  • This post explains that you should have fewer than four and more than two items in a list and that you should format lists so that items are on separate lines.
  • Adapting the key sentence approach to other grant schemes: NIH K99/R00
  • The key sentence approach takes 2 weeks or less to generate a case for support
  • You need a project if you want to practise writing key sentences. If you don’t have a project you can practise by pretending you are applying for funding for your PhD project.
  • You can practise writing key sentences to sell other things than a research project. Here is a set that I wrote to sell my grant-writing workshop.
  • The quick way of starting a grant application is to write a set of key sentences. There is way that looks easier but it usually ends up being much more difficult.

Strategy for Grant Applications

• The importance proposition explains that the first question a funder asks about your grant application is whether it describes a project that meets their priorities.
• Training people to write grant applications doesn’t necessarily open the funding floodgates.
• Whatever your writing approach, always start by figuring out what the project is.
• Before you start writing you should check whether your proposed project is likely to be viable and fundable
• Record this essential information about your project so that you can check whether it is fundable and viable.
• If you start writing a grant application before you are ready you might never finish
• You shouldn’t write a grant application unless you need a grant. And if you need a grant, you should be prepared to write several applications
• This post explains why it’s better to write a good grant application, even though most successful applications are poorly written.

Writing Style for Grant Applications

• You will need to repeat yourself: make sure that you use exactly the same words
• Start each paragraph with the punchline
• Don’t fall into these traps.
• Try to avoid these common bad habits

Friendly fire: Giving and receiving feedback

• A five minute test to see if you have the right bits in the right places
• How to give your grant application a more searching test
• How to give useful feedback
• How to get a reluctant critic to tell you what you need to know
• How to reshape your case for support

Dealing with referees reports and with rejection

• Why committees and referees might not agree with each other
• How to respond to referees
• Recycling a rejected application
• First steps for dealing with rejection

Interviews and talks

• How to give a good short talk

Software for Writing Grant Applications

• Scrivener, which was designed for writing novels, is a great program for assembling a grant application

Academic life & Afterlife

• I recommend you read “getting to yes” if you have to manage people or negotiate
• My approach to the problem of writing and reading employment references
• It is always best to act as if you assume that the people you are dealing with are being reasonable
• Academic Management is important
• Introductory post on this blog
• My feelings on finally becoming my own boss
• Reflections on the first couple of years of running the company.
• Comparing my grandson’s first computer with mine.
• If you do not reduce work when you commit time to other activities you will not improve your work-life balance: you will make it worse
• This post announces the death of Amanda Parker. Her obituary is here.