Tag Archives: Aims and Objectives

The Magic Formula for a Case for Support

I want to explain my solution to the readership problem I described in my last post. The solution is a little bit complicated and at different times I have described it in different ways, trying to come up with fancy acronyms like PIPPIN. However, we can just think of it as a magic formula for writing an effective case for support.

The way the magic formula works is that it creates the case for support as a series of layers. Each layer takes care of some of the needs of the very different groups of readers that matter. The readers that matter are those who participate in the funding decision. Remember, the case for support is the document that either convinces a grants committee to award you a grant, or doesn’t.

Who are the Readers that Matter?

There are three groups of readers who participate in the funding decision, ordinary committee members, presenting members and referees.

Ordinary Committee Members

Most of the votes that determine whether your application is funded come from ordinary committee members who have really deep expertise in areas completely outside the topic of your project. Unfortunately, when it comes to your topic, they probably don’t understand it. They may not even see why anyone would want to research it. You need to convince the ordinary committee members that your project is worth some of the money that might otherwise go to projects on topics that they know are important.

You don’t have much opportunity to convince them because your application is one of a very large bundle that they don’t really have to read. They only need to know enough about it to get through a discussion, in which they can remain silent, and vote on a score, for which there will be a recommendation. They will be much more concerned to spend time reading the applications that they have to present to the committee.

However, you do have a chance. They will want to decide whether to push your score up or down, which they can only do by understanding your application. However, bitter experience tells them that, for most grant applications, understanding does not come easily, if at all. They will want to check if yours is worth the effort. They will probably have a quick look at the introduction before the meeting. You have maybe 30 seconds to catch their interest.

If you do manage to catch their interest by persuading them that the topic of your research project might be important enough for them to want to see it funded, and that your application might be intelligible, they will dig a little bit deeper. They might spend five minutes skimming through your application trying to work out whether your project will make enough progress that it should be funded. They won’t understand your technical terminology. You have write in such a way that they can work out what they need to know from the context.

Presenting Members

A couple of committee members will know a bit more about your topic, and spend a bit longer reading your application. They may even think your topic is important, but they probably won’t be real experts. They will have the job of presenting your application to the rest of the committee, and recommending a score. They won’t have a huge amount of time to read the application because they probably have eight or nine others to present on the same day. You will probably have about an hour to make them expert enough to explain why the problem you are trying to solve is important and to master the detailed evidence that your project is likely to make good progress towards a solution.

Even if the presenting members are enthusiastic about your project, the score they recommend is likely to be quite conservative. A conservative recommendation is inevitable if the presenting members can’t understand the application; they will just follow the referees’ recommendations without much enthusiasm. However, even if they do understand an application, presenting members will be aware that they are not expert enough to know whether your work really leads your field, which means they have to be conservative in their recommendation. Their colleagues on the committee will be aware of their limitations, and so will be sceptical of over-enthusiastic recommendations. In a world of conservative recommendations, the enthusiasm of committee members can make the difference between success and failure.

Expert Referees

Referees are real experts on your topic. They want to see detailed evidence that your topic is important and that the research questions your project addresses are important and that your project is likely to provide answers. They will then make an expert judgement and write a report and recommend a score that accompanies your application when it goes to the committee. They can probably spend several hours reading your application because, unlike the committee members, who get a big bundle of applications at once, referees get sent applications one at a time.

The Layers of a Case for Support

These three groups have very different needs. Any group can kill an application, so you have to write something that appeals to all the groups. It also helps if what you write gives them a common language to discuss the case for support. The magic formula constructs the application so that it consists of multiple layers that work together, to meet the needs of all the groups of readers without alienating any of them.

Top Layer: The Opening Sentence

The opening sentence has three tasks.

  1. It has to catch the interest of the ordinary committee member and make them feel that it might be worth reading a bit of your application even though they don’t know anything about the topic. I always begin the sentence with a ‘big picture’ statement about the goal of the project. It is important to express the statement in language that will be intelligible to ordinary committee members.
  2. It has to speak to the expert in a way that will reassure them that your project has some real ‘meat’ to it despite the rather bland and aspirational ‘big picture’ opening. I try to make sure that the sentence continues with a much more specific statement that builds trust in the methodological rigour of the project and the competence of the research team. Ordinary committee members probably won’t understand the detail here but if the opening statement is good enough they will accept that this is just a more specific version of it.
  3. The sentence must serve as a summary of the case for support, in case the reader chooses not to read on.

Second Layer: The Statement of your Case

The second layer of the case for support is a statement of your argument that you should be funded. The magic formula provides the argument in ten sentences, including the first sentence. These sentences are the first ten sentences of the case for support. I have already talked about the opening sentence. The remaining nine sentences are:-

  • A sentence stating what makes the topic of the project important to the funder.
  • Three sentences, each one stating an important research aim relevant to the topic, and a reason that research aim is important. The research aims might be couched in terms of hypotheses to be tested, relationships to be established, questions to be answered or in some other way. But in every case there will be something that could be achieved by an as-yet undefined research project, and a reason that it is important to achieve it. I call these sentences the problem sentences.
  • A sentence giving an overall description of the project.
  • Three sentences, each one describing the research in a part of the project, and what that research will achieve. The part of the project might be referred to as an objective, a work package, or in some other way. What the research will achieve will be expressed in the exactly same words as were used to express the research aim in the corresponding problem sentence. Using the same words makes it clear to every reader that all of the important research aims referred to in the problem sentences, will be achieved by the project, , whether or not they understand the terminology used to describe the research aims and outcomes.
  • A final sentence saying what will happen as the project concludes.

This second layer provides all the readers with exactly what they need: a short simple statement of your argument that you should be funded. The essence of that argument is that your project deals with an important topic, and will achieve important research aims related to that topic. By expressing the research outcomes in exactly the same words you used to express the important research aims, the magic formula ensures that all the readers will understand that the project achieves those important aims, whether or not they understand the terminology used to express them.

This statement of your argument is probably as much as the ordinary committee members have time for, which is why you put it right at the beginning. You would now like to ensure that all the readers believe your argument and remember it. To do this you recycle the sentences from the introduction to create a framework for the detailed evidence.

Third Layer, Structure of Case for Support

The third layer of the case for support is provided by its structure. After the introduction there are nine more sections in the case for support. Each of those sections begins with one of the sentences from the introduction and contains all the evidence that you will draw on to convince the reader that the sentence is true. The section will also have a heading that is a shortened version of the first sentence.

Creating the framework from the same sentences as the introduction has the effect that, just by skimming the case for support, a reader will see that it marshals evidence to support every part of the argument in the introduction. If they already believe the argument, they probably feel no need to read on, which is probably the case if they are just an ordinary committee member. On the other hand, if they want to test all or part of the argument, they can see exactly where to find the evidence.

Fourth and Fifth Layers: Internal Structure of Sections and Paragraphs

The referees and the presenting members want to know what evidence you are using to support each part of your argument. I recommend that you begin each section by stating the main points of the evidence. Then you make each point of evidence in a single paragraph. I also recommend that you begin each paragraph by stating the point you want to make. Then you use the rest of the paragraph to make the point.

The advantage of this hierarchical structure is that readers can find the detail they need if they want to test any of your points, which the referees probably will. However, readers who don’t want to test the detail, which the presenting members probably won’t, can learn what it is and then skip over it by looking just at the beginnings of the sections and the tops of the paragraphs.

The structure of the sections and paragraphs ensures that any reader can check the evidence you are using to support your case, at any level of detail. The fact that you make repeated use of the sentences you used to summarise your argument in the introduction helps readers to find their way through the evidence, and, incidentally, helps to make sure that they remember your argument and that they all express the argument in the same terms.

Sixth Layer: Summaries

Not all members of the committee will have time to read your case for support. To ensure that committee members who don’t read the case for support know its argument, I recycle the sentences of the introduction in any abstract, summary or statement of aims and objectives that forms part of the application form.

Key Sentences are a PIPPIN for Communicators

Pippin: “An excellent person or thing”, Oxford English Dictionary

A few years ago I found that writing a summary in the form of a set of key sentences is a good way to start writing a complex document with a specific set of requirements, like the case for support in a grant application. Since then I always start a case for support by writing a set of key sentences and I teach workshop participants to do the same, with mixed results. Most workshop participants find it very hard to produce key sentences that work well, and sometimes I wonder whether a different approach might be better. Recently I have come to realise that the most important advantage of the key sentences is the help that they give the reader.

Key sentences create a framework for the case for support that makes your main points accessible to every reader and places the detail that supports your arguments where readers will find it. Consequently, even if key sentences don’t help you to write a case for support, you should use them to structure the case for support when you have written it.

The key sentence framework gives a document a hierarchical structure, so that it starts with the most important point of the document, states the main points, and then fills in the details. Each key sentence states one of these points, starting with the most important, and continuing with those that support it. The key sentences comprise the introduction to the document; they state every point you want to make, beginning with the most important.

The rest of the case for support consists of a series of sections, each of which begins with one of the key sentences, and continues with the detail that supports it. The key sentences reappear in the same order as they appear in the introduction, starting with the second. This means that the introduction states every major point you make in the document, in the order in which you make them. Each of the other sections repeats one of the points, helping the reader to remember it, before supporting it with the detail that will convince critical readers to accept the point. The first key sentence doesn’t reappear after the introduction because its job is to start the first section, the introduction.

It makes sense to give each section a hierarchical structure too. The first paragraph of the section summarises the section by stating the points you want to make in the section, the section continues with paragraphs that make those points in order. The paragraphs are also hierarchical: each one begins with its topic sentence, which states the point of the paragraph, and continues with the sentences that support or develop it.

For a research project grant application there are ten key sentences. I have named them so the initial letters spell the word PIPPIN, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “An excellent person or thing”. Other kinds of grant application, such as fellowships, need a slightly different set of key sentences because they need to make a different set of points. The PIPPIN sentences are:-

  • Promise – a one-sentence overview of the whole case for support. It should say what the research project will achieve, in a way that is both accessible and convincing.
  • Importance – this sentence tells the reader what is it that makes the project important to the funding body you are applying to. This sentence should give evidence that the project will help achieve one or more of the funder’s strategic aims.
  • Problem There will be three sentences that state problems that your project has to solve in order to fulfil its promise. There will be three problems. These sentences are part of a device to convince the funder that the project will be a success. The ‘Implementation’ sentences (see below) complete the device.
  • Project There will be a one-sentence summary of the project to say whatever you need the reader to know if they only read one sentence about the project.
  • Implementation There will be three sentences that describe the main work-packages in a way that makes it clear that each work-package solves one of the three problems. This convinces the funder that your project will work.
  • Next This sentence says what will happen when the research is done. It could be about ensuring impact or exploiting other opportunities created by the project.

I designed the PIPPIN key sentences to meet the needs both of the grants committee, who decide on the ranking of the grant, and of the referees, who write an expert report for the committee. The differences between their roles mean these two groups read the grant in different ways.

The grants committee don’t have time to read the case for support carefully, and most of them will find the specialist jargon of your field impenetrable. So the PIPPIN key sentences state the things committee members want to know as clearly as possible. The sentences are repeated more than once so that the jargon they contain becomes more familiar. The introduction tells exactly the same story as the full case for support, and uses the same words.

The key sentences also form the core of any summaries that are attached to the application form, including the lay summary, the technical summary and the aims and objectives. Some members of the committee may read these summaries instead of the case for support, so using the key sentences ensures that these people read the same story, in the same words, as those who read the case for support. Even those who read the case for support will probably read one of the summaries first. Using the key sentences in the summaries makes these readers more likely to understand the case for support when they read it.

The key sentence structure also makes the referees’ job as easy as possible. Referees read the case for support actively, looking for detailed evidence to support the main points that they noted on reading the summary. When the key-sentences reappear in the introduction, they reassure the referee that the case for support will deal with all the points listed in the summary. When they reappear again in the case for support, the key sentences guide the referee to the evidence they are looking for.

The pippin key sentences work to ‘sell’ any kind of project. They can also be adapted to sell similar activities, like my grant-writing workshops. I am also working on a set that sell my formula for a case for support.

If you have a different kind of grant application you may need a different set of key sentences. For example, in a fellowship application you would need a key sentence about what makes you a suitable candidate, and one about what makes your institution a good place to hold the fellowship. In grant applications where you have to write about your track record, you should create a key sentence for each point you want to make. In fact, key sentences are a good way of giving structure to any document that you want the reader to be able to read quickly and summarise easily. You create the summary as a set of key sentences and then you use the summary as a framework to organise the document. It’s unlikely that your set of key sentences will be the same as PIPPIN, but you will definitely find them to be an excellent thing.

Given all the benefits of the key sentence structure, you might question why anybody should structure a case for support in any other way. I don’t know the answer, but if you want to make your case for support easy to read you should create a set of key sentences and use them as a framework to organise the text.