"We must confess that your proposal seems less like
science and more like science fiction," declares an executive
inContact, the movie about scientists who detect alien
transmissions in outer space. Grant reviewers may confess the same
of application abstracts that are filled with wonderful ideas but
lack practical, nuts-and-bolts details. A good abstract is like a
postcard-sized reprint of a famous work of art: It captures and
illustrates the entire research picture without leaving the reader
puzzled or confused.
In their efforts to spruce up and dress the body of the research
plan, many grant applicants--postdocs and faculty alike--often fail
to include essential pieces of the abstract, such as research data
and methods. Because the abstract is the first glimpse a reader
gets of an application's worth, such oversights can raise
unnecessary questions, and may even create the impression that the
research plan itself may be incomplete. The key to designing a
winning grant application is to start off with a well-rounded,
concise summary of your whole application: To accomplish that in a
few hundred words, however, takes skill.
What's in an Abstract?
Ellen Barrett, a professor of physiology and biophysics at the
University of Miami School of Medicine suggests four key components
of a well-rounded abstract: The abstract should introduce the
reader to the problems you are addressing, the overall hypotheses
you are testing, the main techniques you will be using, and your
overall experimental plan. Barrett's advice echoes the Public
Health Service grant application instructions, which state that a
grant applicant should address the following questions:
-
What do you intend to do?
-
Why is the work important?
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What has already been done?
-
How are you going to do the work?
The abstract should provide succinct answers to all such
questions.
"Most good research is hypothesis-driven," writes Barrett in an
online
grant-writing guide she put together for researchers at her
university. In an abstract, those hypotheses should describe "your
overview of the mechanisms underlying the process you are studying,
not just your prediction" about how experiments will turn out, she
says. Barrett warns against writing abstracts with the assumption
that your hypotheses are true--a costly error that "has doomed many
applications," she says.
Half-Baked Abstracts
With many abstracts, "the problem is that applicants don't
summarize the full proposal," says consultant Bob Lucas, a former
university research administrator, who is now director of the
Institute for Scholarly Productivity based in California. What many
applicants do is simply cut- and-paste the first two paragraphs of
the introduction into the space set aside for the abstract, he
discloses. And while those two paragraphs may be beautifully
constructed, they don't typically explain the whole project.
Applicants wind up "saying what they are going to do, but not how
they're going to do it," reveals Lucas. Physicist Scott Bergeson,
for example, was 0 for 3 before attending one of Lucas's workshops.
"I made the typical mistakes," explains Bergeson, an assistant
professor at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City. "I had
great ideas but my proposals were really vague, too general," he
says. As a new member of faculty, Bergeson tried hard but failed to
secure three major grants that totaled more than $1 million. But
then last March, he went to one of Lucas's workshops, began
applying the professor's writing practices, and instantly turned
his game around.
Dog Walker or Cocktail Talker?
Lucas suggests beginning with a four-page description--a
"concept paper summary"--of what you want to accomplish. By adding
more specific detail to this document, you end up with a draft of
your research plan. Conversely, by "boiling it down," you wind up
creating a concise research abstract that fits with and reflects
the entire research plan. This practice keeps you focused and
"helps remind you what the point of your research application is,"
Lucas says. It helps you become disciplined, too: Word limits on
abstracts forces you to delete, rephrase, and chop up information
that is not essential to the abstract, says Lucas. "You might be
making an interesting point," he states, "but it might not be
relevant," so out it goes. Bergeson used such writing techniques
for a grant application due the following May, just 6 weeks after
the workshop. It worked--his application was funded.
Lucas lets his eager scholars in on a couple of insightful
anecdotes: Writing, he says, isn't an ordeal if you realize it's
like "Walking the Dog." You don't think about taking the dog out
for a stroll, you just do it. With writing, simply set aside time
to "walk the dog": Sit down and write every day and soon writing
will be as natural as handling radioactivity. "An idea with a plan
is a grant application," Lucas continues. "An idea without a plan
is simply cocktail talk."
Om1t J@R/g0n
"Make the specific aims and the ultimate goal very clear" to
reinforce ideas for reviewers, says Suzanne Fisher, director of the
Division of Receipt and Referral at the National Institutes of
Health's (NIH's) Center for Scientific Review .
Bergeson agrees with her: "You cannot assume the reviewer knows
that you know how to overcome and solve problems" unless you write
down those solutions and alternative approaches, he says.
Fisher directs the team of referral officials and administrators
who process and review applications at the federal funding agency.
By virtue of having to handle tens of thousands of submissions
every year, she is sensitive to mistakes that scientists continue
to make--especially when it comes to writing in plain English.
"Descriptions," she says (the abstract is now called the
description at NIH) "should avoid excessive use of jargon and
abbreviations," because "unless you are an insider, you have no
idea what the application is about." Science gobbledygook--"We
will study the MLC2 Ser-18-Ala Nyquist B-process at pCas 7.5-5.5
+/-MLCK"--will not enamor reviewers, even if they do understand
what you're talking about.
Keywords Perhaps Not Key
Fisher tries to dispel the commonly held belief that shrewd
keywords win over the hearts and minds of reviewers and officials:
"The referral office uses more than just the title or description
to make assignments," she enlightens, "so there is no point in
trying to direct assignments by judicious word choices." Starting
off your abstract with the word "Aging" for example does not mean
you should expect your application to be automatically routed
through to the National Institute on Aging, she clarifies. Fisher
makes another point that "if an award is made," the description
"will be public information" deposited in the federal CRISP (Computer
Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects) awards database.
"So it should be clear, concise, accurate, and not contain
proprietary information."
Rate Your Abstract
Perhaps the most important reason to write a succinct and
complete abstract is because not all reviewers on a panel will be
formally assigned to read your proposal: Generally, the primary and
secondary reviewers report their analysis and give it a rating or
predetermined classification.The remaining reviewers must also
rate your application,and unless they have previously
scrutinized it, they may pass judgement only on what they read in
the abstract.
It's understandable that to make sense of alien messages, some
pretty advanced deciphering technology might be required. Research
abstracts on the other hand shouldn't need that level of decoding.
"All I'm asking is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision,"
repliesContactstar Jodie Foster to the skeptical executive.
"Just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture," she
pleads. If you can bring those--vision and the big
picture--together in your abstract, your next grant application
could be out of this world!
For many young scientists, the research plan itself
can appear to be an alien landscape! Next week we begin a series of
head-first plunges into the
nitty-gritty of your actual research plan : How to structure
it, what reviewers are looking for and what irritates them the
most. Stay tuned...