Background: The content presents a conceptually powerful and attractive framework for understanding the proposal development process to capture the complexity of the steps that contribute to successful grant writing. Based on experiences from 15 years in research administration and using real-life examples, the author juxtaposes the diverse roles…

Institutions of higher education introduced professional writing classes as a way of preparing students for on-the-job-writing. To better accomplish the goal as well as to get a more consistent output from these classes that require the writing of a project proposal or report, writing teachers may want to incorporate "R.E.A.L."…

Proposals are ubiquitous documents with challenges beyond the writing task itself, such as project management, strategic development, and research. Reporting on proposal instruction research in other fields and the results of an interview study with proposal writers, this article argues for a shift in how proposals are taught and conceptualized.…

Scientific writing, in the form of lab notebooks, proposals, and reports, is a common element of physics lab classes. Multiweek student-designed projects are growing in popularity, especially in advanced lab courses, and writing may play a unique role in these types of courses. In prior work, we developed a framework of possible goals for writing…

A graduate-level course focused on original research proposals is introduced to address the uneven preparation in technical writing of new chemistry graduate students. This course focuses on writing original research proposals. The general course structure features extensive group discussions, small-group activities, and regular in-class…

This article analyzes a proposal submitted to a funding unit in Michigan Technological University by a PhD Forestry student. A rhetorical-cultural approach of the text provides evidence to argue that scientific writing is rooted in a cultural practice that valorizes certain kinds of thought, practices, rituals, and symbols; that a scientist's work…

The facts bear out that the odds are against most scientific researchers and scholars--especially those just starting out--in their attempts to win funding for their research projects through their grant proposals. In this article, the author takes a close look at some of the proposal-related problems and pitfalls that have historically challenged…

This article argues for developing linked courses in technical communication where the instructor facilitates a service-learning curriculum and then serves as faculty advisor within subsequent internships. In these linked courses, students write technical documents before moving into internships where they write similar documents. Specifically,…

Experienced grant writers know that reviewers are quick to decide whether they like or do not like the proposals they are reading. Therefore, much of the success of any given proposal rides on the strength of the first page--its capacity to "sell" the research idea to skeptical reviewers. This paper describes a writing technique designed to elicit…

This study explored approaches to collaborative grant proposal writing to gain a comprehensive understanding of the details and range of variation in the processes that are currently employed by professionals in pursuit of Federal grant funding. Findings were used to identify and suggest practical strategies for organizing and managing group…

Conventional wisdom says that the way to win more awards is to get researchers writing more proposals. Yet many incentives designed to stimulate proposal development can be hard on the bottom line, especially those that pay researchers for their time or to attend grant-writing workshops presented by outside consulting firms. This paper presents…

With tightening university budgets, never before has the activity level of research grant proposal writing been more intense. With increased proposal numbers, including for the National Science Foundation's (NSF) prestigious CAREER award, has also come increased competition and decreased funding rates. This dissertation has searched for successful…

This document provides recommendations for request for proposal (RFP) and contract language that state education agencies can use to specify their requirements for access to test item banks. An item bank is a repository for test items and data about those items. Item banks are used by state agency staff to view items and associated data; to…

Describes a "video treatment," a document which outlines what a video intends to communicate to its prospective audience, how that information will be communicated, how much it will cost, and how long it will take to complete the project. (SR)

Discusses a proposal's executive summary: its purpose, how long it should be, what should be in it, when it should be started, who should write it, and how it should be reviewed. (SR)