How to Fail in Grant Writing | Do Your Job Better—The Chronicle of Higher Ed
A list of proven techniques for writing bad proposals. (via Mordecai Mac Low). Some of my favorites:
- Focus your grant entirely on your own study species and/or area of focus. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake, right? Dealing with problems of general interest is a waste of time. A good panelist will be able to discern the global impacts of your research without being led by the hand.
- Don’t bother worrying if illustrations or graphs are on different pages than the legends that explain the meaning. Relax, the reviewers can work that out with just a little bit of flipping pages.
- Confine your statement about the impacts of your research to things that every scholar would do normally. For example, say you will publish your research and leave it at that.