Part 4. Target Your Audience

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Table of Contents

• Are You Ready for This Part?
• Write to Your Audience
• Don't Propose Too Much or Be Too Innovative
• Balance the Technical and Nontechnical
• Master the Application
  • Page Limits, Formats
• Plan and Organize Effectively
• Write, Edit, and Proof Like a Pro
• Make Sure Your Application Fits the Announcement
• Make Life Easy for Reviewers
• Know These Review Problems and Solutions
• More Common Problems Cited by Peer Reviewers

Are You Ready for This Part?

Part 4. Target Your Audience describes writing approaches that will enhance your application's chances of succeeding in peer review.

Before reading this page, be sure that you . . .

• Know how to use this tutorial and where to find tools. Read How to Use the NIH Grant Cycle in Start Here. Find helpful Tools: application samples, checklists, timelines, and contacts.
• Know if you qualify for an NIH grant and NIH's and your institution's expectations -- see Part 1. Qualifying for a Grant.
• Have talked to NIH program officers to gauge where your application might belong and help choose a topic, award type, and approach -- see next bullets.
• Have picked a topic, hypothesis, and award type. Read Part 2. Game Plan to learn how to create a strategy for your research, including timing and choosing a topic and an award type.
• Know whether your application will be investigator-initiated, or you will respond to a request for applications; understand funding opportunity announcements. Read Part 2. Game Plan.
• Know how to scale the research scope and design your project, including resources, effort, special requirements, and collaborators -- read Part 3. Define Your Project.
• Understand NIH peer review. You'll need this knowledge to write your application. See Part 8. Assignment and Review.

Write to Your Audience

It is important that you understand NIH peer review before you read this section. If you don't, read Part 8. Assignment and Review now.

Reviewers judge whether your project is worth the American taxpayer's investment. If it's not up to snuff, they will recommend that NIH put its money elsewhere.

In this section, you will learn how to appeal to your reviewers. You can also seek advice from experts in your own environment. If you're in a sizable research institution, find out which people are active or former reviewers. Then ask them for advice about writing your application.

As is true for all writing, authors must gear the material to their audience. Your audience is the group of peer reviewers who review your application.

Our Advice: Put the Primary Reviewer First, But Get Everyone's Attention

Sell your application. Your goal is to sell your application to reviewers. Show why NIH should fund you, why your research topic is worth pursuing. If you generate enthusiasm for your idea, you'll be much more likely to receive a good score.

Convince reviewers of the following:

• Your proposal is important.
• Your approach is logical and innovative.
• You have the resources to do the job.
• You and your collaborators are qualified to accomplish the research.

Two audiences. Among reviewers, your application actually has two audiences: a small number who are likely to be familiar with your techniques or field and the majority who are not.

Since each reviewer gets one vote, they are all important.

• To succeed in peer review, win over the primary reviewer, who will act as your advocate in guiding the group's discussions.
  • Write and organize your application so the primary reviewer can readily grasp and explain what you are proposing.
• During the discussion, the other reviewers will ask the primary reviewer questions and will skim the application then and possibly before the meeting.
• Most likely, they will read only your Abstract (Project Summary/Abstract and Project Narrative), Background and Significance, and Specific Aims.
• Capture all reviewers' attention by making a strong case for why NIH should fund you.
  • Tell them the reason testing your hypothesis is worth NIH's money.
  • Show them why you are the person to do the research.
  • Convince them your institution can give you the support you need.
• Please reviewers by citing their work if it's relevant. You can find study section members at CSR Study Section Roster Index.
• In pages below and in Part 5. Research Plan, we tell you how to turn your assigned reviewers into your allies by writing your application so they become your advocates.

Don't Propose Too Much or Be Too Innovative

Our Advice: Be Careful of How Much You Propose and How Innovative You Are

Make sure the scope of your project matches the time and resources you request.

Focus

Sharpen your application's focus.

• Novice PIs often overshoot their mark by proposing too much.
  • Propose few Specific Aims and a limited scope.
  • Make sure the scale of your hypothesis and Specific Aims fit your request of time and resources.
  • Your hypothesis should be provable and aims doable with the resources and time you are requesting. Reviewers will quickly pick up on how well these elements are matched.
• We discussed this topic in more detail in Think About Scope, Amount, and Effort.

Innovation

Beware of being too innovative. The "innovation" peer review criterion can be tricky to factor into your proposal.

• It can be harder to gain acceptance if your ideas are far outside the mainstream of thought, especially for less experienced investigators.
• If your proposal is highly innovative, you'll need to make a very strong case for why you are challenging the existing paradigm and have data to support your innovative approach.
• Innovation does not necessarily mean a new paradigm.
• Either the ends or means should be innovative, but both do not have to be.

Balance the Technical and Nontechnical

You'll need to balance technical and nontechnical writing, especially in your Specific Aims. As we stated before, most reviewers just scan your application, and they may not be familiar with your field or methods.

Our Advice: Consider Our Two Approaches

1. Keep nontechnical the parts most reviewers will likely read -- Abstract, Background and Significance, and Specific Aims -- and get technical and detailed only in the methods. Your methods section should always describe your experiments in fine detail.

2. Include both technical and nontechnical information throughout your application.

For example, you could begin each paragraph simply and then progress to more complex information, or you could alternate paragraphs that have less and more technical information. To be safe, include both broader, less technical descriptions as well as more technical information in the most widely read sections.

More Pointers

• Be very careful with highly technical material. Some reviewers may be better informed about your field than you. To succeed, you will have to be at least as knowledgeable as the savviest reviewer in the group.
• Leave out anything that's not critical. The more you put in, the more information there is for reviewers to fault or disagree with.
• Write most of your application as if you were teaching your audience. Like a Scientific American article, include enough background information to enable an intelligent reader to understand your proposed work.

Find more information online:

• Basic Layout of Initial Peer Review
• Start With Specific Aims
• Background and Significance

Master the Application

Follow all instructions in the Grant Application Guide and the NIH Guide. Don't risk having your application returned because you exceeded the page limits or used too small a font.

Be sure to know whether you are applying electronically or using a paper application. Read the Guide announcement or NIH's Transition Timeline to find out.

Most grant types, including the R01 and R21, require investigators to apply electronically. Eventually, all types will use electronic application.

Page Limits, Formats

Find page limits in the Grant Application Guide for your Grant Application Package. Page limits can vary for different announcements.

The Research Plan of an R01 application can be up to 25 pages long. (Note that starting in 2010 Research Plans will be 12 pages for R01 applications, and NIH will reduce the length for other grant types as well.)

• Only the sections listed on Design Your Research Plan count toward the Research Plan limit: Specific Aims, Background and Significance, Preliminary Studies/Progress Report, and Research Design and Methods.
• The biosketches and information about human subjects, animals, literature, consortium arrangement, and consultants do not, though some have their own page limits.

Beware: NIH strictly enforces formatting requirements and may return improperly formatted applications! Follow the font size and spacing requirements in the Grant Application Guide.

If you need advice on formatting your application, contact a scientific review officer in either CSR or NIAID's Scientific Review Program.

To learn how to create and assemble your Research Plan attachments, see Design Your Research Plan.

Plan and Organize Effectively

Our Advice: Organize Sections

Organize your application so reviewers can effortlessly glide through it.

They expect the Research Plan to follow the order in the Grant Application Guide for your Grant Application Package. Label sections accordingly: for example, Specific Aims and Background and Significance.

Within that structure, pick one of several methods of organization for different sections of the application, or combine them effectively. You can organize by:

• Order of your experiments in the methods section.
• NIH review criteria.
• More and less technical material.

Write, Edit, and Proof Like a Pro

Our Advice: Keep Your Writing Streamlined

Reviewers appreciate a highly readable application. All the concepts you learned in English (or other language) classes apply to writing an NIH grant application.

The following techniques will keep your writing streamlined and organized, so reviewers can readily glean the information.

• Start with an outline following the organization you carefully thought out in the previous sections of the NIH Grant Cycle. An outline will make it easier to develop topic sentences and order your paragraphs effectively.
• Write a topic sentence for each main point.
  • A topic sentence is usually the first one in the paragraph and is supported by more information in the next few sentences.
  • Example: Staphylococcus aureus is a well-armed opportunistic pathogen that produces a diverse array of virulence factors and causes a correspondingly diverse array of infections.
• Make only one point in each paragraph, stating it clearly as a topic sentence.
  • This is key for your reviewers to be able to read or scan your application.
  • Paragraphs have two functions: they aggregate information point by point and they break up the page, creating white space.
• Keep it short and simple. Keep paragraphs short. Start with basic ideas and progress to more complex ones. State key points as nontechnically as possible.
• Use short sentences with a basic structure: subject, verb, and object. Break up long, involved sentences; avoid introductory phrases longer than six words. Keep sentences to 20 or so words or less.
• Include transitions.
  • At the beginning of a new paragraph or concept, add a transition to your next point by relating it to your previous one.
  • Use statements such as "furthermore," "additionally," "in another area," "in contrast," and "following the same path," to show a relationship between ideas.
• Keep related ideas and information together, e.g., put clauses and phrases as close as possible to -- preferably right after -- the words they modify.
• Use strong, active verbs -- they are the workhorses of effective sentences. For example, write "We will develop a cell line," not "A cell line will be developed."
• Use verbs instead of abstract nouns. Turn dull abstract nouns ending in "ion" and "ment" into verbs. For example, say "creating the assay leads to..." rather than "the creation of the assay leads to..."
• If writing is not your forte, get help.

Make Sure Your Application Fits the Announcement

Requests for applications and program announcements have their own objectives and special requirements. We cover this topic in Part 3. Define Your Project.

After you submit your application, NIAID program staff check it to make sure it meets those objectives and requirements. This check is not related to peer review and does not assess the science.

If our program staff feel your application is not responsive to the announcement, NIH will reject it, and it will not receive a peer review.

Avoid this outcome by reading the funding opportunity announcement's Guide announcement, which has key information you'll need to apply.

Make Life Easy for Reviewers

Our Advice: Make Reviewers Want to Read Your Application

Peer review puts a big burden on reviewers, so they truly appreciate a neat, well organized, and easy-to-read application.

Keep reviewers on your side: make your application super user friendly. Here's how:

• Divide into sections -- give them a break!
  • Use headers to create additional white space and structure.
  • Reviewers are human. If it looks too hard to read, they're less likely to read it.
  • Huge blocks of uninterrupted text are depressing. If you don't believe it, see this list without bullets at Example of Text Without Formatting.
• Label all materials clearly. Make it easy for reviewers to find information.
• Guide reviewers with graphics. A picture is probably worth more than a thousand words.
  • Graphics, timelines, charts, and other visual elements can help reviewers readily grasp a lot of information. And they break up the monotony of text.
  • Don't include movies or multimedia in your application files. Contact your scientific review officer to request permission to send multimedia separately.
  • Some parts of the application, such as the Project Summary/Abstract and Project Narrative, should be text only. Follow the formatting requirements in the Grant Application Guide.
• Edit and proof. Your presentation -- writing and appearance -- can make or break your application. If you have a lot of typos and internal inconsistencies, your score can suffer. Ask as many people as possible to read your application, including nonscientists.

Know These Review Problems and Solutions

Our Advice: Stay Free of Common Traps

Avoid the main traps PIs fall into. Peer reviewers are knowledgeable, experienced scientists, but they don't know everything.

• Problem: They may not get the significance of your proposed research.
  Solution: Write a compelling argument.
• Problem: They may not be familiar with all your methods.
  Solution: Write to the nonexpert in the field.
• Problem: They may not be familiar with your lab.
  Solution: Show them you can do the job.
• Problem: They may get worn out by having to read 10 to 15 applications in detail.
  Solution: Write clearly and concisely, and make sure your application is neat, well organized, and visually appealing. Leave out anything that is not absolutely critical.

More Common Problems Cited by Peer Reviewers

Below are the most common reasons cited by reviewers for application failure.

• Problem not important enough.
• Study not likely to produce useful information.
• Studies based on a shaky hypothesis or data.
• Alternative hypotheses not considered.
• Methods unsuited to the objective.
• Problem more complex than investigator appears to realize.
• Not significant to health-related research.
• Too little detail in the Research Plan to convince reviewers the investigator knows what he or she is doing, i.e., no recognition of potential problems and pitfalls.
• Topic scientifically premature.
• Over-ambitious Research Plan with an unrealistically large amount of work.
• Direction or sense of priority not clearly defined, i.e., experiments do not follow one another and lack a clear starting or finishing point.
• Lack of focus in hypotheses, Specific Aims, or Research Plan.
• Lack of original or new ideas.
• Investigator too inexperienced with the proposed techniques.
• Proposed project a fishing expedition lacking solid scientific basis, i.e., no basic scientific question being addressed.
• Proposal driven by technology, i.e., a method in search of a problem.
• Rationale for experiments not provided, i.e., why they are important or how they are relevant to the hypothesis.
• Experiments too dependent on success of an initial proposed experiment. Lack of alternative methods in case the primary approach does not work out.
• Proposed model system not appropriate to address the proposed questions.
• Relevant controls not included.
• Proposal lacking enough preliminary data, or preliminary data do not support project's feasibility.
• Insufficient consideration of statistical needs.
• Not clear which data were obtained by the investigator and which were reported by others.

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	The next part of the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal is Part 5. Research Plan.

Help us improve our outreach to you by emailing deaweb@niaid.nih.gov.