So how do those of us who are not natural salespeople and whose brains do not think in a way that would allow us to intuitively produce magical and compelling text, learn to write good proposals? I can read all the great proposals in the world, but when I write one, I cannot seem to be able to replicate that kind of writing without sounding phony, fake and pretentious. Because it’s not natural to my way of thinking. Thoughts?
PP, I think this alludes not so much to a specific style as it does to clarity, confidence, and enthusiasm for the project. When you convince people that what you want to do is very cool and exciting, they will not sweat the small stuff; I know I won’t. For example, you can often tell which proposals have been banged up in previous reviews, because they are written from a defensive crouch and read as tense and a little desperate; that air of desperation is a death knell for a proposal. You want an air of lightness, confidence, enthusiasm, and optimism around the proposal, even as you address pitfalls in the approach.
Now, I don’t know if the following will be helpful, but, in my experience, a common mistake that people who are more technically minded (who really enjoy the minutiae of their technical work) rather than sales-minded make when they write a proposal is too narrow of a scope. They want to solve some relatively small technical issue that they find hard or fascinating, and organize a proposal around it. I hear it all the time when I talk to colleagues in the field, and I think to myself, “I am in your field and even I am already not interested. What you want to do is at most one mid-level paper worth of a question.” Now, I might be wrong, but the questions have to be important enough and framed so that their importance and/or coolness can be clearly and succinctly argued, with experts and expert-adjacent peers alike. This is a skill and I think one gets better at it after talking to a lot of people, reading proposals, listening to both boring and exciting talks, etc. As the blurb in the post says, a good understanding of human nature is pretty helpful here. Honestly, I think years of teaching have been invaluable here (figuring out what makes the kids’ eyes light up vs glaze over), writing alone and with peers, giving a million talks, and, to me, writing a blog here and also all the fiction I’ve written have all helped.
Writing a proposal is persuasive writing. It is aimed at the reviewer who is tired and would rather be doing anything else than reviewing your proposal. You need to get them to connect to their inner curious self that will sit up straight and think “This sounds so cool” when they read your proposal.
Maybe I need to write about this again. I haven’t in a while. Thanks for the comment, PP!
Totally true! The great proposal should have a very general, greatly written background/introduction so that even the people who have not been in the field can understand why it is important (and get along with the core idea) but then should have deep technical aims for the specialists in the field can say, wow, this is a real advancement! With this approach, I have been reasonably successful in getting funding.
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So how do those of us who are not natural salespeople and whose brains do not think in a way that would allow us to intuitively produce magical and compelling text, learn to write good proposals? I can read all the great proposals in the world, but when I write one, I cannot seem to be able to replicate that kind of writing without sounding phony, fake and pretentious. Because it’s not natural to my way of thinking. Thoughts?
PP, I think this alludes not so much to a specific style as it does to clarity, confidence, and enthusiasm for the project. When you convince people that what you want to do is very cool and exciting, they will not sweat the small stuff; I know I won’t. For example, you can often tell which proposals have been banged up in previous reviews, because they are written from a defensive crouch and read as tense and a little desperate; that air of desperation is a death knell for a proposal. You want an air of lightness, confidence, enthusiasm, and optimism around the proposal, even as you address pitfalls in the approach.
Now, I don’t know if the following will be helpful, but, in my experience, a common mistake that people who are more technically minded (who really enjoy the minutiae of their technical work) rather than sales-minded make when they write a proposal is too narrow of a scope. They want to solve some relatively small technical issue that they find hard or fascinating, and organize a proposal around it. I hear it all the time when I talk to colleagues in the field, and I think to myself, “I am in your field and even I am already not interested. What you want to do is at most one mid-level paper worth of a question.” Now, I might be wrong, but the questions have to be important enough and framed so that their importance and/or coolness can be clearly and succinctly argued, with experts and expert-adjacent peers alike. This is a skill and I think one gets better at it after talking to a lot of people, reading proposals, listening to both boring and exciting talks, etc. As the blurb in the post says, a good understanding of human nature is pretty helpful here. Honestly, I think years of teaching have been invaluable here (figuring out what makes the kids’ eyes light up vs glaze over), writing alone and with peers, giving a million talks, and, to me, writing a blog here and also all the fiction I’ve written have all helped.
Writing a proposal is persuasive writing. It is aimed at the reviewer who is tired and would rather be doing anything else than reviewing your proposal. You need to get them to connect to their inner curious self that will sit up straight and think “This sounds so cool” when they read your proposal.
Maybe I need to write about this again. I haven’t in a while. Thanks for the comment, PP!
Totally true! The great proposal should have a very general, greatly written background/introduction so that even the people who have not been in the field can understand why it is important (and get along with the core idea) but then should have deep technical aims for the specialists in the field can say, wow, this is a real advancement! With this approach, I have been reasonably successful in getting funding.