http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Grants/Proposals A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Grants and Proposals in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Grants/Proposals http://tc.eserver.org/32812.html http://tc.eserver.org/32812.html Writing proposals has become an important facet of present day scientific research. Any project which takes money or other resources will, these days, be competing with other projects. The person or organization responsible for the money will have to make a decision which will make it possible for your project to succeed. Usually such decisions are made on the basis of a written proposal. http://tc.eserver.org/32813.html http://tc.eserver.org/32813.html Winning proposals have clearly defined needs and describe how those needs were identified. Winning proposals define programs to meet the identified needs. http://tc.eserver.org/32814.html http://tc.eserver.org/32814.html The objective of these guidelines is to assist both new and veteran investigators to optimize their chances of successfully competing in a peer-reviewed grant application competition. It is a competition. With success rates falling to 50% or below, the difference between success and failure often results, not just from the quality of the science, but from the quality of the grant application. In all probability, the quality of science of the applications in the 10% below the cut-off for funding by an agency is not significantly different from that in the 10% just above the cut-off. "Grantsmanship" can make the difference. http://tc.eserver.org/32815.html http://tc.eserver.org/32815.html Les présentes directives ont pour but d’aider les nouveaux chercheurs et les chercheurs expérimentés à optimaliser leurs chances de réussite dans un concours de subventions jugé par les pairs. Et il s’agit bel et bien d’un concours. Avec un taux de réussite de 50 % ou moins, la différence entre la réussite et l’échec résulte souvent non seulement de la qualité de la démarche scientifique, mais aussi de la qualité de la demande de subvention. Selon toute probabilité, la qualité des projets scientifiques visés par les demandes de subvention est sensiblement comparable dans les tranches de 10 % qui se situent de part et d’autre du seuil d’approbation. Ce qui peut faire la différence, c’est la façon de préparer la demande. http://tc.eserver.org/31307.html http://tc.eserver.org/31307.html Operating a business on any level, from one-person band to global organization, is so competitive today that delivering excellent proposals can be critical. So we want to offer some guidelines and ideas, drawn from our own experience and from some people who've spent a lot of time thinking about proposal writing. http://tc.eserver.org/31152.html http://tc.eserver.org/31152.html Study the proposal evaluation criteria and the points allocated to each section/subsection of the technical proposal, as well as the points that are allocated to cost. This information will tell you what to emphasize and where to put your efforts with regard to proposal preparation. http://tc.eserver.org/31080.html http://tc.eserver.org/31080.html Grant writing is a high-paying market for talented writers, and knowing the 'rules' for writing grants makes the task easier to manage. Discover ten strategies for winning the grant award. http://tc.eserver.org/30876.html http://tc.eserver.org/30876.html This page includes a list of grant planning questions and a list of basic proposal elements that I use when I offer grant-writing workshops. http://tc.eserver.org/30723.html http://tc.eserver.org/30723.html This study reports about a yearlong study of the initiation of novice grant writers to the activity system of National Institutes of Health grant applications. It investigates the use of cognitive apprenticeship within writing classrooms and that of social apprenticeship in laboratories, programs, departments, and universities, which introduced students to the genre system of National Institutes of Health grant proposals and helped them in moving from peripheral participation to more central participation. While cognitive apprenticeship employs devices such as modeling, scaffolding, coaching, and collaboration to enhance learning in formal settings, social apprenticeship requires socialization, interaction, and collaboration with experts, colleagues, and peers in informal settings to acquire disciplinary knowledge and experiences. The study suggests that writing instructors should acknowledge and incorporate resources in other activity systems in which students participate, i.e., their laboratories and home departments, and teach genre systems rather than specific genres to better facilitate students' enculturation to activity systems of disciplinary discourse communities. http://tc.eserver.org/30570.html http://tc.eserver.org/30570.html To succeed in the next decade, technical communicators need to become more financially precise and need to increase their procedural impact. The ability to influence preparation procedures and awareness of financial issues are especially criticaI during preparation of new business proposals. This workshop focuses on techniques and tasks that increase a technical communicator’s ability to contribute to successful proposal preparation while reducing preparation costs. The techniques presented in this workshop have been successful in both commercial and government proposals. http://tc.eserver.org/30538.html http://tc.eserver.org/30538.html Cooperative writing is a complex human dynamic process that must be well managed before it produces good proposal documents. Power storyboarding can help. It forces the proposal manager to take ownership and manage the writing process, gives writers the full context of their assignments before they write, preempts inconsistencies, and forces consensus. By preventing up to two weeks of non-productive effort, power storyboarding lets your team focus on real issues that can lead to winning proposals. http://tc.eserver.org/30170.html http://tc.eserver.org/30170.html Multiple proposal production has the goals of credibility, accuracy, consistency, and speed. Producing a large number of proposals is enabled by standard formats, a team approach led by technical communicators, standard processes, top management commitment, and process management. http://tc.eserver.org/26038.html http://tc.eserver.org/26038.html Proposals involve a myriad of strategy, planning, organization, research, and, of course, writing processes. The value of creating these standard, or boilerplate, files will multiply across subsequent proposals. With minor modifications related to the particular proposal, well-researched and professionally written standard files provide the proposal process with an immediate degree of completion, enabling management and proposal organizers more time for critical proposal analysis, creative solutions, and custom product modifications. http://tc.eserver.org/26020.html http://tc.eserver.org/26020.html Do you enjoy writing factual material? Can you present your facts in a convincing manner? Do you feel strongly about a particular cause? Then, perhaps, grantwriting is for you. http://tc.eserver.org/24229.html http://tc.eserver.org/24229.html Writing a request to attract project proposals or tenders can be a difficult, time-consuming and expensive task. Issues include assessing and planning both what to communicate and how. http://tc.eserver.org/23746.html http://tc.eserver.org/23746.html With foresight, planning, and use of the right tools you can eliminate the chaos associated with proposal production. This paper highlights the steps and processes to prepare for proposal kickoff, work with your production team and authors, maintain control, and deliver your proposal product on time and under budget. Avoiding pitfalls during electronic delivery will also be covered. http://tc.eserver.org/22597.html http://tc.eserver.org/22597.html Some of the biggest opportunities in technical writing are in proposal and grant writing. In fact, an American company wanted me to write proposals for them. But I refused saying that I had no experience. Of course, I lost money and a “golden opportunity”. You need not miss out on such an opportunity. If you know English and have some report writing skills, you can become a proposal writer. In India, grant writing or writing reports for grants or funding is not very popular. But in the US grant writing is big business. Technical writers are making big money writing grants and proposals. Typically, departments in universities want funding for their projects. These could come from corporations, trusts, and individuals. How do you convince them to fund your projects? That is what grant writing is about. http://tc.eserver.org/22168.html http://tc.eserver.org/22168.html Identifies funding sources and describes the proposal review process. Provides example criteria and identifies ways to write proposals to meet the needs of its audience of reviewers. http://tc.eserver.org/21895.html http://tc.eserver.org/21895.html Grantsmanship is the art of acquiring peer-reviewed research funding. The objective of these guidelines is to assist both new and veteran investigators to optimize their chances of successfully competing in a peer-reviewed grant application competition. http://tc.eserver.org/21896.html http://tc.eserver.org/21896.html A successful grant proposal is one that is well-prepared, thoughtfully planned, and concisely packaged. The potential applicant should become familiar with all of the pertinent program criteria related to the Catalog program from which assistance is sought. Refer to the information contact person listed in the Catalog program description before developing a proposal to obtain information such as whether funding is available, when applicable deadlines occur, and the process used by the grantor agency for accepting applications. Applicants should remember that the basic requirements, application forms, information and procedures vary with the Federal agency making the grant award. http://tc.eserver.org/21897.html http://tc.eserver.org/21897.html Grappling with grant applications at your desk is as central to scientific success as is wrestling with experimental conundrums at the bench. In the fight for research dollars, grant writing can make or break a research career no matter how good or innovative a scientist's ideas are. http://tc.eserver.org/21899.html http://tc.eserver.org/21899.html An extensive list of questions one should consider while preparing a grant proposal. http://tc.eserver.org/21900.html http://tc.eserver.org/21900.html A list of ten reasons why a proposal might be unsuccessful. http://tc.eserver.org/21898.html http://tc.eserver.org/21898.html We have grant proposals, and we have competitive grant proposals. Externally, they appear the same. This document 'Writing from the Winner's Circle: A Guide to Preparing Competitive Grant Proposals' by Dr. David Stanley, was published by Nebraska EPSCoR in 1996 to assist researchers in Nebraska as they develop grant proposals to support their research programs. http://tc.eserver.org/21486.html http://tc.eserver.org/21486.html A change in the world of saies toward more constitutive approaches to the customer has nor generally been reflected in the sales proposal, often the most crucial interaction between supplier and customer. A few simple guidelines.for the preparation of proposals can lead to oetter 'foregrounding' of the customer. Puttrng the customer In the foreground means that customer objectives and benefits are the structuring principle for the proposal. http://tc.eserver.org/21350.html http://tc.eserver.org/21350.html Whether we work in a large corporation or a small business, technical communicators are called upon to help prepare proposals more than ever before. Because so many of us have not worked on a proposal, we need to understand not only the sequence of events required to produce a successful proposal, but also some of the specific organizational and management concepts that will assure that a high-quality proposal is prepared on time. This paper presents the concepts of proposal managementfor communicators new to the process. http://tc.eserver.org/21260.html http://tc.eserver.org/21260.html The production of a winning business proposal can be a tough and trying time for all involved. But with the use of some simple tools, strategic up-front planning, and effective management techniques during actual production, the proposal task can run smoother and more eflciently. And by following these guidelines you can lead a highly efficient proposal stafs through the toughest proposal efforts and produce a proposal document that wins new business and moves your company forward. http://tc.eserver.org/20318.html http://tc.eserver.org/20318.html By engaging the rhetorical and technical challenges of formal requests for proposals (RFPs), observation reports, and group work plans, first-year engineering students at UC Santa Barbara demonstrate that they are able to emulate the design strategies employed by professional engineers in the production of design proposals. Because the RFPs called for products that aided the disabled, the students also became practiced in the research and questioning skills that engineers need to employ when they are designing products for a population of consumers with special needs http://tc.eserver.org/19908.html http://tc.eserver.org/19908.html Experience from assisting in the review of 30 proposals to a major funding agency suggests that mundane aspects of proposal formatting have an effect on proposal assessment. Why do these apparent connections between mundane formatting and actual funding occur? Here are a few possibilities. http://tc.eserver.org/19778.html http://tc.eserver.org/19778.html Anyone who has written a proposal knows that it sometimes takes a lot of work to make work. Peter Zvalo makes some suggestions on how to improve the Canadian federal government’s unnecessarily confounding requests for proposals. http://tc.eserver.org/14036.html http://tc.eserver.org/14036.html Obviously, the purpose of any proposal writer is to persuade a reader. But our students are poorly served when they are told only that their documents aren’t persuasive enough.  General injunctions (or “top-level goals”) such as “persuade your reader” or “sell your reader” don’t help writers become more persuasive any more than the injunction “play with feeling” helps a musician become more evocative. Without a suitable repertoire of practical subgoals, Smith and our students know only in general what to do without knowing how to do it. In this article, we identify and examine six such subgoals. Once students understand these subgoals, they will be in the position to revise their proposals with their readers in mind. http://tc.eserver.org/10393.html http://tc.eserver.org/10393.html This paper analyzes behaviors and mechanisms that led to successful and unsuccessful aerospace proposals written by one company over 10 years. Successful proposal managers elicited cooperation through persuasion and by successfully negotiating organizational, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries. Tracking devices that identified scheduling problems early in the project and designation of a dedicated, neutral project space located near corporate decision makers also contributed to a proposal team's success. This research suggests the need for technical writing instruction that develops students' non-coercive persuasive skills and their sensitivity to the communication challenges inherent in cross-organizational and cross-cultural contexts. http://tc.eserver.org/10040.html http://tc.eserver.org/10040.html The goal of this site is to provide writers with links to useful resources for developing, managing, and writing proposals. This site is organized into five broad categories: Federal Funding, Private Foundations & Nonprofits, Academic Fellowships, Links, Discussion Lists, & Advice, and Companies, Consultants, & Software.