Hi Matt. I can assure you that your colleagues are not pulling your leg. Lay-out, formatting, esthetics...are really very important aspects of a good (and successful ;-) application. As you indicate, this may be surprising, and obviously, cosmetics can't substitute good science.

However, you need to put you into the position of the evaluator who usually has to plow through a large amount of applications in a minimal time. As an example, major EU grant applications, literally 100 of pages long, are often evaluated in a matter of a few hours.

So readability is paramount. Less is more in terms of text. Good illustrations (perhaps preliminary data supporting the application), Pert-charts etc. Air! Spacing between paragraphs, good, informative heading structure - all of this makes it easier for a stressed and tired evaluator to read through and even enjoy reading through your application.

Key to a good structure to know the evaluation criteria. These are often available as separate documents, but often over-looked by the applicants because the think this is just something for the evaluators to read. If you e.g. see that your application should be judged on "originality", then make damn sure that you have a sub-heading called "Project originality" where you explain the originality of your proposal. Sometimes this works like putting words in the mouth (or the mind) of the evaluators. While they form their own opinion of the originality, you've made sure that your point of view has come across. If it's a realistic, short and concise comment on the originality, an evaluator may actually use it.

Cheers, Thrandur

Hi Matt,

I have also found this to be the case - good formatting seems to go down well with grant reviewers. I haven't reviewed that many grant proposals myself, but having given it some thought, I reckon there is a modicum of psychology behind it. While many grant applications are quite rigid in terms of structure and layout, those sections in proposals where there is more scope to be 'individual' might provide some quite telling information to the reviewer. Neat formatting and tidy presentation not only make it easier or more pleasant to read the content (which is likely to please the reviewer, subconsciously or not), but speak to the character of the applicant also. At the very least, I think good formatting shows a good degree of organisation and careful consideration to detail. All else being equal, this might be a deciding factor.

Hi Matt,

in addition to what Aleksandra wrote, there might be further reasons. Reviewers do their job in spare time from their main activities. This means that the easier and more pleasant is the reading, the higher the chances for the project to be fully read, and not dropped into the dustbin. When I was a student, I was given a test: find the mistakes into two texts, one with bad presentation and the other with nice formatting. Finally, the number of grammar errors was the same in the two texts, but everyone in the class found more mistakes in the badly presented text. I think there is a lesson to learn from that.

Hi Matt. I can assure you that your colleagues are not pulling your leg. Lay-out, formatting, esthetics...are really very important aspects of a good (and successful ;-) application. As you indicate, this may be surprising, and obviously, cosmetics can't substitute good science.

However, you need to put you into the position of the evaluator who usually has to plow through a large amount of applications in a minimal time. As an example, major EU grant applications, literally 100 of pages long, are often evaluated in a matter of a few hours.

So readability is paramount. Less is more in terms of text. Good illustrations (perhaps preliminary data supporting the application), Pert-charts etc. Air! Spacing between paragraphs, good, informative heading structure - all of this makes it easier for a stressed and tired evaluator to read through and even enjoy reading through your application.

Key to a good structure to know the evaluation criteria. These are often available as separate documents, but often over-looked by the applicants because the think this is just something for the evaluators to read. If you e.g. see that your application should be judged on "originality", then make damn sure that you have a sub-heading called "Project originality" where you explain the originality of your proposal. Sometimes this works like putting words in the mouth (or the mind) of the evaluators. While they form their own opinion of the originality, you've made sure that your point of view has come across. If it's a realistic, short and concise comment on the originality, an evaluator may actually use it.

Cheers, Thrandur

I had a grant reviewer actually make a comment about my formatting (it was poor). I used too many abbreviations thinking it would make it easier to include a lot of information but it reduced the readability. So I do think that these things do matter. I am not upset (disappointed but not upset) that this was a problem. However, it was my fault for not making it easier for the reviewers to see the science. Good luck in your future proposals.

Thanks for the insight!

Hi Matt,

Definitely can't do you any harm presenting a polished document, manuscript, grant application or otherwise. In addition to doing good science, attention to detail also shows that you care about what you do. When a reviewer has a lot of documents to assess over a short time period (such is usually the case with grant proposals), those that are well-presented, clear of typos, easy to follow, and generally polished put a reviewer in a better mood to start with.

Good luck, Liz

Thanks all - this has been very illuminating (and somewhat scary as I'll have to find some pretty pics to add to my formatting that already needs improving). I've only reviewed about 20 grant applications, but aside from small text and writing in gibberish, I hoped I focused on the scientific issues. However, I'd be interested to see how I went in Guido's comparative test.

Thanks for your help.

Matt

Winning grants is like a lottery and in the majority of cases, the reviewers are some how biased and inclined to things that sound nice. Sometimes a proposal sound just beatiful, but unfeasible. Some times good science is not directly linked with possible science (technical practical issues). Thats sad but it is.

Example. A person make a proposal to analyse 2300 hours of recordings without a parallel work of automatization. It sound just nice but , aurally and working 8 hours per day it will take around 300 days. This proposal won the grant since the author get the help of a psycologist and a linguist. You could be surprised about , for example the style, the words , even the tonality of white of the document could do.

I am hundred percent behind you about the importance of the formatting. I think that it is specially relevant when the reviewers have a huge amount of applications. If they find one application different and catchy eye it will be remarkable for them (beyond a sound scientific content and style, for sure). It's a psycological question as Mario Rivera illustrated above.

I consider that creativiy can be also a interesting "ingredient" to include in some applications. I always try to make applications either professional and original and it has worked for me so far (for a summer school).

I recomend to everybody a FREE online course of Scientific Writing (by PhD Kristin Sainani, Stanford University) which helped me to improve my writting style skills. Second edition will start in septembre 24th.

https://class.stanford.edu/courses/Medicine/SciWrite/Fall2013/about

Since the most applications are likely to be rejected, any thing, no matter how small can make the difference between acception and rejection. In that sense, formatting is important. Also, consider that not all people who will be evaluating will be looking for scientific value, some people will probably be beaurocrats who are likely to give importance to unimportant matters like formatting.

When I have evaluated proposals, I have always placed large emphasis on whether the writer has made an effort with their grammar and spelling. While meticulous spelling and grammar may not trump the science you offer to do, poor spelling and grammar can definitely hurt your chances. Poor effort with regards to spelling and grammar shows the reviewer that you rushed the job (so perhaps your science is also not fully thought through), you are not organised and meticulous (casting doubt on how you may conduct your science) and generally portrays a slap-dash approach. If your proposed science is good AND your proposal looks meticulous and well formatted, you are certainly a step closer to cracking the nod for that successful grant.

I agree about spelling, grammar and logical flow of thoughts, I was more concerned with other aspects of beautifying the document.

In evaluating grant proposals I look for conciseness, clarity, focus, relevance, feasibility, achievability, clear-thinking and SMART targets (Specific, measureable, achievable, realsitic, time-oriented). If these things are there "prettiness" is less important. However, my experience is that if they are there then it is probably written and presented well. Our lab had a cutting edge "blue-skies" research grant proposal turned down by three funding agencies before we found one that thought it was exciting and funded us substantially. The key is the relevance of your proposal to the funders criteria; often neglected. In some competitive environments some proposals are A- rated but because competition is so high rarely get funded; established labs seem to get priority. So build your science network rapidly, build partnerships wth expereinced scientists and read the small print carefully before applying. Under no circumstance beocme dis-heartened. Someone out there will fund you. You just have to find them. Personally, I have always worked on the principle that if I could not convince my parents a proposal was worth funding and if they could not understand my grant proposal I needed to rewrite it!