Writing a grant proposal (Part 2): Writing style for a grant proposal

Writing a grant proposal (Part 2): Writing style for a grant proposal

 

Introduction

A written proposal is generally the only medium for communicating your proposed project to the funder.

Winning proposals have good ideas that are communicated well. Grant reviewers generally make decisions based only on written grant proposals. They may not have time to discuss your proposal with you or ask you to clarify unclear points in your proposal.

So you need to really focus on writing well when you prepare a grant proposal.

Key points

 

Question

How should the writing in a grant proposal be?

Answers

Option 1

1. Clear

Option 2

2. Concise

Option 3

3. Persuasive

Option 4

4. Bureaucratic

Option 5

5. Well-formatted

Option 4 is incorrect. The other options are correct.
The writing in a grant proposal should be clear, concise, persuasive, and well-formatted. We'll look at these qualities in detail in this lesson. A bureaucratic style of writing is usually never a good idea unless you are a bureaucrat! (Want to know what bureaucratic writing is? Do a Google search!)

Clarity

You can follow some basic principles to improve the clarity of what you write in a proposal.

• Provide overviews before details
• If tables and figures are used, design them for easy understanding
• Expand abbreviations / acronyms
• Explain difficult terminology or concepts
• Include links to further sources of information
• Use lists with numbers or bullets
  • But don't present too many lists, or lists with too many points
  •  

    Another pair of eyes

    One good way to check whether your writing is clear is to show it to a colleague or friend. In fact, it's good to ask someone who is not very familiar with your work.
    
    Ask him or her questions such as the following:
    

    • Why is your proposed project important?
    • What are the results you hope to achieve?
    • Are there any parts of your proposal he or she just cannot understand?

    You may then be able to identify the parts of your proposal that should be improved.
    
    

    Conciseness

    Let's look at the second quality of effective writing style for grant proposals: conciseness.
    Many decades back, George Orwell, a famous British writer (author of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Animal Farm"), was concerned about bad writing. He wrote an essay on this topic called "Politics and the English Language".
    
    A couple of guidelines from this essay are related to concise writing:
    

    • "Never use a long word where a short one will do."
    • "If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out."

    
    George Orwell was concerned with writing in politics and the media, but these points are very relevant for writing grant proposals too!
    
    

    An exercise

     

    In this exercise, you have to type in a better alternative to a given word or phrase.
    

    Using simple, common words
    1. What is an alternative for the word "attempt"?
    Cloze (1):
    2. What is an alternative for the long word "fundamental"?
    Cloze (2):
    Deleting needless words
    3. What is a simpler way of saying "red in color"?
    Cloze (3):
    Condensing wordy phrases
    4. Do you know a short word that means the same as "at this point in time"?
    Cloze (4):
    5. Do you know a short word that means the same as "in the event that"?
    Cloze (5):
    Using verbs instead of nouns
    6. What is the verb that means the same as "produce relief of"?
    Cloze (6):
    7. What is the verb that has the same meaning as "provide an explanation"?
    
    

    Answer key
    

    1. try
    2. basic
    3. red
    4. now
    5. if
    6. relieve
    7. explain
    8.  

       Overall advice

       Below is some overall advice on how to write concisely:
       

       • Keep sentences short and complete
       • If you use paragraphs in your proposal, keep them short too
       • Preview or summarise main points, for example, in the abstract, but avoid unnecessary repetition
       • Follow length or word-count limitations given in the proposal instructions
       •  

         Persuasiveness

          

         Question

         Let's look at the third quality of effective writing style for grant proposals: Persuasiveness.
         A proposal seeks to convince or persuade the grant reviewer that the proposed project or activity is worthy of being funded.
         You can persuade grant reviewers by…
         

         Answers

         Option 1

         1. Presenting a worthwhile and SMART goal for the project
         
         Option 2

         2. Making the goal relevant to the funder’s mission
         
         Option 3

         3. Presenting a sound methodology or approach
         
         Option 4

         4. Conveying that the project team is capable of doing the work
         
         Option 5

         5. Giving adequate reasons for choices (for example, of techniques, sample sizes, durations, consultants, venues)
         
         Option 6

         6. Giving adequate supporting evidence (for example, published findings, preliminary data, calculations, CVs, letters of agreement)
         
         Option 7

         7. Presenting highly ambitious and overreaching goals
         
         Option 8

         8. Assuring that adequate facilities are or will be available to carry out the project
         
         Option 9
         9. Explaining why the requested amount of funding is appropriate or reasonable
         
         Option 7 is incorrect. The other options are correct.
         Persuasive writing is not about being overambitious or presenting unrealistic goals. Being realistic in a grant proposal is very important

          

         Formatting

          

         Question

         Take a look at the two passages below. The one on the right is identical to the one on the left. Which one looks more professional?
         
         

         Answers

         Option 1

         The passage on the left is formatted better
         

         Option 2

         The passage on the right is formatted better
         
         1, Yes! This passage has been formatted in a simple way. The font type and size are constant throughout, the table has basic borders, and the text speaks for itself. There are no unnecessary colours, capitalisation, etc. This kind of simple formatting is essential in a grant proposal as well. By the way, the passage that you see above is an excerpt from a famous book called "The Elements of Style". It is now out of copyright and it is freely available online. Download link: PDF of the full book.
         
         

         Overall advice

         Bad handwriting makes the text hard to read and gives the reader a negative impression. Badly formatted documents have a similar effect on the reader. Funders often provide templates for writing proposals, but it’s still important to make sure your writing is well-formatted.
         
         Below are some tips to improve the formatting of your writing:
         

         • Consider using subheadings for long sections.
         • Use fonts consistently (for example, all headings should have the same font).
         • To emphasize words or phrases, use bold, underline, or italics. Don’t use CAPITAL LETTERS.
         • Lists are good, but in moderation. Don't use too many lists.
         • Consider breaking a long list into more than one list.
         • Closely follow any instructions given regarding formatting.
         • Remember the importance of white space.
         •  

           AuthorAID resource library

           For further information on writing grant proposals, do an online search. You might come across very useful and free e-resources.
           
           The AuthorAID resource library also has a large selection of free e-resources on writing grant proposals.
           
           Visit http://www.authoraid.info/en/resources/?topic=Writing+grant+proposals
           
           The resources are presented in the order in which they were uploaded in the library (recently uploaded resources appear first). Browse the resources or do a search to look for resources that match any keywords you have in mind.
           
           

           End matter

           This lesson has been developed by INASP, an international development charity in the UK, as an extension of the work carried out by the AuthorAID team. Visit inasp.info and authoraid.info to learn about our work. 
           
           This lesson was authored and developed by Ravi Murugesan, an INASP Associate. Parts of this lesson were based on material in AuthorAID workshops facilitated by Dr Gastel.
           
           We have used a free and open source e-learning authoring tool called eXeLearning (http://exelearning.net/?lang=en) to create this lesson.
           
           This lesson was last updated on 21 June 2015.
           
           Licensing
           This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.