Grantsmanship: Mechanics of Grant Writing

1. Grantsmanship: Mechanics of Grant Writing Elena Plante The University of Arizona Dept. of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences Linda Thibodeau University of Texas at Dallas Advanced Hearing Research Center Callier Center for Communication Disorders

2. OVERVIEW 1. GETTING STARTED 2. OVERALL LAYOUT 3. ABSTRACT 4. BIOSKETCH 5. RESOURCES 6. SPECIFIC AIMS 7. BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE 8. PRELIMINARY STUDIES 9. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS 10. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

3. 1. Getting started • Find funding source and related submission date • Check schedule for commitments relative to due date • Set timelines for your writing • Inform students/administrative asst/colleagues of your deadlines • Allow time for review by colleagues • Allow time for University processing

4. 1. GETTING STARTED • Consider the institutional priorities • Understand the review process http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/peer/peer.htm • Help reviewers advocate for your grant • Consider who will review • Write to the review criteria • Use the review criteria as headers • Use the terminology in the instructions • People with grants WRITE lots of them • People with grants REWRITE lots of them

9. 1. Getting started • Review Points (NIH) • Significance • Approach • Innovation • Investigator(s) • Environment • Human Subjects protection adequacy • Gender, minority and children representation • Budget (red flags)

10. 2. Overall Layout • Get a model from a funded researcher • Caution: requirements change • Format for readability • Adhere to font requirements • Use headers & spacing • Avoid abbreviations • Format for skim-ability • Tables & figures are good • Highlight critical elements

11. Style Hints • Use Headings C. QUALITY OF PROJECT PERSONNEL C.1. Quality of Personnel. The Callier Center for Communication Disorders and the University of Texas at Dallas have a long history of……. • Appendix Labels-letters all down the side to facilitate location

12. APPENDIX A PILOT DATA A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A

13. 3. Abstract • It may be the only thing read by many reviewers • It should reflect the long term goals • It should highlight nature of the proposed research • It should state the importance of the work

14. Abstract for Research Proposal from Pre-Doc Application Cochlear implants (CIs) are commonly recommended as an option for childrena dn adults with severe-to-profound hearing loss who do not benefit from traditional hearing aids. Cis allow for signficant improvements in speech recognition (SR), but these listeners continue to have difficulty hearing speech in noise. During audiologic evaluations, SR in noise is often tested in adults and older chidlren with Cis, but it is rarely included in evaluations for young children because of the lack of standardized testing materials. The purpose of this study is to develop and determine the effectiveness of a SR test in noise for young children with CIs. Speech stimuli will be common words and phrases equated for intelligibility. Noise stimuli will be recorded from classrooms and equated for intensity. Following validation of the test procedure in young children with normal hearing, SR in noise will be evaluated for young children with CIs. Findings may lead to the development of a new clinical SR test for children that can be used to evaluate changes in CI mapping and benefit of devices to improve SR in noise such as FM systems.

15. 4. Biosketch • Convinces the reviewer that key personnel • Can do independent research • Have a track record in the grant area • Are important for the work proposed • Add consultants • When you are new to an area • Make sure their biosketches warrant their role • Do Not Pad • Follow the instructions • Leave relevant “submitted” manuscripts for the preliminary studies section

16. 5. Resources • Gives the impression that most necessary resources are already available • space • major equipment • some or all minor equipment • May need to negotiate this with department in advance of application • Leave off resources that are not relevant

17. 6. Specific Aims • The Aims • Aims are not hypotheses • One Aim may cover multiple studies • Aims should be short and skim-able • Reviewers hold to the Aims • Show how background relates to aims • Link each study to an aim • Bold these points in the text

18. Aim/Hypothesis Specific Aim #1-The first goal is to select and create the stimuli for a speech recognition in noise test for young children with CIs and low receptive vocabularies. It is hypothesized that the selected stimuli will be correctly identified by 90% of young children with normal hearing.

19. 6. Specific Aims • Typically has several components • Lead-in • Actual aims • Optional hypotheses

20. T. Hogan

21. 6. Specific Aims • Recommendations (Ogden & Goldberg, 2002) • Provide a very brief statement of orientation • Mention the overall framework • Mention the theoretical model • Mention the general approach • Give sense of importance • State what the be accomplished through the research • List the aims numerically • Use single declarative sentences • State hypotheses for each aim

22. Specific Aim The second aim is to determine if variations in these two types of auditory adaptation are related to variations in auditory enhancement effects. Based on the theory that an adaptation mechanism underlies enhancement, it is hypothesized that the stimulus conditions that result in limited adaptation will also result in limited enhancement. To test this hypothesis, the third phase will be devoted to evaluating enhancement for stimulus conditions analogous to those used in the first two phases. This will lead to a better understanding of the auditory system so that compensatory techniques for the effects of hearing loss may be developed.

23. 7. Background & Significance • Couches work within a broader theoretical framework (figure opportunity) • Lays out the rationale for the study (figure opportunity) • Tightly written to aims/studies rather than exhaustive

24. Interest/Importance Statements The proposed project will aid our understanding of the auditory mechanisms underlying speech recognition in noise as well as provide a basis for the possible development of assessment and intervention tools for many persons with speech recognition difficulties. A fuller understanding of the mechanisms underlying speech reception in noise may lead to the development of more sophisticated signal processing techniques which can be incorported into amplifying systems.

25. 7. Background & Significance • Identifies the critical gaps in the literature • Shows why the work is interesting • Shows why the findings will be important • Links information explicitly to aims and studies

26. 7. Background & Significance • Strategies • Give overview in Background & Significance section and review study-specific literature with each study in Research Design and Methods • Breakout background relevant to specific studies under separate headers in Background & Significance section

27. 8. Preliminary Studies • Answers the following: • How do reviewers know you can do the proposed work? • How do reviewers know the proposed methods are likely to be successful? • Preliminary studies are directly relevant to proposed studies • Pilot data are clean, robust, and convincing • Tables, Graphs, & Images are appreciated

28. 8. Preliminary Studies • Recommendations (Ogden & Goldberg, 2002) • Write after the Research Methods • Provide examples that show technical expertise • Demonstrate feasibility of the approach

29. 8. Preliminary Studies • Recommendations (Ogden & Goldberg, 2002) • Make points visually obvious with charts/graphs • Establish history of prior collaboration for interdisciplinary efforts • Be planning the preliminary studies section for the next grant as you are doing current studies

30. Summary of Premliminary Studies The data thus far present a paradox. Performance on the auditory enhancement tasks suggests no difference between those with reduced speech recognition in noise (RSRN) and those with normal speech recognition in noise. Yet, when the masker duration was increased, the groups did not show similar results. The data suggest the need for further study with more subjects to verify, and more completely describe the differences in adaptation of suppression in listeners with RSRN relative to a control group.

31. 9. Research Design & Methods • Not the place to gloss over details • Show innovation and justify it! • Do not assume reviewers will read appended materials • Justify methodological decisions from the literature • Write to counter possible objections or mistaken assumptions

32. Research Design • Restate the Aims: The proposed study will achieve the stated aims through the following experiments: Aim 1: Stimuli Development: Screening, selecting, recording, and modifying speech and noise stimuli Aim 2: Intensity Scaling: Equating the speech stimuli for intelligibility using intensity scaling. • Give Summary and Expected Findings: The purpose of this experiment is to equate the intelligibility across the words and across the phrases. This will be achieved by measuring percent correct speech recognition for each word and phrase and comparing this score to the overall mean for the words combined and phrases. It is hypothesized that percent correct scores among the words and amoung the phrases will not differ by more than 10% after the fourth equalization step.

33. 9. Research Design & Methods • Space savers • Summarize common elements separate from specific studies • subject selection methods • data acquisition • common design elements • statistical approach • Use graphics whenever possible to guide reviewers • Use abbreviations for groups or conditions to simplify processing for reviewers • Timelines can be helpful • establishes investigator is realistic about the work • reassures reviewer that there is a logical plan

34. 9. Research Design & Methods • Recommendations (Ogden & Goldberg, 2002) • Use tabular data to summarize design • Use flowcharts to summarize procedures • Anticipate problems and present potential alternatives • Do not assume reviewers are familiar with your methods

35. 4.36 Potential Challenges and Alternatives • The adaptive, speech recognition in noise test may be difficult for the younger children in terms of the task and attention. Children will be give frequent breaks and snacks between conditions to help with attention and focus. If necessary, the children may need to be scheduled for two testing sessions. If children are only able to complete one or some of the conditions in the study, their data will be included in the analysis. If children cannot participate in any conditions because of inattention or frustration they will be dismissed from participating in the study with no consequence.

36. 9. Research Design & Methods • Statistics • Provide a power analysis for each study • Link the analyses to the hypotheses • Provide a statistical plan • specify main analyses • specify planned & post-hoc comparisons • raise potential alternative approaches that might conceivably be needed

37. 10. Additional Resources • Make use of the program liaisons • New investigator resourceshttp://grants1.nih.gov/grants/new_investigators/index.html • Proposal writing short coursehttp://fdncenter.org/learn/shortcourse/prop1.html • NIH tip page http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/grant_tips.htm • Review processhttp://grants1.nih.gov/grants/peer/peer.htm • Ogden, T.E. & Goldberg, I.A. (2002). Research Proposals: A Guide to Success. 3rd Edition. San Diego: Academic Press • Kraemer, H.C. & Thiemann, S. (1987). How Many Subjects? Statistical Power Analysis in Research. Newberry Park: Sage.