Editorial and Writing Assistance
The Office of Research Compliance & Proposal Development is available to help faculty and researchers with editorial and writing assistance on proposals. To request a review of your proposal narrative, contact 312.567.7141 or orcpd@iit.edu.
ORCPD will need a copy of your project narrative and abstract, the URL for the solicitation if available, and the funder's deadline. We will meet with you in person or over the phone and provide a MS Word document with changes to your proposal. You may request that your proposal be reviewed in regard to any of the following:
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A simple editing review can be done to make sure sentences are complete and organized. Goal: check that there are no obvious spelling or grammatical errors.
- A review for grantsmanship and style. Although there are entire books on grantsmanship and proposal style, some of the elements of this type of review are: Does the proposal read well? Is it compelling? Does it take the reviewer by the hand, guiding them? An illustration of one grantsmanship technique follows: instead of stating that your project will do X… try stating the problem first, and THEN explain how your proposal will address that critical problem. The result is a more compelling proposal.
A review for grantsmanship and style can also look at how the proposal is laid out in regard to organization, such as headings, subheadings, and so on. Remember, your proposal needs to be very easy to follow, because the reviewers who are critiquing your proposal for the sponsor are likely to be very busy, harried individuals! They need to be able to look up from your proposal, deal with the person who just walked in the door, and then look back down at your proposal and know just exactly where they left off (Note that it is recommended that you put headings on your proposal at the top of the pages. For example, you may want to put your name and project title at the top right of each page, and at the top left something like: "Methods, continued." That way the reviewer can pick up right where they left off. Of course, the funder's guidelines may request a certain format for page headings, read and carefully follow all instructions).
- A review for funder's priorities. By analyzing the request for applications (RFA) and then looking at your proposal, a level of editorial assistance can be offered that will include suggestions for including language that may "win points" with the funder. For example, if an RFA says that high risk/high return research is being funded, it's wise to state that your research represents a high risk/high return effort. Don't be shy about showing how your project matches what the funder wants.
Remember, many funders have "mission statements," easily accessible online. Since you never want to assume the funder knows what you mean, remember that it cannot hurt your proposal to state how your project fits the funder's overall priorities or mission statement.
- A review for advocacy tools. The proposal can be reviewed with an eye toward whether you have provided potential review committee "advocates" with enough tools to convince the other committee members to give you the green light. Since this type of review requires a high level of familiarity with the technical proposal, it is done in a meeting with the researcher.
For Microsoft Word users, your proposal will be returned to you with the "tracking feature" on (If you do not use Microsoft Word, other arrangements can be made). All the suggested changes that have been made to your proposal will be shown in a different color (they will not appear in the printout). Your next step is to create a final version of your proposal that you will then submit to the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs. Important: this service should be scheduled and completed well in advance of your 5-day deadline with the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs.
Office of Research Compliance and Proposal DevelopmentMain Building,
Room 301
312.567.7141
orcpd@iit.edu