Grant Tip - Clearly State Your Expected Results

The Research Strategy of an NIH R01 grant contains descriptions of experiments to be performed in order to achieve the goal of the proposed research. While most people do an excellent job stating the goal of an experiment and describing methodology, many forget to clearly define what they expect to observe, and how they will interpret their observations. This is an essential component of a research strategy, and an important skill to master.

An example

"Our goal in this subaim is to determine the fluffiness imparted to chocolate chip cookies by different amounts of baking powder. Our hypothesis is that 1 tsp is the correct amount for the batter we define in subaim 1A (see above). To test this we will make 4 batches of cookie batter as described previously. To the first, we will add the standard 0.5 tsp. To the other 3 we will add 0, 1, and 2 tsp baking powder. All other variables will be held constant. After baking and overnight cooling we will determine cookie fluffiness as a function of amount of baking powder added, with fluffiness defined as cookie height (cm) divided by cookie diameter (cm). If our hypothesis is correct, we anticipate to observe the highest fluffiness value when 1 tsp of baking powder is added."

The very last sentence of the paragraph above is the statement of expected results. It conveys that you know exactly what you are looking for, and that you have a defined criterion for success or failure.