Faculty Facilitator

Topic

Writing

A collection of 12 issues

Communicating Research

In order for research to be impactful, your findings and their significance must be understood. Such communications can take a variety of forms, some traditional and some more unusual. Traditional Channels Peer-reviewed publications Peer-reviewed publications are a non-negotiable component of running a successful research program. Research findings must be published

Pivoting Research for Foundations

United States federal research funding has historically been a key driver of scientific advancement, economic growth, and societal well-being. The level and consistency of financial support provided by government organizations such as the NIH, NSF, DoE and others has directly accelerated the number of breakthroughs in medicine and technology, while

Developing a Writing Practice

The ability to write quickly and well is essential for success in biomedical research. There is a constant need to produce protocols, grants, manuscripts, letters of recommendation, lay summaries, abstracts, and other documents, along with the high volume of professional emails requiring a response. Fortunately, writing is a skill that

Writing Lay Summaries

The ability to convey your ideas to a variety of audiences is an essential skill. A lay summary is a short document included in many grant applications that asks you to explain your proposal to a non-specialist audience. Writing an excellent lay summary will help you get funded. Lay summaries

NIH Reference Letters

The NIH requires Reference Letters for Fellowships (Fs), mentored Career Development Awards (Ks), and other programs. They are often confused with Letters of Support, but they have a completely different purpose and should be approached in a structured way to ensure that they provide a trainee applicant with the best

NIH Narrative

The NIH allows you 3 sentences to summarize your proposal in the form of a narrative statement. This structure forces you to succinctly and directly address the NIH's review criteria, specifying whether your research proposal innovatively addresses a problem of importance (Factor 1) in an achievable (Factor 3)

NIH Project Summary/Abstract

The Project Summary/Abstract (called abstract from here forward) gives you 30 lines of text to provide an overview of your proposal. The NIH helpfully provides a clear set of requirements for what to include in the SF424 R&R guide. The abstract should touch on all the major

2025 NIH Simplified Review Framework

With the goals of both reducing review burden and broadening the number of individuals and institutions working with the NIH, the NIH is moving to a simplified review framework for all grants submitted on or after January 25, 2025. As of this writing, the outcome of review currently includes 5

Book Review - "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott

My format for book reviews is heavily borrowed from how James Clear does his book reviews, providing an overall summary and then notes and quotes that resonated with me. Final Summary This was a great book that discussed emotional and practical things that can keep people from writing. Practical recommendations

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