Transcript che594lect20 writing..

CHE 594 Lecture 20
Writing Style
1
Object For Today

Effective Writing: Key to funded proposals

Ref: chapt 9 Johnson-Sheenan
2
Most Scientists Taught To Write
Poorly
In 1980 Masel’s instructors taught him to
Adopt a formal style



Mostly passive voice
 Passive: the door was closed
 Active: Frank closed the door
Lots of Jargon
Complex sentences – lots of subordinate phrases
This writing style insures that you will NOT be
funded!
3
Reviewers Are Human


When confronted with a pile of perhaps
30 proposals they will pick the easy ones
to read first
Keys



Exciting (first person) writing
Lots of pretty pictures
Collaborate with someone they know
4
Salesman’s Guide To Good Writing

Connect with your audience.




Point the level of the text slightly below the
average level of the audience.
Make sure there is no jargon that your
audience will not understand
Use breathable sentences
Get your audience excited by what you
plan to do

Active voice transmits excitement better than
passive voice
5
Breathable Sentences


When speaking, people talk between
breaths. They can only say a sentence
that is no longer than one breath.
People learn to read like they speak. If
sentences are too long busy people stop
reading.
6
Guidelines for Good Sentences







The subject should be what the sentences
is about
State the action as a verb
Put the subject early in the sentence
Eliminate nomilizations
Avoid excessive Prepositional phrases
Eliminate Redundancy
Sentences should be a breathable length
7
The Subject Should Be What The
Sentence Is About
The Institute provides the government with
accurate crime statistics
The government is provided with accurate
crime statistics by the institute
Crime statistics were provided to the
government by the Institute
8
Make the Doer the subject
Which is easier to read?
On Saturday morning, the measurement
was completed by Jim
On Saturday morning, Jim completed the
measurement
Jim completed the measurement on
Saturday morning
9
Make the Doer the subject
Jim completed the measurement on
Saturday morning



Subject is the doer
Subject is early in the sentence
Verb is an action verb
10
Eliminate Nominalizations

Nominalizations are verbs changed to
noun phrases


My research advisor has the expectation that
 Better: My research advisor expects
Our discussion about the alternatives allowed
us to make a decision on the purchase of an
x-ray machine from Phillips
 Better: We discussed the alternatives and
decided to purchase the Phillips x-ray
machine
11
Hints For Persuasive Writing


Remember a proposal is an
advertisement- you are trying to convince
someone to fund your research and not
convince them how smart you are
Good ads have the following


Catchy pictures to grab your readers
attention
Text that makes benefits clear
12
Persuasive Writing

The opening gambit

You want something at the beginning that
will catch reviewers attention
 I put long term goal first
 Long term goal needs to be something
that the reviewer cares about


Better rocket fuel
Cures for artherioscholorsis
13
Persuasive Writing

Key benefits



You need to tell the reviewers why they
should fund you rather than someone else
Making the benefits clear goes a long way
toward doing that
Pick something that the reviewer
understands and focus toward that
 Greater drug stability ..
14
Persuasive Writing
Proof Of Concept
 You need to give the reviewers the idea
that your project will really work


Preliminary Data
References to other significant findings
15
Persuasive Writing
Highlighting
 You should bold or italics to add emphasis
to the most important points in your
proposal
Positive writing
 Never criticize anyone
 Emphasize the positive on all past work

Do not apologize for anything
16
Questions?
17