Helpful Hints

1. Just because you think it’s a really cool idea and you’re going to do it anyways, doesn’t mean you need to put it into your grant proposal.

2. Write down every question you get from others whenever you tell them a little bit about your grant, or they skim or read any of it. Make sure you've answered these questions in your grant.

3. We so often propose projects that are too large - one trick to avoid this is to think about what will be in your NEXT grant.

4. If it doesn't fit in the allotted page count, it's a sign something's wrong. A sign of what? I don't know - you're probably proposing too much or maybe not consisely reviewing the literature.

5. In a pinch, you can use word-> format-> paragraph-> spacing -> exactly -> 12pt to get more lines/page than with single spacing. Do try to avoid this, as it's hard to read! And check if your agency allows this many lines/page.

6. Subtitle, subtitle, subtitle sections! - possibly title every paragraph.

7. Make sure you've answered all the common "checkmarks". Please send me more of these, but here are some:
   • Do you compare to the gold standard?
   • (Mostly if not), do you compare to the currently accepted technique?
   • Will the rest of your grant fail if a piece fails?
   • Are all pieces that would cause your grant to fail proven with preliminary data, simulations, or some other evidence?
   • Do you have preliminary data for your patient population?
   • Do you have a section on statistical methods?
   • Did you do a power analysis?