Resources for Writing and Editing Grant Proposals

I was recently privileged to edit sections of a physician-researcher's proposal for a grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund an experiment whose findings would benefit very ill children. Because this was my first foray into the world of grant proposals, I needed help from colleagues to get up to speed. I asked for links to information resources, and wow, were they helpful! I'm sharing these resources with you here so that maybe you'll be able to spend less time hunting for resources and more time working on grant proposals.

Books

• The Foundation Center's Guide to Proposal Writing, 5th edition (Jane C. Geever, 2007)

• Four Steps to Funding (Morgan Giddings)

• Grant Seeking in an Electronic Age (Victoria Mikelonis, Signe T. Betsinger, and Constance E. Kampf, 2004)

• Grant Writing: Strategies for Developing Winning Government Proposals, 3rd edition (Patrick W. Miller, 2002)

• Guide to Effective Grant Writing: How to Write a Successful NIH Grant (Otto O. Yang, 2005)

• Research Proposals: A Guide to Success, 3rd edition (Thomas E. Ogden and Israel A. Goldberg, 2002)

• Writing Successful Science Proposals, 2nd edition (Andrew J. Friedland and Carol L. Folt, 2009)

• Writing the NIH Grant Proposal: A Step-by-Step Guide (William Gerin, 2006)

Courses and Online Resources

• "All About Grants" Tutorials, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

• American Grant Writers' Association (see information about in-person grant-writing workshop and information about online courses)

• "Annotated Forms," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• Annotated Grant Proposal, AuthorAID (PDF)

• Center for Scientific Review

• Course schedule from Grant Writing USA

• Foundation Center

• Foundation Center, online training courses

• "Glossary & Acronym List," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• "Grant Proposal Writing Tips," Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PDF)

• "Grant Writing," Office of Clinical Research Training and Medical Education, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center

• "Grant Writing Tips Sheets," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• Grantsmanship Center (offers training programs on grant writing)

• "Guidelines for Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPOREs)" (PDF)

• "How to Write a Research Project Grant Application," National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

• Morgan On Science

• "NIH Forms & Applications," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• "Non-Competing Continuation Progress Report: PHS 2590: Downloadable Instructions and Form Files," National Institutes of Health

• Non-profit Guides: Grant-Writing Tools for Non-Profit Organizations

• Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• "Proposal Writing Checklist," eLearners.com

• "Recruiting Human Subjects: Sample Guidelines for Practice," Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (PDF)

• "Sample R01 Applications and Summary Statements," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (samples of successful grant applications)

• "Training & Communications Resources," Enhancing Peer Review at NIH, National Institutes of Health

• The Translational Research Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

• U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual

• "Vanderbilt University Medical Center Office of Research: Tools for Grant Writing"

• "What Grantmakers Want Applicants to Know," GuideStar

Most of the resources listed here were recommended to me by members of the private Editing-Writing e-mail list of the American Medical Writers Association, the private e-mail list of the Editorial Freelancers Association, and the public Copyediting-L e-mail list. A few of them are courtesy of this blog post from medical writer and editor Stacey C. Tobin.

grants grant proposal science funding copyeditor copyediting editor editing writer writing EditorMom