An effective grant application will be clear, concise, comprehensive, and compelling. These four “C”s may help you focus the drafting and revision process for any application. Clear Aim to describe your research project so that it is intelligible to an interdisciplinary review panel. Reviewers for award competitions often have to wade through hundreds of applications. […]
Welcome to the GradFund Blog
Welcome to the GradFund Blog
Fulbright, Greece, and GradFund
Success in Grant Writing Series Editor’s Note: Welcome to the next installment of our Success in Grant Writing series, which will feature guest blog posts written by Rutgers graduate student winners of prestigious fellowships and grants. If you would like to share your experience with successful grant writing, please contact us through our website, gradfund.rutgers.edu Following the example […]
Multiple Documents, One Story
The multiple documents that comprise an award application should tell a single story. Since funder awards normally require some combination of a previous research statement, a biographical essay, and a research proposal, you will want to make sure that all of your essays cohere into a compelling narrative. Each of the documents serves a distinct purpose, of […]
Securing Small Grants: Strategies and Benefits
Success in Grant Writing Series Editor’s Note: Welcome to the first installment of our Success in Grant Writing series, which will feature guest blog posts written by Rutgers graduate student winners of prestigious fellowships and grants. If you would like to share your experience with successful grant writing, please contact us through our website, gradfund.rutgers.edu As […]
Laying the Groundwork: Describing Your Preliminary Results
Hello, GradFund Readers! Whether you are a second-year PhD student preparing an NSF GRFP or an ABD (all but dissertation) PhD candidate applying for a Louis Bevier Dissertation Completion fellowship, effectively describing your preliminary research can make or break your chances of success. Today, we are going to discuss getting the most out of the […]
Pitch a Second Project: Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities
To be competitive for a postdoctoral fellowship in the humanities, you will need to describe your plans for a second project. Doctoral students who are still in the process of dissertation writing often find this to be a challenging task. You may wonder, “How I can I think about a second project when I haven’t […]
Best Practices in Grantsmanship: Working with Institutional Contacts
Best Practices in Grantsmanship Series note: Welcome to the second installment of Best Practices in Grantsmanship. In this series we will periodically post advice and suggestions that reflect best practices in grantsmanship. In the first installment, we introduced the key partnerships in the application process. Below, we address how to determine whether you will need to work with institutional contacts and the […]
Best Practices in Grantsmanship: Key Partnerships during the Application Process
Best Practices in Grantsmanship Series note: Welcome to the first installment of Best Practices in Grantsmanship. We will periodically post advice and suggestions that reflect best practices in grantsmanship. Applying for grants successfully rarely happened alone. While a researcher will be quick to point out that much about writing a grant application is a solitary […]
What We Mean by “Start Early”
At GradFund we often tell students about the benefits of “starting early” when it comes to working on fellowship and grant applications, but what does that really mean? How early is early enough? Read on for a sample month-by-month breakdown of what you should be doing to give yourself the best chances for writing a […]
Applying for Funding in the Humanities: Advice from a Fellowship Adviser
With the spring semester in full swing, now is a good time to start planning ahead for the fall application deadline season. For students in the humanities, it is important to be aware of your external funding award options. To be sure, there is a higher concentration of grants and fellowships available at the stage […]