A few years ago I gave a talk in the biochem department at UNC. Afterwards I went out for lunch with my mentor, and he berated me. (Did I mention that he can be an intimidating guy? But I listen to him, since he’s the one who helped me go from no grants to lots of grants…)
He berated me for several things, including using a difficult-to-read font, giving a software demo that took a bunch of time to get ...(read more)
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Developing a real writing habit is essential for success. Otherwise, you either:
1) Leave everything until the last minute, and then in a desperate, panicked effort throw together something subpar; or
2) You just don’t do the writing at all, instead postponing it and telling yourself you’ll get to it “as soon as I have time” (which is just about never).
Either way, you’re going to get suboptimal results!
Many of ...(read more)
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This stressed out dude will not bring clarity or focus to writing his grant. Don’t be like him, it does not lead to success.
To take the stress out of writing, develop a good writing habitThrough my work with academics in grant writing, one of the most common concerns I hear is how to find the time to actually sit down and write. The days of an academic scientist (and most people, nowadays) are chock-full of an endless series ...(read more)
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Many of you have probably heard of speed dating, a relatively new (well, 10 years old now) phenomenon where a large group of singles go to meet potential mates. You get 3-5 minutes with each potential person to decide if you like them and want to give them your phone number for a future date. Put yourself at one of these events for a minute. Since you have such a short amount of time, what would you look for to ...(read more)
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I wanted to find out: what is the most pressing challenge you’re currently facing in your science career, and how can I help?
I used good ol’ Survey Monkey, and got > 200 responses so far. Yay! The results were interesting and a bit surprising to me. They also caused me to go off on a bit of a rant about how to learn effective grant writing. Ok, not really a rant, but kind of a Morgan ...(read more)
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