The first is composed of everyone in the “field”. In this case, the study section members all go to the same conferences and publish in the same journals. In this case, the experiments are obvious. The questions are who is the appropriate person to conduct the experiments. There is little disagreement over the significance over proposals. Most of the scoring comes down to the approach and whether the investigator can execute the approach. If the applicant is not part of that clique, or was not educated in that clique, there is no hope and datodato is correct.

The second type of study section is one composed of all types of people. These are a mixture of chemists, engineers, computer science, physics, with a few weirdo basic biomedical scientists thrown in. In this case, the reviewers don’t know the applicants and their credentials. Here, communication is absolutely key and the Significance of the work is important.

You are missing the point on so many levels, it is hard to know where to begin.

You obviously think you’re smart, and can “see through” good or bad writing to the “truth.”

Good for you, but it is not true.

For example, interpret the science in the following poorly written sentence:

“ENasdh eqydsal amass ditiem cped f klight skared”

There is a famous scientific axiom embedded in that sentence, but it is so obfuscated by poor typing that it will take you a lot of work to figure it out.

Maybe you have infinite patience and don’t mind trying to understand what “someone really meant” even when they don’t know what they meant.

Writing is a tool that helps clarify thinking, as a symbolic system. If the writing is unclear, often the thinking is unclear.

I know many senior scientists doing very great, ground breaking science (including a Nobel prize winner in Medicine) who often can’t get funding from study sections with people like you.

One last point: if presentation “is the trivial part” then why did you bother to write ~10 complete, mostly correct sentences? Why didn’t you just write “you suck and you’re wrong?” Why bother with all the fluff of making “logical” arguments, if you could just call me names and make pretty much the same point?

Oh, yeah, it’s because “presentation matters.”

The new format certainly is a new experience for me, a senior investigator. I am finding that while I can think outside the box, writing outside it is another matter entirely. My first one of these new grants was the most difficult one I have ever written.