GWSW Workbooks offer comprehensive, step-by-step instruction for creating proposals for a variety of funding agencies.

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Salami Slicing Science

When I was a graduate student, one particular research group caught my attention because they seemed to publish a manuscript at least monthly. It didn’t take long, however, for me to appreciate that all of their publications were very similar; it was only the Results Section that changed substantively from one publication to the next.

At a time when writing research manuscripts intimidated me, I realized how easy preparing new manuscripts…

Guidance on authorship

At virtually every Biomedical Publication Seminar I present, attendees line up during breaks to seek my input on conflicts they are currently facing regarding authorship. Thus, if you find yourself struggling to decide who should or shouldn’t be included as an author of a manuscript, you’re not alone.

Vera-Badillo et al. (Eur J Cancer, 2016) recently investigated the issue of Honorary and Ghost Authors of manuscripts…

The MOST IMPORTANT reason grant applications fail

Approximately two months ago, we posted a commentary in which we listed thirty reasons why applications for grant support were likely to fail. That post attracted significant interest among our readers as well as several comments. One of the more frequent questions concerned the issue as to whether the list of thirty reasons was presented in order of relative importance…

New NIH rules affect clinical research applications

We have earlier posted a number of blogs regarding extremely important recent changes at the NIH concerning the preparation of grant proposals to the NIH. In keeping with the renewed focus on reproducibly, the NIH last September enacted a change in policy affecting all applicants submitting grant applications describing proposed randomized clinical trials. This proposed policy change has…

Tips on optimizing opportunities for success in science

It is a simple fact of life that, similar to every other profession, scientists uniformly aspire to be successful in their chosen profession. Of potential importance, therefore, a very important recently published study by Andrew Higginson and Marcus Munato in the well-respected journal, PLOS Biology, November 10, 2016, page 1371 provides a fascinating insight into one way to do this…

MUST READING: Rigorous Science: a how-to guide

As readers of this blog know well, and indeed, as most informed grant applicants interested in NIH funding know, the NIH has recently (May, 2016) instituted a number of policy changes. Foremost among these are changes regarding the critical importance of the underlying Scientific Premise for any proposed research project, as well as the requirement that all proposals must adhere to principles of Scientific Rigor…

Sex as a biological variable in funded research

As we have discussed previously in a number of blog posts, the NIH (and the CIHR-Canadian Institute for Health Research) have recently implemented strict new policies for the consideration of sex and/or gender in all studies involving vertebrate animals and human subjects. The genesis for such considerations…

Hints: Writing Your Objectives

One of the fundamental points that is relevant to almost all grant proposals is the fact that the proposal is (or at least should be), designed to address a problem or need (that the target funding agency also recognizes as important). Thus, the primary (but certainly not only) purpose of the proposal should then be to explain to the funding agency (and/or the reviewers) what the applicant’s idea(s) would be as to how to address that need or fix the problem. To achieve these goals…

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