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Preparing a successful NSF CAREER workshop proposal is crucial for advancing your career. This guide outlines five key aspects to focus on: Clarity, Organization, Detail, Scope, Impact, and Timeline, and Presentation. Ensure your proposal is explicit about important concepts, employing a structured outline and clear summaries of key hypotheses. Balance ambitious goals with practical timelines, and clearly state the projected impact of your project. Utilize formatting tools to highlight essential ideas and enhance readability. Thorough proofreading is essential, so iterate on your proposal until it shines.
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NSF CAREER WorkshopProposal Preparation THE BURDEN ALWAYS LIES WITH YOU!
5 Key aspects • Clarity • Organization • Detail • Scope, Impact and Timeline • Presentation
Clarity • State important concepts and ideas EXPLICITLY • Do not rely on referee to extract significance from context • Organization • Use a nested outline several layers deep • Front load important ideas and innovations • Summarize key hypotheses and specific aims early • Break longer portions into concisely-written sub-sections; consider using bulleted/numbered lists • Use natural, field-appropriate “boundaries” (experiments, field studies, programs, devices, etc.) to “granularize” research description
Detail • Novel/innovative components of proposal will require more detailed descriptions • Balance between adding enough detail to guarantee clarity, without becoming pedantic • Use illustrative examples/preliminary to clarify complicated concepts • Include examples of possible obstacles/pitfalls with proposed work-arounds or alternative strategies • Scope, Impact and Timeline • Scope find balance of ambition and practicality • Impact state projected impact concisely and explicitly • Timeline consider adding milestones self-assessment • Summarize “state of project” at end of 5-year cycle
Presentation • Use bold and italics to draw attention to important ideas & break up blocks of text • Bulleted lists are referee-friendly collect and emphasize related groups of important points • Figures and Tables should be set apart with descriptive captions & references in main body PROOFREAD EARLY AND OFTEN! BE HARD ON YOURSELF! ITERATE SEVERAL TIMES!