Customer Reviews

Guide to Effective Grant Writing: How to Write a Successful NIH Grant Application

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This book in my initial 'skim-read' appears to focus on nuts and bolts of NIH proposals, which is welcome because there are lots of other books that deal with the general craft of proposal writing. The problem with this book is that it spends appreciable pages focusing on the "old-style" NIH proposal, i.e. the 25 page R01 with Specific Aims, Introduction, Background, Progress and Experimental design sections. This proposal format, though, will be replaced with a shorter form proposal in 2010.

This is a great, quick read that is clear and can help you focus on key topics in preparing an NIH grant. I particularly like the emphasis on clarity of writing and making an interesting story, instead of the usual drudgery. It is short enough that you can read it in one sitting, before sitting down to write. It is much less detailed than the Ogden book, "Research Proposals", with a different emphasis, on clarity of writing. If you are looking for a book for a class, I'd suggest Ogden. But if looking for a quick read for the novice to get them started the Yang book is great, due to its brevity and clarity.

This book is full of tips and hints how maximizing the impact of your ideas in a grant application. Examples of effective writing and lists of common pitfalls give concrete guidance on writing a grant that conveys your ideas in their best light. The author also explains the perspective of the grant reviewers who read and score your grant.

I have worked with the NIH for quite some time. I also worked at the University of Pittsburgh for more than 4 years doing research with the NIH. This is an indispensible book. It goes very well paired with "Government Funding and You". I'd highly suggest both books.


Kelli

Leave it to a guy at UCLA to write the perfect "how to" write a grant. Dr Yang's book was recommended by colleagues at UCLA, and they were right on the money. Very helpful for those of us not altogether familiar with the process. Unless you are an expert (in which case you would be writing your own book), this should be in your library.

I would highly recommend this book, because it's very helpful in organizing one's thoughts on how to write down a great idea into a grant proposal. It has specific guides for NIH grants, but I believe the general guidelines are valid for any grant writing.
Also, the details on how to organize, what to write, what are the common errors, are very clear and extremely helpful. The given fictitious example (at each section of a grant) helps the reader understand the author's message.

I found this book extremely helpful and well written. Another good book I'd like to recommend is "Writing Successful Science Proposals" by A. Friedland (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300081413/ref=wms_ohs_product_T2).

This is one of the biggest rip-offs in history. All the author did was take information from the NIH website and put it in a book format. There is little to no original content and it will not help you get an NIH grant any more so than anything on the internet. It is also out of date as NIH has changed their application. Look elsewhere.