Climbing the academic ladder to secure promotions, tenure, and prestige is a highly competitive and demanding endeavor. One factor that assists in or is often required for this advancement is the procurement of external funding to supplement a professor’s research, projects, or students. This scenario is particularly relevant in the scientific disciplines, but is increasingly affecting the arts, Social Sciences, and English Studies. Grant writing is an exercise in rhetoric, abides by specific and often universal rules, and can be very difficult to learn on one’s own. Therefore, it is now important to introduce and teach grant writing skills to students, particularly those interested in pursuing academic careers.
Numerous grant writing manuals are currently available, few are directed at students, and each has varied pedagogical efficacy. Mary Walters published a concise, disciplinarily broad, and effective manual in 2009 entitled Write an Effective Funding Application: A Guide for Researchers and Scholars. This book strives to take inexperienced grant writers and introduce them to the funding environment, guide them through the planning stages, and assist with writing strategies while imparting tricks of the trade throughout the process. First, Walters places heavy emphasis on the planning stages of grant writing. The author provides strategies for setting a plan and timeline, understanding the desires of the funder, and determining and expressing the significance of one’s work. Walters continues with instruction regarding the general structure and organizational components of a grant, including a chapter on developing a budget. The final third of the book provides suggestions for writing drafts and concludes with an analysis of poorly and well written grants.
Walters’ funding application manual is a useful and effective text that can supplement undergraduate and graduate curricula addressing grant writing, particularly within English Studies. Specifically, the book is well organized and easily accessible to students. Walters uses layman’s language, real-world examples, and humor that appeal to a student audience. The author’s organization, logic flow, and thorough explanations are easily understood and tangible. In addition, Walters specifically addresses graduate student needs in each section. This manual is also appealing for classroom use as the process suggested by Walters is translatable into an instructional setting. The author describes the letter of intent, timelines, the composition of drafts, and the review process. Walters explains each step with contextual information and helps the reader write his or her own grant by asking numerous questions, thus driving and focusing the writing process. These steps can be performed in class or act as cumulative assignments. Finally, Walters’ manual appeals to a broad disciplinary audience. The author’s concepts are general and therefore applicable to fields in both the sciences and humanities, providing insightful suggestions for any level of funding application. Grant writing manuals specifically addressing English Studies are rare, therefore making Walters’ book appealing to the Humanities due to its interdisciplinarity, generality, and customizability.
Certain aspects of Walters’ text may be too advanced for student learning and therefore require omission or supplementation from the instructor. First, Walters effectively conveys numerous important grant writing concepts thereby presenting an immense amount of information to the reader. Students will not grasp all of these concepts in one course. Therefore, instructors should not expect students to synthesize all of the information in one attempt and should realize that this manual will act as a future reference. Second, Walters only briefly describes the process of locating appropriate funding opportunities. Finding the right opportunity is a skill within itself and requires strategy, an understanding of one’s needs, and knowing where to look. If this manual is used in a classroom, the instructor should consider supplementing the course material with a lecture or text on locating funding opportunities. One source for this information is Morrison and Russell’s The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook: Successful Proposals to Any Agency.
Finally, Walters takes a general approach to grant writing and is therefore unable to describe field specific themes and the fine details of grant submission. Additional texts can be used to supplement disciplinary information in the sciences, including Friedland and Folts’ Writing Successful Science Proposals and Gitlin and Lyons’ Successful Grant Writing: Strategies for Health and Human Service Professionals. However, few resources are Humanities specific, suggesting that general manuals including those written by Walters and Morrison and Russell are the best options. Information used to supplement the fine details regarding submission can be accessed through funding agency guides, such as those provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Walters provides us with an effective funding application manual that can be used in the classroom, applies to all disciplines including English Studies, and is an excellent source for guidance and information later in one’s career.
References
Friedland, Andrew J., Carol L. Folt. Writing Successful Science Proposals. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Print.
Gitlin, Laura N., Kevin J. Lyons. Successful Grant Writing: Strategies for Health and Human Service Professionals. 3rd ed. New York, New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2008. Print.
Morrison, David C., Stephen W. Russell. The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook: Successful Proposals to Any Agency. Los Olivos, CA: Grant Writers’ Seminars and Workshops, LLC, 2005. Print.
Walters, Mary W. Write an Effective Funding Application: A Guide for Researchers and Scholars. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Print.
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