A quick CSR video on basic grantsmithing tips
June 27, 2010
All they are missing is actually calling them StockCritiques™
DrugMonkey
biomedical research, just another job…
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biomedical research, just another job…
All they are missing is actually calling them StockCritiques™
DrugMonkey 
June 27, 2010 at 9:34 am
By showing us SROs in wet labs, I think CSR is giving us a sneak peek of their future plans for enhancing peer review:: molecular assignment of grant applications, bioengineered reviewers that limit their discussion of grants to StockCritques, and fMRI-based scoring.
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June 27, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Dude, you’re trolling me with this fucking arrant garbage, aren’t you?
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June 27, 2010 at 2:06 pm
So why does anyone think providing this info in a video format is helpful? Wouldn’t you rather just see the content (not all of which is useless — reminding people that being clear matters, fundamentally, and that you must get others to look at your work is good, and can’t be repeated more often than necessary)?
I can only conclude that people have a bizarre desire to see themselves on video.
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June 27, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Dude, you’re trolling me with this fucking arrant garbage, aren’t you?
What? This is good, if incomplete, advice. Like I said in the title, “basic” tips.
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June 27, 2010 at 3:28 pm
To the extent that the advice is “good”, it is totally obvious: be clear, proofread, spell-check, target your audience, etc. To the extent that it is non-obvious, it is misleading at best, and totally wrong at worst.
Beyond the obvious truisms, the fact is that there are *no* general rules for how to structure a grant application and argue for its worthiness. It is *all* highly case-dependent: career stage of investigator, nature of the science (hypothesis-based, tool-development, exploratory, etc), culture of the study section being targeted, etc. The only way to write a fundable application–other than relying on dumb luck–is to get expert advice on taking account of these specifics.
The mere existence of platitudinous advice such as this video being promulgated by NIH lulls inexperienced investigators into thinking that it is sufficient. It is not.
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June 27, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I think you are going just a leeeetle bit overboard in the other direction. Hypothesis testing is the default. If you want to go and generate tools or go off on -omics fishing expeditions those require extraordinary effort to avoid the stock critique.
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June 27, 2010 at 8:43 pm
You are grossly overgeneralizing in the same misleading way that this video does. There are *fucktons* of funded R01s that are not based on hypothesis testing. And to make that sound like the sine qua non is not only poor grantsmanship; it stifles important science.
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June 27, 2010 at 9:34 pm
what “‘fucktons'” of funded R01s that are not based on hypothesis testing”?? Is there some way to look this up? Who gets these? Which study section is handing these out (ie, giving these high scores)? Certainly not the ones I’ve submitted to. Maybe the better question is, what’s a fuckton. If it’s a small number, then we’re on the same page…
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June 28, 2010 at 10:27 pm
From many years of NSF and NASA panels the best advice is –
READ THE FUCKING CALL FOR PROPOSAL FUCKTARDS –
Your grateful grant reviewer. . .
Don’t and you won’t get funded but we still have to read your steaming pile of crap and write a review.
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