What Does a UROP Proposal Look Like?

You also should read the Nineteen Tips for Successful Proposal Writing and Why Proposals Fail!

This document can be downloaded as a pdf.

The comments and advice below are meant to be used as a guideline only. Various disciplines may approach proposal writing differently. Work with your faculty mentor and start by acquiring his or her writing style to express yourself. Once you are a more accomplished grant and paper writer, and more familiar with writing in your discipline, you may find your own, perhaps more personal, style.

Length and Appearance: A UROP proposal should be three pages long . Longer proposals will not be reviewed. Experience has shown that proposals less than three pages are often incomplete and not persuasive. The proposal should be neatly typed, preferably printed on a laser printer. Color or fancy graphics are not necessary. Take time to include bold type and type organization (indents, bullets, outlines) where ever such elements will lend clarity. Correct grammar and spelling are essential.

Language and Jargon: Write for the reviewers. UROP reviewers are picked from among faculty who may or may not be familiar with the assumptions and jargon specific to your discipline. Use technical terminology appropriate for your topic but, at the same time, include definitions and explanations of items that an intelligent, well-educated person, outside of your discipline, might not know.

Persuade your reader: A grant proposal is an exercise in persuasion. You are trying to convince someone to give you funds to carry out a worthwhile project. You must persuade them that the funds will be well spent and that whatever methods you use will give an expected outcome of some significance. You should be explicit about methods, outcomes, and significance. Do not expect a reader to intuitively know what you are talking about.

Parts of the Proposal

The Abstract: The abstract is a one-paragraph summary of your project. It must include:

• The purpose or goal(s) of the project in one or two sentences. The purpose may be to test a hypothesis, which then should be summarized very briefly.
• The significance of the project in one or two sentences, or why the project needs to be done, or why you are doing the project.
• The major methods or techniques to be used, without any details, or the scholarly approach you will use to accomplish your goals.

The reader should know at a glance from the abstract what the project is about, what major materials or other entities are involved (species, body of literature, biochemical pathway, artist, instrument, philosopher, engineering concept, computer language, etc.). The abstract may be written at the beginning of the proposal-writing task as a guide or outline and then revised at the end. Alternatively, the abstract may be written last once the writer has organized the entire proposal, in which case the necessary abstract elements may then be "mined" from the proposal narrative. Both techniques are known to work.

Introduction: Start with an introduction that includes a statement of the question(s) to be answered, the problem(s) to be solved, and/or the major objective(s) of the project.

• Discuss why the project is interesting or important and to what audience it is relevant. Include literature references where appropriate
• Explicitly state what the project is about
• Explain what is known by others about the topic to date (here you must be very concise) and what you expect to learn that is new or interesting. Use the relevant literature references here
• Use the passive voice or the royal "we" in your narrative. A string of sentences starting with "I" is sometimes irritating. The subject "I" should be used sparingly.
• A typical topic sentence might be "This project is to investigate (analyze, solve, better understand, provide answers about, develop) why (or how, when, under what conditions, by what mechanism) something (specify) happens (or, does not happen, occurs, causes., brings about, is perceived to .).etc."..
• By the end of the introduction your reader should already know what your project is about and what results might be expected.

Results To Date: This section could go before or after "Methodology". Tell what results you have already collected yourself. If you have not collected any data yet yourself describe what has been done by others working on this particular project. If nothing has been done yet state this and describe, instead, how your particular project fits into the work in your laboratory or work done by your mentor. If it is an unrelated project to anything tried at IUPUI then say this.

Methodology: Describe how you will accomplish your project's objectives.

• Discuss the major techniques you will employ. Scientists and engineers may be very technical. Literature majors should explain how they will proceed with identifying appropriate sources and where these sources will be found. Artists should explain their tools and special techniques they will employ in producing their art.
• If you will use special instrumentation say what it is and how it will be used in the project to provide information.
• If you intend to visit a special place for field work or to access a special collection, explain where and why you must go to this particular special place.
• If you will consult another person tell who he/she is, what credentials he or she possesses, that qualify him or her to provide special assistance to your project. Be explicit about the role of consultant.
• A timeline should be included in your proposal, probably in this section. You should demonstrate a knowledge of how long various tasks will take and explain how you will know when you have completed your project.
• Include anything here that will help a reviewer to understand how the project will be carried out

Expected Outcomes: In this section you should mention what outcome you are expecting from this work. What type of data or what new idea would you expect to have at the end of the project. Bear in mind also that almost nothing worth doing in the scientific or creative domain is ever completely finished. What you do may lead to more questions. If you can anticipate what such questions might be then do so. This is a section in which to reiterate the significance of the outcome you expect.

References: List each reference you have cited in the proposal. Do not include references not cited. If there are general references that give background, these references should be noted at the point you talk about that background in your proposal. Use a citation form that is most commonly used in your discipline. Your mentor may prescribe a particular form to use. You may also use a form from a journal or periodical used in your discipline. Be consistent within your list, using the same form for each citation. Use all punctuation and capitalization in a completely consistent manner.