BCS 582: Syllabus

Spring 2012

Personnel

David Knill (Instructor)
Meliora 275
275-4589

Course Description

A workshop in which students will write a proposal for either a pre-doctoral or post-doctoral NRSA fellowship from NIH. Students will review old NRSA proposals, both successful and unsuccessful and analyze the components of a successful proposal. Through process of peer review and discussion, students will write and revise the main sections of an NRSA proposal, culminating in a penultimate proposal that will be reviewed by two mock study sections – one in the class and one by faculty in BCS and CVS. Reviews from these study sections will be returned a week before the deadline for NRSA proposals at NIH. Students are encouraged to use the class to prepare real proposals that they can submit to NIH.

Grading

Grading will be based on final scores received from the faculty study section and on class participation (writing effective reviews and participating in peer discussions)

Writing Groups

I will be organizing writing groups to meet once to twice per week to work intensively on writing. The goals of these sessions is multi-fold – to reserve a block of time purely for writing the proposal, to work in a common space with other writers to bat ideas off of and to ask questions of about your writing and to make available a writing expert to help with any and all writing questions (about planning, organization, logical flow, clarity, etc..). Deborah Rossen-Knill, the Director of the College Writing Program has volunteered to be present at the writing group meetings as a resource for students.

Students should go to the writing program website to fill out an application for writing Groups. This will provide me with the information needed to organize the class into the most functional groups -
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CWPIntake
For item #6, Type in "BCS 582"
This will allow the writing program administrator to filter your applications to send to me.

NIH links

Fellowship review groups at NIH

NIH institute-specific information and contacts

NIH application instructions and forms

Information about the NIH process
Review Criteria

Writing help

See course material section of the class blackboard

NIH submission deadline

April 8 (should be finished and submitted to the university's research office 5 business ahead - March 30)

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