Mary A. Fernandes, Leslie S. Gaynor

During graduate school, many psychology graduate students will have the opportunity (and necessity) to pursue grant funding in order to support their training or thesis projects. Approaching the process of grant writing can require an immense amount of time and preparation, and it can be daunting when you are writing a grant application for the first time. Below, we have provided some basic steps to help you organize your efforts. 

1. Plan ahead. Once you have identified a grant, begin to gather basic information and eligibility requirements. Before beginning to prepare the written materials, check eligibility requirements to determine whether you are the appropriate applicant for the funding source. Figure out what the grant application requires so that you can prepare adequately (and contact letter writers in advance, if required). Confirm the grant deadline so that you can begin to plan when you should complete each component of your application. 
2. Prepare your research strategy. The most important piece of a research grant application will be your research strategy. Take the time to identify language in the grant call that is suggestive of the rubric by which your research strategy will be assessed. Although the rubric will most likely not be clearly specified, you can glean a lot from words and phrases that are used in the grant description, including, “project timeline” and “broader impacts.”
3. “Storyboard” your research strategy. To write your research strategy, it may be helpful to create an outline that allows you to highlight key points that address potential rubric items in a clear, direct way. It may be helpful to create this outline on paper or on a white board so that you can visualize and review the flow of your outline. If allowed, leverage section headers and bolded, underlined, italicized, and colorful text to attract the reader’s attention. 
   When you begin writing, focus on explicitly connecting the rationale to the present study to your research questions, your research questions to your methodology, your methodology to your anticipated results, and your anticipated results to their implication and your dissemination plan. These are steps that are important to study planning, which is not part of grant writing. However, it will also be important to convey this information in your grant. 
4. Write and review and rewrite. Read your writing multiple times and in multiple settings. It will be very important and beneficial to have your research mentor(s) review your writing, especially since they have likely been successful in their grant-writing endeavors. Outline what you have written by summarizing each paragraph into a few words (one sentence at most), and then make sure that the logic of your outline flows appropriately. Feel free to write multiple versions of the draft or to even scrap the whole draft and start from scratch when necessary. 
5. Save your application and all prior drafts! You might be able to refurbish your application materials or parts of your writing for another grant application! Even if you are not awarded the grant, you have gained invaluable experience writing one and thinking critically about your project. Keep applying! You are bound to be successful.
6. Consider applying for the Junior Scientist Fellowship. As you think about potential avenues to apply for graduate grant funding, keep the APAGS Junior Scientist Fellowship on your radar. The purpose of the grant is 1) to provide $1,000 fellowships for first- or second-year graduate projects, and 2) to provide feedback to applicants in order to increase their chances of succeeding when applying for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). This fellowship is an excellent opportunity to receive feedback from fellow graduate students with grant writing experience, most of whom are grant recipients. Once again, even if you are not awarded the fellowship, you will have gained valuable experience writing a grant, and you will receive helpful and constructive feedback on your application.