Continuing efforts to be concise...

[rivka]

Current length of the research plan:14 pages. Maximum allowable length: 12 pages. Only two pages to go. Sadly, I only have two pages left to edit, and since they include my entire data analysis plan I don't think I'll be able to cut them out entirely. So I will still need to cut, cut, cut. But damn, 25 pages to 14 is a pretty good start.

Once I work through these two pages, I will have a complete draft![1] Yay me! I can send it off to my mentor and to my very kind NIMH Program Official. Maybe they'll know what else I can cut.


[1] Except for the project narrative, the Facilities and Resources section, the revised biosketches, and the appendices. Mercifully the human subjects section stays the same. And the budget. The budget is done.

Updated to add: 13! 13 pages! I am the awesomest person who has ever been awesome! I got it down to 13 pages 10 lines, and then realized that I would totally gain more space once I formatted my references as numbers rather than in-text Endnote tags. And it saved a TON! Go me!

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

::applause::

I'm not just being cutesy. I'm genuinely impressed that this compression is even possible.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Me too, considering that I certainly didn't get the impression, writing the 25-page version, that it was unnecessarily verbose.

I have cut almost all the places where I re-stated important things to make sure that the reviewers didn't miss them. Let's hope the reviewers don't miss them.

[jenett]

At least with 12 pages, there will be less to scan through if they do?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

That's NIH's rationale. We'll see, huh?

I asked my Program Official to reassure me that the reviewers would be strongly reminded not to look for as much detail as they were used to seeing. He told me that he thinks I will actually come in for considerable reviewer empathy, as they try to imagine what they would do if asked to cut 25 pages to 12.

We'll see.

[jenett]

You are most mighty in your trimming. (And yay for having your mentor look at it.)

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

*\o/* Go you! *\o/*

And isn't that the greatest feeling, when you realize that some of the work you were planning on was actually an optical illusion?

[rockstarbob.livejournal.com]

Keep on kicking ass! You're so close.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I'm sitting here chortling because we're up against some NSF submission deadlines here and PIs have been wandering into the office all week saying "15 pages! I got it down to 15 pages!" and such like all week.

In other words, dear Rivka, I am familiar with your ilk. It's a pretty adorable ilk.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

You are made of Awesome!! Cutting a research proposal down by almost half and keeping it making snese? Party worthy in my book.

[boxofdelights]

Well done you.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Wow. I knew you could do it, but am nonetheless amazed at your ruling. Are you allowed to put the important parts in bold? My writing craft cringes when I do, but it really does make proposals easier to skim.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

There are all sorts of little typographical tweaks that might gain a few lines over the document. It depends how closely the format is specified, but things such as the font used and leading set can add up, without being an obvious change.

[Does test]

Switching to Garamond from Times New Roman, no other changes, saves about a dozen lines in 7 pages. Going to Palatino Linotype stretched it to 8 pages. Going to Centaur brings it down to 6 pages. No changes to anything but the font used, and all Serif fonts. And nothing looks dreadful. If it's a change you're allowed, it's worth checking. Does it look OK?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

NIH is pretty specific. Let's see...

Use an Arial, Helvetica, Palatino Linotype or Georgia typeface, a black font color, and a font size of 11 points or larger. A symbol font may be used to insert Greek letters or special characters; the font size requirement still applies. Type density, including characters and spaces, must be no more than 15 characters per inch. Type may be no more than six lines per inch.

I'm using Arial, which appears to be the most compressed of all of these. Changing to Palatino Linotype ballooned the length to 16 pages. Alas!

My mentor suggested dropping the spaces between paragraphs in the research plan, and going to indents and bold underlined section headers instead. I am dubious; I think that will really affect readability in material this dense. She thinks reviewers will forgive me because they'll be so sympathetic to my plight.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I checked with my test text, and Georgia came out slightly shorter than Arial, a handful of lines. And, being a serif font, maybe it does improve readability (but I hear that was disproved, so who knows?).

Serious point on readability: paper and screen have different resolution. Even with a good monitor, it can lead to slight differences. A lot of on-screen infelicities can just vanish.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

In my "Significance" and "Innovation" sections, which have replaced the old "Background and Significance," I put the key sentence of each paragraph in boldface.

So if you are a negligent reviewer, you can go ahead and read just the Cliffs Notes version of those sections:

SIGNIFICANCE
Antiretroviral therapy is critical to the survival of persons with HIV, yet many refuse or delay treatment. African-Americans commonly endorse HIV conspiracy theories and mistrustful beliefs about medical care and medical providers. These conspiracy beliefs may play a role in ART initiation, refusal, and adherence. Mistrustful beliefs about ART and mainstream HIV medical care may create significant negative consequences for public health. The proposed project is a bridge in a larger body of research designed to identify, explore, and reduce the negative impact of HIV conspiracy theories among African-Americans with HIV. If successful, the proposed intervention can have a significant positive impact on health outcomes for African-Americans with HIV.

INNOVATION
The proposed research is highly innovative in its focus on HIV conspiracy beliefs and its target of ART initiation. The PATCH program represents an innovative application of Motivational Interviewing.

Of course, if that is all they read, I'm screwed. But I think formatting that way still makes sense as a road map.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

"Mistrustful beliefs about ART and mainstream HIV medical care may create significant negative consequences for public health."

I'd be inclined to put that differently, and maybe in more general form. Look at the effect of the scares over childhood vaccinations.

"False health scares and distrust of mainstream medical care kills people."

I know. Different writing styles. And the English is slightly awkward--"kill" or "kills"? But they want brevity, and maybe you can, in some way, make your key points stand out with shorter, more abrupt, language.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Well, keep in mind that that's just the topic sentence (huh! I never thought I'd use the phrase "topic sentence" again after junior high) of a paragraph that is narrowly focused on HIV issues. There's no time to be broad or general in a 12-page application.

But also, the tone doesn't seem right for scientific writing. I've read enough grants to have a pretty good idea of the tone they're looking for.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

And that is the big problem: tone and the sometimes subtle technical meanings. I just don't know whether, for instance, "vital" could substitute for "critical".

But, to my eye, "significant negative consequences for public health" is a long-winded way of obscuring just what this is about. I've got a sneaking sympathy for Bulwer-Lyyton, but you need to get away from the equivalent of the infamous "It was a dark and stormy night..."

(And, yes, I know that some of this language is there to conserve the medical profession's sanity.)