The senior author's first grant proposal was a horror story: It was long, verbose, and poorly organized. Fortunately for him, in 1975, one could write a grant proposal that had all of these flaws and more and still get funded. He did. But in 2010, he probably wouldn't have had a prayer and would have had to rewrite the whole thing. In 1975, the competition for grants was stiff; in the 2000s, it is close to ridiculous. Only the very best proposals even have a chance of success, and many that meet all of the scientific criteria for funding are not funded, simply because of a lack of money. Therefore, it is important to know how to write a grant proposal to maximize your chances of getting funded. In this chapter, we describe some basics of proposals, some keys to writing good proposals, and some things that agencies look for in making funding decisions.

Different funding organizations have different guidelines for writing proposals. There would be no sense to consume space in this book describing the requirements of various organizations; there are too many organizations and requirements, and the requirements are constantly changing. Rather, we here describe 18 keys to writing a good proposal. Paying attention to these keys does not ensure that you will be funded, but they will surely help!