• What Goes Into a Proposal
• The University Review Process
• Post Submission Period
• Writing a Better Proposal

INTRODUCTION

The following are questions frequently asked by proposal writers:

• To what agency or agencies should I submit my proposal?
• What sorts of things should I include in a proposal? Specifically, what does the funding agency require? What does the University require? Aside from what's mandatory, what sorts of things are advisable to include?
• How do I organize the different parts of a proposal?
• How do I work up the budget?
• How do I get the proposal approved by the University?

What follows is intended to help answer these questions. Obviously, there are many kinds of proposals, and many specific points which a general guide like this can't address, but the kind of proposal we have used here as a model for our discussion (essentially a basic research proposal) represents by far the most common type that our office encounters. In other words, the kinds of information modeled here are required in virtually all proposals, and the presentation of that information seldom varies significantly from the arrangement used in this guide.

You will see that the section entitled "What Goes Into a Proposal" is arranged in sub-sections corresponding to the various parts of a proposal in the order in which they actually appear in the finished document. This arrangement is used for the sake of simplifying our presentation, and to provide a kind of matrix for the final assembly of your proposal. In practice, of course, the composition of a good research proposal proceeds from the most important part, the project description, to other parts, such as the budget, the current support and pending applications, the attachments, the cover page, etc.

The next section of this guide, "The University Review Process," outlines in brief form the steps involved in getting your proposal approved and officially submitted by the University administration.

The final portion discusses the post-submission period and some of the activities you can expect while awaiting the outcome of the review process.

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