When learning about best practices for grant writing, you will often hear that you need to ease reviewer fatigue. But what does this actually mean? Think about how you feel after reading 20 student papers. Some are great and make it easy to award points; others make it very, very challenging. Perhaps those challenging papers are so poorly organized or presented that you cannot find the key talking points. Maybe critical components are missing altogether, or the student may have tried to fill the required pages with overly complicated words and long sentences. Regardless, those types of papers are exhausting—don't submit a grant that will have that same effect on your reviewers. Instead, ease your reviewer’s fatigue by following some key principles. 

👉 Keep it simple

When writing your proposal, keep it clear, concise, and on point. Avoid overly long and complicated sentences, minimize jargon and acronyms, and stay focused on your key message. Remember that you don’t know what the background of your reviewers will be, so make sure your writing makes it easy to see what your goals are, why you want to achieve them, and how you plan to do so. 

👉 Make it easy on the eyes 

Make your proposal easy to read and follow by using layout and formatting to your advantage. Clear headers will guide your reader to key areas while also keeping you focused. Bullet points can draw a reviewer’s attention to critical information, and white space around figures and between sections can provide visual breaks from large blocks of text. Use tables and figures to summarize and reinforce key information, and keep formatting consistent, accessible, and easy to follow. 

👉 Explain yourself

Although your reviewers are likely to be educated subject experts, they may not be experts in your field. More importantly, even if they are, make their job easier by explaining your thought process throughout. Don’t leave readers thinking, “How are they going to do this?” or “Why did they choose to do that?” When you make a claim (about why you chose your research goals, methodology, broader impact activities, evaluation plan, etc.), include an explanation for why what you opted for is the best choice. Clear explanations will ease your reviewer’s job of evaluating your plan while demonstrating that you clearly thought out the components of your project. 

🗝️ Key Takeaways 

While you put your all into a grant, remember that reviewers may have many, many proposals to read. Make yours a highlight by keeping your language simple. Ensure your key ideas are easy to find by using layout and formatting to your advantage. Finally, explain your ideas in order to answer any questions your reviewers may have before they need to be asked. Following these tips will help your proposal become one of the ones that is easy to read and, more importantly, easier to fund!