Grants and fellowships are increasingly essential to an academic career, and competition over federal and foundation funding is fiercer than ever. Yet there has hitherto been little training available for this genre of writing.
Funding Your Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences demystifies the process of writing winning grant proposals in the humanities and social sciences. Offering practical guidance, step-by-step instructions, and examples of successful proposals, Walker and Unruh outline the best practices to crack the proposal writing code. They reveal the most common peeves of proposal reviewers, and offer advice on how to avoid frequent problem areas in conceptualizing and crafting a research proposal in the humanities and social sciences. Contributions from agency and foundation program officers offer the perspective from the other side of the proposal submission portal, and new research funding trends, including crowdfunding and public scholarship, are also covered.
This book is essential reading for all those involved in funding applications. Graduate students, research administrators, early career faculty members, and tenured professors alike will gain new and effective strategies to write successful applications.
"Early on, the authors of this book clearly spell out their goal: "This book will walk you through the process of finding the best funding opportunities for your research and career goals" (p.14). Chapter by chapter, the book lays out the steps in the entire endeavor. The first section explores finding the proper agencies to approach and creating a plan for the proposal. The next section, the heart of the book, discusses the writing of the various sections of the proposal, and is followed by sections on collaboration, rebounding from rejection of a proposal and other print and online resources worth exploring. Given the diverse types of research funding sources in the humanities and social sciences, a key aspect of this book is its focus on understanding which agency or foundation will be most interested in a scholar's project. A number of contributors share their real-life experiences on both sides of the process, with excerpts from actual successful proposals, which are useful additions to the text.
This book is clearly aimed at academics and the libraries that serve them. In fact, the authors mention that having "an affiliation with an accredited institution" is necessary in almost every case. Stylistically, the authors' decision to use the second person (you/your/yours) throughout the book reinforces their connection with and support of the readers of the work. The approach enhances the reading of the text. Highly recommended."
American Reference Books Annual (review by Mark Schumacher, University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA)
