Writing Winning Proposals Workshop 2015

Writing is a process.  Throughout elementary school we learn the basics such as spelling and grammar.  In high school, we put together essays for English papers.  During our undergrad, at least for us science folks, we spend hours writing lab reports (usually the night before they are due).   Now as graduate students, we need to learn how to write research proposals, research articles, and potentially if we choose to become principle investigators, grant proposals.

The NSERC CREATE Host-Parasites Interaction program is dedicated to improving the skillset of their students.  That is why they recently held a “Writing Winning Proposals” workshop that would allow us to develop our writing skills and grow as graduate students.   This was also a great opportunity to network and get to know others in our program.

Julie Vouri led the workshops and provided us with the strategy and guidelines on how to write research proposals.    The main take home lesson I took from this workshop is to know your audience, and therefore, you can adapt how and what youare going to write.   Executing this required an understanding of our readers’ background and knowledge of their values as a means to cater to their needs.  To practice this, half of us wrote a proposal to an industrial company trying to sell one of our products, while the other half practiced writing a grant proposal. 

This was an extremely rewarding experience because I was able to gain valuable insight and skills when it comes to writing proposals and writing them well.  At the end of the day, I left the workshop feeling more confident in my skillset and having met other amazing people in my program.