What were they thinking?- Looking at Scholarly Peer Review

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      Most of us have experienced peer review in an academic setting during some point of our lives. Whether it was a when you traded papers in a writing workshop class in college or a friend came to see a concert you performed in, you received feedback at the end of the activity from your peers. While it follows the same idea of essentially being judged by the people you live and work with, the peer review process has the potential to play a large role in grant proposal evaluations. To gain a firmer understanding on the process of peer review, I looked to a chapter in Michele Lamont's book How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgement. In the chapter titled "Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence," Lamont highlights criteria that scholars she interviewed said they employed during the process of evaluating proposals. The criteria include clarity, quality, originality, significance, methods and feasibility and range in varying levels of emphasis.

       As with any proposal for a project, it should be about something that is not only worth doing but something that will grab the attention of the panel of reviewers from the very beginning. It's like the hook of a college application essay or what makes you choose to not change the channel on TV. Another level of the proposal is that it needs to be clear it is something you're passionate about. Lamont states that a panelist can tell when an individual has been immersed in the work and that level of commitment creates a more interesting and strong proposal. Lamont's text discusses grant proposals  through the scope of research funding which I have always associated with dry, science filled talk with grandiose words that no one really knows the meaning of. But I was pleasantly surprised by the emphasis she placed on passionate works within the frame of the process.

      The focus and passion of a proposal are the first items Lamont identifies as signs of a good proposal. But those aren't enough to get your proposal through to the top. If your proposal lacks clarity and direction, panelists will not follow through: they do not want to have to work to understand your end goal. It seems that creating a clearly defined path is the best way to create an ideal proposal: research question --> theory behind research question --> the method of the research --> resulting evidence from research. This seemingly cookie cutter format makes it seem simple and easy to do, right? Wrong.

      While you may follow those steps to a tee and have the "perfect" proposal, the panelist may not all agree on the definitions of the 6 pieces of criteria. And on top of that, their personal opinions play a much larger role in the decision making process than I expected. It makes perfect sense that opinions would come into play but I have always associated peer review with unbiased decision making. But we're all human-- even those review panelists-- and it is within our human nature to be biased. This is where writing for a specific audience comes into play. If you are familiar with the giving history of the grant, you can try and frame your proposal in a way that flows in a similar vein. I feel as though writing to your audience is something that also plays a role in other grant proposal processes, not just research funding.

I have never written a grant proposal before (but will very soon) and I feel as though this chapter will help me in the execution of it. I will be sure to keep the list of clarity, quality, originality, significance, methods and feasibility in my mind as I approach a proposal and begin to define my end goal.