Critique: Waring proposal (25 points)
Overview
The best way to learn
how to write a great proposal is to carefully study the proposals written
by other scientists and your classmates. You will learn both what to do,
and what not to do! Now that we have discussed the elements of a research
proposal in class, we should take a look at a proposal that was submitted
to one of the major national competitive grants programs; i.e., the USDA-CSREES
National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program. For this assignment,
you will critique a proposal written by Dr. Richard Waring (principal investigator),
David Pilz, and Randy Molina. Dr. Waring is an emeritus faculty member in
the Department of Forest Science who has decades of proposal writing experience.
The title of this proposal is: Modeling
the productivity of edible ectomycorrhizal forest mushrooms.
Procedure
You will review the proposal written by Dr. Waring and colleagues using the guidelines found at the final proposal review web page. Write a 1-page review using these guidelines, and then submit it by the assigned due date. As you read the proposal and write the review, keep in mind that these are the same criteria by which your classmates and instructors will review your final research proposal at the end of the term. In addition, note that this proposal was a resubmission, and contains a section entitled "Response to previous review." This is an important part of many proposals, but is not one that you will need to write! Nonetheless, pay careful attention to this section to see what kinds of comments you are likely to get on your proposals, and how science can advance through the peer review process.If you do not complete the assignment by the due date, a late penalty will be assigned using the penalties listed in the late assignment policy.