Detailed Proposal Writing
Techniques(Structure and Style of English)
Masatoshi Ohishi (NAOJ)
masatoshi.ohishi@nao.ac.jp

Score improvement
by merely a 1 point
WILL make yourranking much higher.
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Proposal Review• Assessment criteria–Overall scientific merit of the
proposed investigation–Potential contribution to theadvancement of scientificknowledge
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English writing (1)• Poor English writingà hard to read for reviewers, which wouldgive bad impression à lower score• As natural English as possible– In English you need to describe almosteverything;– In Japanese people can understand manythings without detailed explanation;
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Google Translation

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English writing (2)• It is advised not translate from your motherlanguage to English; it is better to think in
English and draft English text all the time
during the proposal preparation.
• Simple but logical sentences would be OK.
We are not writing a novel !
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English writing (3)• Be careful the usage of articles;
wrong usage of “a/an” or “the” may
dramatically change the meaning of asentence.
Do you have time ?
Do you have the time ?

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English writing (4)• Singular or plural form
• How to use auxiliary verbs
will / may / can / need
• Improve the manuscript several times.

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ALMA Cycle6 Town Meeting andProposal Workshop 20188Be kind to Reviewers (1)• Reviewers have to read at least 100
proposals in two weeks or so !!
• Better to assume that not all reviewers areexperts in your field; often they are novice;in many cases they do not know what you
have achieved so far.

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Be kind to Reviewers (2)• Proposals should have clear and focusedstructure– Concise, minimal and complete information,
but sufficient justification– Be logical and show sufficient evidence
and/or rationales– Use of “heading”s would help a lot

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Structure (1)• To show evidence, reasoning, rationales– Research background and motivation/issues
to be resolved for advancing astronomy;– If the proposal is based on proposers’ past
research, show clearly what were obtained
and what issues remained unresolved;– Methodology in resolving the issues;– Which information should be obtained inachieving the goals;
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Structure (2)• To show evidence, reasoning, rationales– Data analysis plan;– Demonstrate that your group has sufficientexperience and skills to conduct the proposal;– Demonstrate it is possible to advanceastronomy even if negative results wereobtained;– Show clearly it is impossible to resolve theissues without ALMA;–…
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What vs Why• EA proposers tend to be good at
describing WHAT they plan to do, but not
so good at describing WHY they plan to do.
• Science is an activity to answer many
WHYs. “What to do” is a kind of
methodology for answering these “Why”s.
• “Why”s are more important than “What”s.
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Make Reviewers Convinced !
• “Justification”
The action of showing
something to be right orreasonable
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/justification
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Why ? à Justify them (1)• How reviewers assess: e.g.,– Why is this science theme important foradvancing astronomy ? Is its scientificbackground well and sufficiently described ?
– Why are the proposed objects most suited inachieving the scientific goals ? Is the numberof sources justified to be appropriate, not too
many or not too few ?
– Why is the spatial resolution chosen mostappropriate ?
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Why ? à Justify them (2)• How reviewers assess: e.g.,– Why is the sensitivity chosen mostappropriate in achieving the goals ?
– Why is the frequency / the band / frequency
resolution / molecular lines chosen mostappropriate ?
– Why are the spws needed and mostappropriate ?
– Why is ALMA really needed ?
– … Why, Why,ALMAWhy?
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Good Luck !