Tips for writing a strong ALMA proposal
Xing "Walker" Lu (ALMA postdoc, NAOJ)
March 22, 20211

Based on:• Personal experience:
7 accepted (2A, 1B, 4C), 10 rejected.
• Technical secretary for cycle 5/7 proposal panel review meetings.
•• Talks in previous meetings, given by Patricio Sanhueza,
Nick Indriolo, Tomoya Hirota, Masao Saito, et al. (https://almaintweb.mtk.nao.ac.jp/~eaarc/2020/ProposalPreparation_Cycle8/
ProgramPPW8.html; https://alma-intweb.mtk.nao.ac.jp/~saigo/EAARC/
ALMA_TM2018/program.html)• Other interesting talks (can be found by googling):"Writing compelling proposals", Jill Rathborne (CSIRO)• "How to write a (potentially successful) observing proposal", JörnWilms (ECAP)• "Writing a Successful Proposal", Dimitri Gadotti & Nando Patat (ESO)• "How to write a strong observational proposal", Zhiyu Zhang (NJU)•2

A few "common senses"• Read the call for proposals and the Proposers'
Guide carefully (especially for new capabilities inCycle 8; distributed review vs. panel review).
• Start the preparation as early as possible.
• Always check the technical feasibility.
• Declination range? (not too north; not toohigh elevation)• Configuration schedule? (no C-9/10
longbaseline in this cycle)• Always check the proposal style requirements• Page limits, font size, dual anonymous, etc.

3How to write a Strong ALMA proposal?

(but note that Strong ≠ Proposal Accepted,and Proposal Accepted ≠ Data Acquired.
See Hirota-san's sildes)
4English proficiency• A coherence story, with clear and simple language, issufficient (and better).
• Make sure there are not too many typos and grammar
issues (use spell check; tools like grammarly).
• Do not use jargon, undefined acronyms, etc.
• Try to avoid cliché or exaggeration (e.g., missing link,ground breaking, rosetta stone, holy grail, …)• If possible, ask a native speaker friend to read throughthe proposal and give feedback.
(See Nick Indriolo's slides last year for some great tips)

5Structure (example)• What is the general background of this field?
• What are the open questions (three at most) in this field?

Why are these questions important?
• Why ALMA is necessary (instead of NOEMA/SMA or single
dishes, or archival data) to answer these questions?
• How the targets are selected? Is the sample size bigenough?
• What analyses will be done once you get the data?
(Compare with any models/simulations? Use any dedicatedtools? How to deal with null results?)• How do these analyses answer the questions?

6Technical justification• Rule of thumb: justify everything.
• Reviewers may easily pick problems from this part toreject some scientifically strong proposals (the needfor XXX is not clearly justified…).
• For example: Why this band? Why this angularresolution(s)? Why this spectral resolution? Why thissensitivity? Why ACA/Total Power?

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Re-submission• Think over reviewers' comments from the last

submission, and improve the proposal (and let thereviewers know this, e.g., highlight this in theabstract).
• Try to include recent progress (e.g., from partiallydelivered data; from other telescopes).
• Double check the instrument setup and technicaljustification• Some setups may be changed (e.g., newcapabilities in Cycle 8; no C-9/10 configurations).
• The same sensitivity may be achievable withmuch less time thanks to more antennas orrefined Tsys.

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Think like a reviewer• Reviewers will try their best to find weaknesses andreject proposals:•"Any unanswered question is immediately
considered a weakness. Do NOT give thereviewers easy-to-identify weaknesses!" — Nick

• Not all reviewers in the panel know your field, so

make the proposal understandable and put yourscience into context.
• Reviewers are human, so be nice to them (see nextslide).

9Think like a reviewer• A nice-looking proposal is always helpful (on the basisof good science).
• Polish the plots, do not just cut and paste from yourpapers.
• Details (e.g., contours) should be clear enough.
• Use arrows and labels to guide reviewers' eyes.
• Always have scale bars for sky maps.
• Clear and concise caption.
• Use color-blind/bw-printer friendly color maps (badexample: rainbow).

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Think like a reviewer• Make the text as short as possible while including
everything needed.
• Do not try to trick the reviewers
X Use very small page margins to squeeze in more text.
X Use very small font sizes for figure/table captions andreferences.
X Put scientific justification that cannot fit into 4 pages toother spaces (e.g., duplicate justification, technicaljustification).
• Reviewers may get irritated… (after reading ~x10
proposals while being stuck at home)11

Good luck!
• In case of no luck, no need to worry—• The same proposal can get accepted or
rejected in different cycles (because ofdifferent reviewers?).
• ALMA archive, many interesting data.
• ACA-standalone Supplemental Call in
September 2021.
• Director Discretionary Time (DDT)
opportunities.
• Other telescopes (SMA, NOEMA, Nobeyama,
JCMT, ASTE, IRAM 30m, …).

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