Crafting Effective Research Proposals for Lab Projects

How to Write a Research Proposal

To help you gain knowledge and expertise before you begin working in the lab To ensure that you have worked with your lab to develop a project for you to do in the summer To convey to the committee that you understand what your project will be and how it fits into the bigger goals of the lab/research field Needs to be written in your own words, not paraphrased from your PI s grant What are the goals of your proposal? Why do we ask you to write one?

Proposal Timeline: Choose Choose lab Pick Pick project with guidance from PI and lab mentor Read Read research papers (both on the subject and on techniques) Get Get familiar with experimental protocols Start Start writing background/introduction Develop Develop your hypothesis Work with lab on choosing specific aims Expect that they will evolve/change over time (during writing and after) Finalize aims and experimental design Don t forget to include alternative approaches Work Finalize Last Step Write the abstract last!

You are not expected to come up with your own project The Proposal is a Collaboration between you and your lab (PI and other mentor) You should not write your proposal without input from your PI You will often brainstorm with your PI about projects and also have the option to choose from different projects the lab is working on

Dont have your aims dependent on one another Why? Hypothesis/Research Questions: What are you testing and why? And what do you predict will be the outcome Your project will be related and even integral to your PI s grant-funded projects, but you should NOT copy your PI s grant Don t just paraphrase it, don t copy the background info Read their grant, if possible, but write your own proposal Write the proposal for a science literate, but not expert in the field Limit jargon and undefined acronyms. Explain technical terminology Try to give yourself at least one month Things to consider

Abstract-remember-write it last ~0.5 pages Background 1-3 pages-try to include a figure Specific Aims/Experimental design 2-4 pages Experimental design should be about how and why expts are planned, but doesn t need to include protocols Could include specific equipment and programs that will be used to analyze data Pitfalls/alternative approaches ~0.5 pages Proposal layout

There is no such things as too many, but many students get lower scores by not citing enough- when in doubt cite. Don t just cite once at the end of a paragraph; each idea (sentence) get s its own citation even if all are from the same source and within the same paragraph Don t cite reviews; you need to give credit to original discovers so go look up the papers in the review and then cite them Don t forget to cite figures if you are using a published figure from the lab Use Author-Date (Chicago) style Citations

Its good to include them, but make sure you appropriately attribute them If you did the work yourself or generated the image-state that in the legend, and if generated what program was used (ie biorender) If the work is from someone else in the lab, and unpublished, give that person credit in the legend (ie courtesy of A. Belperron, Belperron lab, unpublished results) If it s published, cite it in the legend Figures

Abstract: summarizes your proposal in 500 words. Identify the problem you are investigating, why this problem is significant, the hypothesis you are testing. Summarize key experiments that address the hypothesis/research question. The concluding sentence should be Completion of this proposal will lead to...

Is it in your own words Do you understand the research you will be doing Did your PI/lab help you write the proposal (help is good, cutting and pasting their grants is bad) Is the project feasible: Not something that would take years to do The impact/importance of the project is not judged, so don t propose something that is bigger and sounds more important because it will be obvious to reviewers that you can t do it in a summer Independent Aims (not sequential steps) Pitfalls section: this demonstrates that you have thought of potential outcomes and will have a plan for them Did you cite enough/appropriately What do review committee members look for?

Letters 1 from PI-there are guidelines on our website- make sure you go over them with your PI so your PI can write an appropriate letter 2ndletter-best from another STEM faculty member Can be non-Yale if you have done research elsewhere Could be HS science, only if you are a first year Could be a STEM professor you took a class with Other components of the application Your Resume/CV Transcript