Neuroscience Seminar

Grant Proposal

Effects of methylphenidate on dyslexia

• Similar areas in brain involved in both ADHD and dyslexia – signs and symptoms are similar
• Look at effects of the drug during interventions
• Children ages 6
• Lowest possible dosage
• Same level of dyslexia
• Informed consent
• Methods: ANOVA
• 3 reading tests
  • Baseline
  • During
  • after
• Two groups
  • One receives the drug
  • One receives a placebo

For your second “paper”, you will actually be writing a grant proposal. In a grant proposal there are three main ingredients:

1. WHY is this research important?

You need to convince the funding agency that your research is worth the money they will give you to conduct it. What will your research contribute to the world? Does it investigate a solution to a known problem? Does it try to identify a tricky problem that is not yet totally quantified? Does it use a new methodology to investigate an old problem? This part of your proposal should feel like you are justifying to the general public why their tax dollars should be spent on your work.

2. WHAT research is already done and will be done?

You need to briefly, but adequately, describe the current state of affairs and then point out the specific hole that you are going to fill. This will be a very condensed version of your review paper, so you will need to work on picking out the most important aspects of what has been done before. What is important will entirely depend on what you are proposing to do. For some proposals you might focus on theories, for others you might focus on methods, and for others still you might focus on results. Consider the future end result of your research and then use that end result to inform what you should discuss beforehand. DO NOT get bogged down in tiny details!!

3. HOW are you going to conduct your research?

The bulk of your proposal will be describing the set of experiments you are going to conduct in order to fulfill your research mission. You should describe TWO experiments that will address your specific research question. For EACH experiment, you should make sure to (1) specify the research question for that experiment, (2) describe the methods you will use to study the question, (3) briefly describe how you will analyze the data, and (4) describe (or visually depict) the expected results.

Your proposal should be between 6-10 pages in length, but may include some figures if it is helpful for your description of your experiments. You should have the following:

1. 1 page that includes the general overview / significance and the specific aims of your study
2. No more than 3 pages of background information
3. 3-4 pages describing your research plan
4. References