In almost any project, the path between “a good idea” and the “final exciting result” contained a proposal. It may have been a proposal to obtain access to scarce resources (like telescopes or accelerator beams), or it may be have been a proposal to obtain other more prosaic resources (i.e., money, to pay for the needed personnel and supplies). Whatever the nature of the proposal, however, I guarantee that the competition was ridiculously stiff, and that the odds of having any given proposal accepted were quite low (for reference, in most astronomy contexts, over-subscription rates tend to be factors of 5-10). These unfavorable odds can be incredibly demoralizing. They also can have profoundly negative impacts on a talented scientist’s career, if the odds never manage to tip in their favor.
Given the inspiration of the looming Hubble Space Telescope deadline, I thought I would share some of my “big picture” views on crafting successful proposals, expanding significantly on the more succinct advice given in an earlier post. While I’ve developed these opinions based on my experience in astronomy, I suspect they’d apply to many other fields, both within and beyond science. So here goes…
In the American astronomical calendar, early January looms large. Tis the season of the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (the AAS). Thousands of astronomers are currently gathering up their rain gear, preparing to descend on Seattle next week. A significant fraction of these thousands are currently preparing posters and talks for the meeting.
Unfortunately, AAS presentations are almost entirely 5 minute talks, in contrast to the more typical 50 minute colloquia on which we’ve all cut our teeth. This short format presents a real challenge, and requires a very different approach. So, in CV’s long running Unsolicited Advice series, I now give my basic guidelines for writing a short talk.
1. In a 5 minute talk, you can usually only teach people about one new thing. The key to framing the talk is to figure out that One New Thing, and then build the rest of the talk around it.
2. So, the very first step is to pick the absolute best single visual to show the One New Thing. This is usually an awesome plot.
3. Make this plot the first slide you prepare. Don’t start with history and motivation and data acquisition and analysis techniques — if you do, you’ll prepare way too much material, and find yourself at 4 minutes and 59 seconds without having actually gotten to your results. Instead, generate the one or two slides that show the One New Thing, and explain its meaning. (If it helps, think of this as “How would I explain my results, if someone walked into my office and asked what I was working on?” In all likelihood, you’d pull out the coolest plot, and start explaining it.) If there are multiple features to explain about the awesome plot, consider repeating the plot on multiple slides, and explaining one feature of the plot on each slide.
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