Keep your thinking sharp
Insights from The Golden Thread
I write about the thinking behind excellent communication – for researchers, NGOs, and teams working at the edge of their field. If you want to get your thinking straight before you express your thoughts, you are in the right place.
The proposal as a whole: making every part pull in the same direction
This series started upstream of writing: with the strategic choices your team needs to make, the funder landscape you need to understand, and the central argument you need to commit to. Everything in the series since has been in the service of expressing that argument...
Know your panel: understanding your funder is strategy, not background reading
Most guidance on grant proposals tells you to write for your audience. Reasonable advice, but incomplete. Understanding your panel is a strategic exercise: a disciplined attempt to see your proposal through the eyes of the people holding the decision, and to position...
What is your team actually arguing? Alignment before the grant writing begins
Individual researchers can resolve their central argument alone. Teams rarely can. The process of writing a grant proposal together forces a set of strategic choices that most teams have never explicitly made: which idea is primary, which threads get subordinated, and...
Your proposal’s public summary is not a formality: it is your opening pitch
The public summary is where strategic clarity and communication skills meet most visibly. It is the section where you must answer, in plain language, the question every funder is quietly asking: does this team know what they are doing, why it matters, and who it is...
Criteria are not a checklist: they are your scoring system
Funding criteria are not bureaucratic boxes. They are a window into what the funder believes matters. Before you write a word, sit with that for a moment. What change is this organisation trying to drive? What risks are they trying to manage? The answers shape not...
Writing for specialists and generalists without losing either
Who decides whether your proposal gets funded? Not one person, and not one kind of person. Most grant review panels include specialists who live and breathe your field generalists who do not. Understanding that difference is a strategic decision before it is a writing...
Why most research proposals fail (and it’s not your research)
Most research proposals fail before reviewers ever reach your research description. The killer? No storyline. Your proposal is not a data dump. It is an argument. But researchers routinely bury their breakthrough beneath layers of technical detail, or spend precious...
The research paper discussion: Positioning your findings in the scientific landscape
Your results are in, so now what? You know why you did your study and how you did it. And you’ve got some great results. Now, in your research paper discussion section, you need to make your findings matter. What have you contributed? How do your results reshape what...
The research paper materials and methods section: Building the backbone of credibility
The research paper materials and methods section is the backbone of your research paper. It forms the bridge between your research questions and results and is part of the foundation on which your Discussion will stand or fall. Written well, it will provide fellow...
The research paper introduction: Structuring the funnel that draws readers in
Do you sometimes get lost in the weeds before you hit the second paragraph of a research paper? How can you make your research paper introduction readable and irresistible to draw readers in? It’s all about the funnel – a deliberate narrowing from a broad context to...
The research paper results: tell your data’s story
Writing a strong research paper results section is a tough call. Your data presentation needs to be clear, logical objective and honest. You need your results section to confirm or refute your hypothesis or answer your research question while allowing your readers to...
Beyond the footnote: Acknowledgements are the heartbeat of team science
How do you view the acknowledgements section of your academic paper? A polite postscript that needs to be quickly filled? Or an opportunity to recognise the diversity of contributors to your team science effort? Give each person the recognition they deserve...
