vhlab-NRSA-template

NRSA template organization for VH lab

Instructions

The template repository contains blank folders that will help you and the others working on your proposal with building all the little and big pieces in your proposal. Steve will grab files from this template and make a shared Google folder in his space called 20XX FirstName LastName NRSA. It should be in his space so it is retained after you leave the lab (the lab retains all proposals so we can refer to them later, but portions of the application that contain personal information won't be shared with future personnel).

There are two big folders:

• for_VHlab: a set of folders for the earlier versions of documents, when you are working yourself and with Steve
• for_PreAward/proposal_items: a set of folders for managing the later versions of your documents, when you are submitting them to PreAward and working with Steve

1 proposal_items folders and files

1.1. The actual documents that will be submitted to NIH are build in a subfolder called proposal_items. This subfolder itself contains many subfolders that contain each part of the application. A few examples are:

• 01_biosketches: A place for versions of biosketches
• 02_cover_letter: A place for versions of cover letters
• 03_project_summary: A place for versionf of the project summary

(you get the idea)

1.2. The smaller documents (that do not comprise the main proposal) should be edited in Microsoft Word so that you, Steve, and PreAward can edit them easily.

1.3. When you make a new document, add "_V1" to the end of the name, for example: 2022_JohnSmith_Biosketch_V1.docx.

1.4. When you edit a document, make a copy and add a new version number at the end. For example: 2022_JohnSmith_Biosketch_V2.docx.

1.5 When editing, if the document has already been edited by someone, you should use Track Changes so the next person can see the changes.

1.6 If you are reviewing changes suggested by a previous reviewer and you agree with them, accept the changes so the list of marked changes gets smaller and smaller.

1.7 When you have an increment that you want a reviewer to take a look at, send that person an email with the path to the file to look at.

1.8 When we have a document that we want to send to PreAward, then save a copy in the for_PreAward/proposal_items folder. This is the only folder we will share with PreAward.

1.9 Sometimes a PreAward assistant will be comfortable editing the files on Google Drive, but other times they will want to send the files back and forth in email. When they do, make sure to increment the version (if the assistant doesn't) and put it in the right folder in the for_PreAward/proposal_items folder so we can keep track of the changes. Many of the documents will be at version 5 or even 10 by the time of submission.

2 proposal_construction folder

The for_VHlab/proposal_construction folder is where the proposal is built.

Important: Once you start adding references with EndNote, it is important NOT to edit any Word document in Google Drive using the Google Docs editor. It sometimes messes up the EndNote references. The editing should be done in the document's native program. This is true for paper drafts as well.

2.1 The proposal file should be named something like ProjectSummary_SpecificAims_ResearchStrategy with an appropriate extension. It will contain all of those items as well as the references. It is useful to have all of these pages in one document because they interact with each other (particularly the Specific Aims and the Research Strategy; they are hard to read if they are not right next to each other, as they will be in the application seen by the reviewers).

2.2 You can use whatever editor you want, but Steve recommends using Pages if you use a Mac. It has much tighter control over figure placement than Microsoft Word, which is important in a proposal that has tight space constraints.

2.3 Steve recommends creating a new Section (in Pages or Word) for each part (Project Summary, Specific Aims, Research Strategy), and, during initial editing, labeling the page numbers in the Research Strategy so you know where you are and how many more pages you have left to go (or if you are over).

2.4 Absolutely use a reference manager, probably EndNote. Steve likes to use the "Nature" EndNote style so that the references are numbered because this leaves more room for proposal text. Other people like to list the author names in the document. You can do what you like. It takes a few minutes to get set up, but you will save lots of time the very first time you use a reference manager and tons of time every time thereafter. It's required by Steve.

2.5 Note that there are pretty firm font requirements: Arial 11 pt is the preferred font for the main text, and the margins should be 0.5 on all sides. Make sure to set those at the beginning of your work. You can get away with 10 pt in a figure caption.

2.6 For preparing figures, it is recommended that you follow the VH lab style guide.