Research Funding: Resources for the Long and Winding Road

by Alfiee M. Breland-Noble, PhD; Duke University Medical Center

I learned about the process of grant writing for research during my 2^nd year in my first tenure track position. Prior to this introduction, I was very unfamiliar with grant writing and had a very different area of research interest from what I pursue currently. Mine was definitely a long and winding road to federal funding, but once I began, I developed what one of my mentors calls RPD or Research Personality Disorder J.

My path was once filled with doubts about my ability to succeed in what I perceived to be a very closed and special circle. Over time and with a lot of encouragement from my family, peers and mentors, I discovered that I had many great ideas to channel into a research career. These days, many people know my story and the very different path I took to my current federally funded career. I want to share some of my experiences with you to provide you with some of the wisdom that was provided for me when I embarked on my journey. I think that one of the most powerful lessons I learned was the lesson of self-confidence. One of my mentors, Dr. Jessica Henderson Daniel at Children’s Hospital Boston (Harvard), told me once that I belonged in a research career. I have never forgotten that and I pass that wisdom along to anyone reading this with a dream of pursuing full time research. I have spoken often about what I call my “3 S’s”, self-assurance, support and stamina and I recently published my thoughts in this regard in the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings. I encourage you to read that article as it contains not only my insights, but those of some of my great colleagues who are also active in APA Division 12.

Sanders, K.A., Breland-Noble, A.M.; King, C. & Cubic, B. (2011). Pathways to success for psychologists in academic health centers: From early career to emeritus. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 17:315–325.

The path to a research career truly varies by individual, but one thing that I believe to be universal to this type of career is a calling to be diligent, focused and perseverant. In my opinion, this type of career is definitely requires the stamina and focus of the tortoise (of the famed fable) instead of the quickness of the hare. Through my experiences, I discovered that I am genuinely excited by the research endeavor, from generating an idea, to creating a research plan, to implementing the plan and reviewing the results. I hope that any of you with a desire to pursue research will do so wholeheartedly. There are many people in our communities, families, and profession who want to see you succeed, including me! I believe that it is imperative for us to continue to develop a cadre of clinical and laboratory investigators who will help address the problems faced by diverse peoples. Your insights as persons invested in diversity are immeasurable and I, along with many others, am counting on you to bring your energy and drive to the research enterprise. I have a saying that I share with young investigators and early career psychologists to remind them to get focused and stay that way. The saying is “BE THE TREE” and it refers to remaining grounded in yourself and your beliefs as you progress in your career. So I say to you all, “BE THE TREE!” and I send you my best wishes for a clear focus, hard-work and increasing success.

I have a PowerPoint presentation available that I used recently when presenting to a group of aspiring federal investigators related to creating a grant budget. You can get a copy from Dr. Acevedo-Polakovich, who is one of these I hope that you find it helpful. While this presentation is very specific and focused on just one aspect of obtaining federal funding, there are a number of resources you can access for “self-training” on the process of becoming a federally funded investigator. I am providing links to some of these resources as well. Best Wishes!

Dr. Alfiee M. Breland-Noble

Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Duke University Medical Center

Resources:

Sanders, K.A., Breland-Noble, A.M.; King, C. & Cubic, B. (2011). Pathways to success for psychologists in academic health centers: From early career to emeritus. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 17:315–325.

NIH Regional Seminar University of Pennsylvania in 2010: http://www.upenn.edu/researchservices/NIHvolunteer.html

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases “New Investigator Guide to NIH Funding:” http://funding.niaid.nih.gov/researchfunding/grant/pages/newpiguide.aspx#new17

The NIH Grants Policy Statement (10/1/2010): http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/policy.htm#gps.

Overcoming 3 Common Dissertation Pitfalls

by Tamara L. Brown, Ph.D.; Associate Professor of Psychology; University of Kentucky; & Owner of Dissertation Coaching Services (www.thedisscoach.com)

Most students find writing the dissertation to be the most daunting aspect of graduate school. When it comes to the dissertation, they feel overwhelmed and ill equipped, they doubt their abilities, and many give up before finishing. So challenging is the dissertation, that some have estimated that as many as 50% of graduate students are ABD (“all but dissertation”), which means students leave graduate school having met all requirements except the dissertation. But it does not have to be this way!

Based on my many years of experience or working with doctoral students, I have discovered that there are some very common pitfalls and misconceptions about the dissertation that cut across nearly all graduate students and block their dissertation progress. The good news is that these problems are all fixable! Due to space limitations, in the rest of this blog, I briefly highlight 3 problems students frequently encounter and provide tips on overcoming them. For more detailed information on these and other common problems and tips, or for individualized assistance, contact me (tamara@thedisscoach.com).

Problem 1: “I’m too busy to write.” Graduate students are notoriously busy! In addition to working on their dissertations, students in the PhD clinical psychology program where I teach also have to juggle taking classes, studying, teaching classes, seeing clients, conducting other research, writing journal articles, preparing conference presentations, and their personal interests and responsibilities. It’s a tall order; who has time to write! Actually there is more time than you might think. Graduate students (like everyone else) waste a lot of time that could be spent writing. Some time wasters are obvious such as time spent on facebook or checking email. But some time wasters are not as obvious. Examples given by graduate students I talked to are time spent organizing articles, organizing one’s workspace, and preparing to write. Getting organized is important, but spending too much time on it leaves very little, if any, time for actual writing. A solution is to first create a daily grid and keep track of how you spend your time so that you become aware of what your time wasters are and how much time you waste. Next, get rid of the obvious time wasters such as email and facebook by making their use contingent upon meeting your writing goals. Get rid of the subtle time wasters by scheduling organization time into your calendar as separate from your scheduled writing time. This ensures you devote adequate time to organizing, but when it’s time to write, organizing ends. If you lapse into your favorite time wasters when you are supposed to be writing, stop yourself! Remember that you have other places in your schedule for those activities so carefully guard your writing time and only do writing during writing time.

Problem 2: Many graduate students mistakenly believe that they cannot begin writing until they are able to have an extended period (say 2 hours) of uninterrupted time to devote to writing. Since they rarely have such large blocks of time in their schedules, the result is that weeks (and months) go by and students never begin writing, believing that they did not have enough time. Research shows that those who write in shorter spurts of time are more productive than those who write in binges and they tend to find writing more enjoyable. The solution is to change your thinking and start writing in 30-minute blocks of time. Why 30 minutes? Because most people can find 30-minute blocks in their schedules. Decide in advance which specific section of your project you will work on so that when the time for writing comes, you can get started right away (rather than spending your 30-minute writing time getting organized). Write as much as you can and when the time is up, stop writing. If you write for 30 minutes every day, by the end of a week, you will have spent 3 hours writing! If you wait for a 3-hour block of time to appear in your schedule, by the end of a week, you will have spent 0 hours writing!

Problem 3: Mismanagement of negative emotions. Working on the dissertation is often associated with negative thoughts (e.g., “I am incompetent,” “they made a mistake admitting me into this program”) and negative emotions (e.g., fear, anxiety). These thoughts and feelings, if not managed properly, feed on one another and result in behaviors that are self-sabotaging. Take procrastination as an example. I had a student with lots of negative thoughts and emotions associated with his dissertation that would overwhelm him every time he tried to work on it, so rather than work on his dissertation he would over commit to other activities (e.g., teaching, taking on more clients, household chores). These activities allowed him to avoid his fears and insecurities while still feeling like he was busy doing important work that had to get done. While procrastination provides temporary relief from unwanted thoughts and feelings, the problem is these avoidance tactics prevent students from making progress on their dissertations, and that lack of progress fuels even more negative thoughts and feelings which lead to more procrastination; a vicious cycle. A solution is to recognize how your behaviors, especially those that interfere with your dissertation, are influenced by your thoughts and feelings. Applying principles of cognitive and cognitive-behavioral theory are helpful in this regard.

These are just 3 of the most common pitfalls graduate students experience while trying to complete their dissertations. There are others that are common and some that are unique to particular situations. Regardless of the problem you are having, the solution is to get active in figuring out the problem and what to do about it. If you have tried to do that and it is not working, there are other options such as seeking the assistance of a dissertation coach. Dissertation coaches can be particularly helpful if you have spent an inordinate amount of time spinning your wheels on your dissertation rather than making real progress, if your dissertation chairperson is not providing the guidance and support you need, or if you are at the beginning of your dissertation and you want someone to help you get set up for the road ahead. A dissertation coach can help you devise strategies and step-by-step plans to keep you making steady progress.

Writing for Publication: Lessons from the Trenches

by Mia Smith Bynum, PhD; Associate Professor of Family Science; School of Public Health; University of Maryland.

Not too long ago I had a conversation with a recent PhD. graduate about career issues and the struggles we go through to get established in the competitive environment that is academic psychology. Having climbed a steep learning curve myself as a junior faculty, I've always enjoyed passing on the lessons I've acquired along the way. As is the case with many young PhDs and junior faculty in general, this young colleague described extremely common struggles with writing for publication and the accompanying pressures that we feel to produce when it seems that everyone around us is lapping us with their published work. After talking with this young colleague, I thought it would be useful to share some of the lessons I have learned about professional academic writing. My hope is that it will help other colleagues who, like me, have encountered many writing frustrations and have begun to feel as if they have lost their way.

I think the key issues plaguing writing productivity among junior faculty and new professionals fall in six areas. They are: (1) lack of confidence about writing; (2) lack of knowledge of one's personal rhythm/preferences with respect to writing; (4) lack of skill in writing for publication in scientific journals; (5) lack of familiarity and experience with the peer review process; (5) time management struggles; and (6) lack of an extensive professional network. I'll address writing confidence and writing knowledge/skills in depth. I will also provide the names of resources I have found helpful along the way.

Becoming a Professional Writer
Lack of knowledge about how to write for publication in academic journals and other outlets is a common barrier to publishing for junior faculty. In my journey and those of my young colleagues, I learned that several issues with respect to the young scholar's identity as a writer must be addressed. This will lay the foundation for the novice writer to develop the thick skin needed to endure the peer review process and to make it work for her. Learning about the peer review process can be mastered, but only after the writer has resolved some of the other issues first involving confidence and knowledge of personal rhythm and preferences as they relate to the writing process. Until these underlying issues are identified and addressed, academic publishing will always be a frightening, demoralizing process that derails many an academic career. I think that many young scholars struggle with publishing because of fear of rejection, not due to lack of capacity to learn the skills needed to publish successfully.

Young academics must first recognize that being an academic means being a professional writer. This idea was first presented to me in a book called, The Craft of Research by Wayne Booth, Gregory Columb, and Joseph Williams. It seems like an obvious point to me in retrospect, but hindsight is always 20-20. I don't think everyone views it that way at the time they decide to pursue a doctoral degree. I certainly did not. If you fundamentally do not enjoy writing, academia may not be for you. This may seem like a harsh statement, but in my opinion you must derive some intrinsic joy from the challenges of writing or it is not worth some of the sacrifices. There are many wonderful ways to be happy in your career. Why spend your days doing something you hate?

If you know that academia is indeed for you and you simply need some help figuring out how to be a productive writer, spend some time identifying your attitudes about writing. Write them down. Are they generally positive or negative? Also spend some time thinking about the experiences that have shaped your attitudes about writing. Do you dread the writing process? Or do you dread the critical feedback on your writing from colleagues, mentors, and the peer-review process? Or is it both? As cognitive-behavioral theory tells us, attitudes about writing can be changed once they are made explicit. If you are struggling with your writing productivity, it can be helpful to sit down and disentangle any negative beliefs that may impede your writing efforts as manifested through procrastination, writer’s block, and other common writing challenges. There are many myths that surround successful writing that may infect your writing experiences and productivity. Robert Boice addresses many of these issues and provides exercises for young academics to address them in his book, Advice for New Faculty Members.

One critical habit to successful writing is finding and sticking to a regular time to write in your schedule. Make it a regular, preferably daily, appointment in your date book. Do not give that time away to other demands on your time. In his book, The Art of Writing for Publication, Dr. Kenneth T. Henson advises writers to keep the tools of a serious writer nearby in all of the places where you write regularly. The obvious tools are a dictionary, thesaurus, any reference material, and your trusty APA manual. Have a good writing handbook available that addresses each stage of the writing process, including outlining, paragraphing, revising, and proper usage of grammar and punctuation. Such a handbook will help you break down writing projects into manageable pieces and also help you respond to feedback you receive from your mentors and colleagues about ways to improve your writing and to edit your own work. Having these tools on hand will also reduce loss of precious time actually writing by eliminating the need to hunt them down during every writing session.

Revising Prose by Richard A. Lanham helps writers deal with the structure of the writing on the page so that it is clear and pleasing to the reader. It helps writers evaluate whether the sentences and paragraphs in the work address a single idea clearly and successfully. Why is this an important resource? Have you ever been asked to review a manuscript or grade a paper littered with 2-sentence or page-long paragraphs? These types of writing problems are always a signal to reviewers that the authors are inexperienced. Professional scientific writing must be technically accurate and meet the standards of polished professional writing of any published work. The more polished your initial manuscripts are when you submit them, the more likely reviewers are to take seriously the scientific findings you wish to convey in your document. Poor writing mechanics irritate reviewers almost immediately and undermine the persuasiveness of your work, no matter how exciting your research findings may be. It requires more work for the reviewer to wade through a poorly constructed document to figure out what you did and what you want to say about it. Given the time pressures reviewers are under, poor writing can aggravate reviewers and, in some cases, lead them to critique your work more harshly. Revising Prose will help you to evaluate your writing systematically in prior to submission and in response to critical feedback.

The Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals by Robert J. Sternberg is an excellent volume on professional writing for psychologists. Sternberg invited several prolific academic psychologists to write a chapter addressing each type of product an author might produce (e.g., empirical journal articles, book chapters, review papers) along with strategies for documenting your research, writing for your audience (e.g., reviewers), and handling the revise-resubmit process. I found the chapters on writing introductions to journal articles and on writing compelling results sections extremely useful as I made my way up the publication learning curve. I refer to the Guide regularly and assign chapters to students working on various writing projects.

Developing Writer’s Confidence
Many students and young PhDs find writing aversive because of negative and/or erroneous beliefs about writing and a tendency to engage in negative self-talk during the writing process. In talking to others and reflecting on my own experiences, writing confidence is the biggest hurdle to clear for young PhDs (or students) who are serious about publishing their research. As one of my major professors said to me during my earlier struggles, writing confidence comes in part from believing that you have "something to say to the field." You have interesting, innovative ideas and findings that you want to contribute to the field and have them shape the way the field evolves.

Writing confidence can also come from gauging the support and interest you receive about your work when you present it at various conferences. Think about it for a moment. You know when you've generated meaningful findings. The audience is excited about your work. You receive great feedback and interesting questions about your presentation. Members of your audience encourage you to publish your findings. You feel energized by the presentation and know you've connected with your audience. This feedback is authentic—it is a preliminary peer review process that helps you gauge the relevance of your work. Trust that feedback, sit down at your computer, and write. Turn that conference paper or poster into a manuscript. Try not to focus on issues related to publication at this stage. Just write. And keep writing until the paper is done. (Now there are issues related to selection of journal outlets that have to be considered, but the unsure writer needs to simply gain confidence that he can express his research findings clearly and persuasively first.)

As you deepen your knowledge about the mechanics of writing and revising your work, you will become more confident about your writing. This will help you figure out how to revise the early drafts of your paper and respond to critical feedback about your written work. With experience, you will be able to tell if: (a) your ideas or findings are compelling but need clearer, compelling writing to communicate them, (b) your research ideas need more work or development, or (c) whether someone is simply hostile to your work no matter how strong the findings are or how well you explain them in your writing. In any of these cases, the feedback will probably sting, but hopefully not for long. And hopefully, it won’t keep you from moving forward with the necessary revisions in the appropriate areas when you have a chance to process the feedback with a clear head.

Life as tenure-track faculty member can be a significant challenge because of the pressures to produce a fairly large amount of published work in a short period of time. In order to develop as a professional writer, you have to be regularly engaged in the writing process. Write regularly and submit your work for review. Over time, you will figure out your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and improve on these using tools such as the ones I am outlining here. Rejection can be scary, but take a deep breath and submit your work anyway. You will learn more quickly and meet success earlier if you fully engage the process. As any published author will tell you, there are fewer sweeter professional rewards than seeing your name and scholarly work in print.

There is so much I could say about the writing process, but I hope there is something useful here that will help you move forward.

Happy writing!

Resources:

The Craft of Research (3rd Ed.)
Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers (9th Ed.)
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) – an excellent online writing instruction website.
APA Publication Manual

Online dictionaries & thesauruses (bookmark these for quick word checks and suggestions):
www.onelook.com
www.merriam-webster.com
http://thesaurus.reference.com/

Books by Robert Boice:
Advice for New Faculty
Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide for Productive Writers

Kenneth T. Henson’s homepage
The Art of Writing for Publication
Revising Prose (5th Ed)
The Elements of Style by Strunk & White (a classic text that can help writers make their writing active and vigorous)
Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals


About the Author:
Mia Smith Bynum, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland. She is also Membership Chair of APA Division 12 Section VI – Clinical Psychology of Ethnic Minorities.