This workshop focuses on persuasive proposal writing, emphasizing the strategic application of rhetorical principles (ethos, pathos, logos) and practical organizational and writing techniques to increase the likelihood of securing funding.
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Hello everybody.
Give it a couple minutes, but thank you
still got some people trickling into the
wait room.
But um for those of you who are on right
now, what you see on the screen is our
proposal development workshop series.
So, we're at number eight right now,
persuasive proposal writing. Um, if this
is your first time attending, thank you
for coming. Um, and if this isn't your
first time attending, welcome back.
We're excited to have you. But you can
register for future PWS. Um, that's pw10
through16 at that link funding.asu.edu/events.
These are also recorded. So, um, if you
can't attend and you sign up, you'll get
the recording in your inbox, but we also
do post all of our recordings, uh, to
our website, so you'll be able to see
all of those and past recordings as well.
I think we're slowing down here. Still
see a couple people trickling through.
But I'm going to get us started and then
as people trickle in through um we'll
just catch up. So thank you for
attending today's workshop everybody. We
are very excited to have you joining us.
As I mentioned this is recorded um and
so you'll get the recording in your
inbox um as well as access to all of our
other recordings that we've done for
All right. in this uh workshop. This is
PD PDW number8. So this is persuasive
proposal writing. I'm Emily Wilcoxton.
I'm the assistant director for research
development at the knowledge enterprise.
And I'm joined by Laura York, my lovely
colleague here, who is a proposal
manager in research development. And we
have a lovely and exciting agenda for
you guys today.
Um this is our agenda. So Laura will
start with the art of rhetoric, which is
a really great and fun interesting
concept, and then I will transition and
go into some concrete persuasive
proposal writing tips and tricks. And
with that, I'm going to kick us off and
hand it over to Laura, who will get us started.
All right. All right. Thanks, Emily. And
uh hi, everyone. Thank you so much for
joining us today. Um as Emily said, my
name is Laura York. I am a proposal
manager in the research development unit
in knowledge enterprise and um I am also
by training a historian. So I like to
look at history when I'm going to talk
about things. Uh so I'll be speaking
today on the art of rhetoric which is an
ancient art and how mastering it will
help you write more effective funding
All right. Uh we know that many
scientists and academics struggle with
grant writing. Why is this? It's because
when uh what you were taught about how
to write for an academic audience won't
work when you're trying to get a sponsor
to fund your project. A funding proposal
is an argument at base. It is not a
journal article. It is not a report. It
requires a different approach to
writing. Your goal is not merely to
communicate information, but also to
convince the reader to take a specific
action. You're making an argument that
the reviewer should recommend your
project for funding because it's
exciting and because you and your
research team are the best possible
people to make the project a smashing
success and help the sponsor fulfill its mission.
mission.
A proposal uh because of this is not the
place to be modest. It's not the place
to underell your expertise, your ideas,
your capabilities. Uh you don't want to
come across as arrogant or entitled uh
to their money in your u proposal, but
you do want to come across as confident
and assertive of your team's capability
and the novelty and importance of your
The challenge of how to persuade someone
with words has been studied for
thousands of years. In fact, it was
addressed at length around 2,300 years
ago by the Greek philosopher and
scientist Aristotle. His book on the art
of rhetoric presents a comprehensive
framework for persuading a listener that
is still very relevant and effective
today. Now called the rhetorical
triangle and often applied to written
argument in addition to speech, the
framework comprises three major elements
that are critical to making a persuasive
argument. at these three are ethos, the
appeal to trust and credibility, pathos,
the appeal to the reader's emotion, and
logos, the appeal to reason. I'm going
to discuss each of these elements
briefly in turn. Next slide, please.
First is ethos, the appeal to trust and
So, Aristotle wrote that persuasion is
achieved when the speech makes us think
the speaker credible. You could be
proposing the most innovative and
brilliant solution to a pressing
problem, but if the reviewers don't see
you as credible, there's no way they're
going to agree to fund you. So, what
comprises this trust and credibility?
Three elements in this are your
expertise, your depth of knowledge and
practical experience, your credentials,
your training by a respected
institution, and your ethics, knowing
and following the rules of good
All right. So, who needs to be credible?
Essentially, every person and
institution affiliated with or
supportive of your project as well as
the authorities assited as support for
your ideas and the journals who've
published your work and other research
From my experience as a proposal manager
and a research administrator, I can say
that very often proposal teams view
required biographical documents as
having minor importance in a proposal.
But the biographical documents are
actually critical to establishing your
authority and your credibility and to
building the reviewer's trust in you,
which is your goal here. demonstrating
experience, leadership, credentials, a
record of funding and publication, along
with letters of support as testimonials
when allowed by the sponsor. All of
these are going to go a long way to
establishing ethos in the reviewer's mind.
mind.
You should also try to appeal to ethos
and building trust within your research
strategy or project plan. In addition to
those biographical documents, you'll
want to site authorities and experts uh
whose work supports your own. Maybe
refute counterarguments, theories, or
findings by others who work in your area
but disagree with your conclusions. Uh
to describe your experience and prior work
work
and maybe something you weren't thinking
of. Uh one of the ways to appeal to a
trust is to use correct grammar and
syntax. Uh here's a quote from the
Harvard Business Review. Speaking of
credentials, about this uh people jump
to all kinds of conclusions about you
when they read documents you've written.
They decide how smart, how well
organized, and how trustworthy you are.
So, please take the time to edit and
proofread your document before you
submit. Send your proposal to a
colleague uh to have them read it over
for things as simple as, you know,
formatting, grammar, spelling. Um or you
can also submit uh your work to one of
the uh editors who work in my unit
research development. Uh before you
submit to sponsor,
uh you want to be confident and
authoritative though not arrogant in
your tone. Uh you don't want to sound
like you think they're entitled to their
money, but you want to do you do want to
make the impression that you are worthy
Uh here's a few just a few examples of
the deployment of ethos in research
proposal strategies that I've seen. Uh
note that the uh bolded phrases are not
the point of the sentence that they
appear in, but they do help establish
your credibility while you're making a
larger point. Uh this is phrases such as
as a leader in the field of sustainable forestry.
forestry.
uh three decades of experience in aging
research, ASU's acknowledged leadership,
uh a noted expert in animal pharmarmacology,
pharmarmacology,
uh phrases like that. So, you're not
making it the entire point of the page
or the paragraph or even the sentence,
but you're reinforcing the idea that you
are trustworthy, you have credibility,
and that the re reviewer will note this.
Uh so, that's my very brief uh jump into
ethos. Next, we're going to turn to the
second element of the rhetorical
triangle, which is pos. Next slide, please.
Pathos is the appeal to the reader's
emotion, to their values, beliefs,
So, why appeal to emotion? Aristotle
wrote that quote, "Persuasion may come
to the listeners when the speech stirs
our emotions. Our judgments when we are
pleased and friendly are not the same as
when we are hostile." POS draws on the
reviewer's emotions to persuade them to
support your project. It's not just for
appeals to charitable causes or
And at this point you're thinking, wait,
isn't emotion completely inappropriate
in a research proposal?
No, it is not. Uh that's because
scientists and academics in general are
trained to value objectivity and
distance ourselves from our work. But
distance and objectivity while often
appropriate for an article or a report
uh are not appropriate. Well, they are
appropriate in a research proposal, but
they are not sufficient. A proposal, as
I said earlier, is a marketing document.
So, not only are emotional appeals
appropriate for many proposals, but also
including such appeals may go a long way
to winning over the reviewer by
connecting your project, your work with
their values, their beliefs, and their priorities.
priorities.
The goal of PAOS, you want to try to
make the reviewer feel appropriate
emotions when they're reading your
proposal, such as concern about the
problem that you want to solve, maybe
anger, sympathy, sadness. Uh, compassion
for those impacted by the problem or the
need. Excitement that your project will
help solve that problem. Admiration for
your team and institutions.
uh maybe frustration at the slow pace of
progress towards a solution to fix the
problem that the sponsor is trying to
work on. Uh so make sure the feelings
you're trying to evoke are connected to
the benefit that your project offers to
the sponsor for solving the problem that
they are giving money to solve.
And uh Emily will talk more about
benefits on in her section. Yes, next
slide. Thank you. All right, stop there.
All right. including elements of PAOS in
your research in your uh proposal
strategy or other components should
include conveying your own passion for
your project. Judgment and willingness
to engage are influenced by emotion. So
use this fact to your advantage because
enthusiasm is contagious.
If you don't come across as emotionally
invested in your work, your reviewer
probably won't be either.
Try to help the reviewer connect to your
work and see it through your eyes. Other
ways to include PAOS are putting a face
on the problem or the need, illustrating
why there's a need for your research.
There's several ways to do this. uh
specific examples of the problem to
personalize it. Testimonials from
beneficiaries of your past successes,
brief anecdotes that demonstrate the
problem or your solution, uh quotations
from those who will benefit from the research
research
or uh from people who support it. And
lastly, you can use uh formatting of
your research plan document to help make
sure your appeal to PAOS is clear. Try
using callout boxes, underlining,
different text color, highlighting, uh,
all of that to draw the readers, the
reviewer's attention to these moments of pos,
why your project is important and why
you are the best person to help them
Uh, the last choice, the last element of
PAOS is word choice. Strong dramatic
adjectives like these will convey your
excitement and conviction about your
proposal. They will help convince the
reviewer that the problem is urgent and
that your solution is timely, expert,
and crucial.
Uh so here highlighted in red are a few
examples of ways that grant applicants
that I've worked with uh have appealed
to POS by putting a face on the benefits
of the project and uh by providing
quotations testifying to the value of
the work. I won't read through these um necessarily.
