How to Write A CAREER: Deconstructing the Award Workshop

该奖项将支持2022年3月24日至25日的虚拟研讨会，以指导早期职业教师在成功撰写生物医学工程研究提案中使用的最佳实践和修辞模式。撰写研究提案的能力对早期职业研究人员的成功至关重要，然而，在撰写成功研究提案所需的技术写作技巧方面，几乎没有正式的指导。那些确实存在的人往往专注于内容和编辑，而不讨论获奖应用程序中常见的修辞模式。修辞模式是组织信息的方式。成功的提案写作有自己的修辞模式。“如何书写职业生涯：解构奖项”研讨会将强调这些修辞模式，以及指导对掌握它们的重要性。首先，与生物医学或生物工程相关的NSF职业奖将由通信科学专家解构。其次，确定的共同修辞元素将为研讨会材料提供基础，参与者将获得可操作和实用的信息。这个提案写作工作坊将通过识别成功提案中常见的语言结构，并教他们如何将这种结构应用到自己的提案中，来指导早期的职业教师成为更好的提案作者。参加者将优先考虑那些在工程领域人数不足的人，他们将有能力提出具有竞争性的职业发展建议，这有可能扩大参与。本工作坊将从修辞模式的角度，增进与生物及生物医学工程领域的NSF职业提案写作相关的知识。科学写作中的修辞模式也受到社会文化变量的影响。例如，尽管使用修辞手段为自己的研究文章增加宣传价值、让同行相信其价值是很重要的，但女性在社会上是不会自夸的。新手和非英语母语的技术作者在了解修辞模式后可以做出更好的修辞选择。修辞模式是组织和交流信息的方式，对科学信息的清晰表达至关重要。当英语形容词偏离“opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose Noun”的顺序时，母语为英语的人会意识到这句话很奇怪，但可能无法清晰地表达出这张列表。同样，经验丰富的提案作者和审稿人理解技术写作中正确的修辞模式，而不必能够将其传授给早期的职业研究者。正如不正确的词序表明非英语母语者，偏离预期修辞模式的提案作者被认定为“非英语母语提案作者”。科学的修辞认为科学的实践是有说服力的——在提案写作中，作者必须让审稿人相信他们的研究是基于可靠的科学方法或工程原理。这种写作中的修辞模式包括“情境-问题-解决-评价”模式，它展示了研究者的观察和实验能力，同时展示了解释和预测能力。如果没有掌握这些修辞模式，即使研究人员的能力再强，获得资助的可能性也会受到影响。通过使用最成功的修辞模式来教授提案写作可以减少社会文化差异对提案审查的影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award will support a virtual workshop March 24th-25th, 2022, to coach early-career faculty on best practices and rhetorical patterns used in successful writing of research proposals in biomedical engineering. The ability to write research proposals is critical to early-career researchers’ success, yet there is little formalized coaching in the technical writing skills necessary to craft a successful research proposal. Those that do exist tend to focus on content and editing, without discussing the rhetorical patterns that are common to award-winning applications. Rhetorical patterns are ways of organizing information. Successful proposal writing has its own rhetorical patterns. The “How to Write a CAREER: Deconstructing the Award” workshop will emphasize these rhetorical patterns and the importance of mentorship to gain mastery of them. First, NSF CAREER awards related to biomedical or bioengineering will be deconstructed by a communications science expert. Second, the identified common rhetorical elements will provide the foundation for workshop materials and participants will receive actionable and practical information. This proposal-writing workshop will coach early career faculty to be better proposal writers by identifying the language structure that is common across successful proposals and teaching them how to apply that structure to their own proposals. Participants, with priority given to those underrepresented in engineering, will be well positioned to submit competitive CAREER proposals, which has the potential for broadening participation.This workshop will advance knowledge related to NSF CAREER proposal writing in bio- and biomedical engineering from the perspective of rhetorical patterns. Rhetorical patterns in scientific writing are also influenced by sociocultural variables. For instance, women are socialized to not brag, despite the importance of using rhetorical devices to add promotional value to one’s research articles to convince peers of its value. Novice and non-native English technical writers can make better rhetorical choices when informed of rhetorical patterns. Rhetorical patterns are ways of organizing and communicating information and are critical to the clear presentation of scientific information. When English adjectives deviate from the order “opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose Noun,” a native English speaker will recognize that the sentence is odd but would likely be unable to articulate this list. Similarly, experienced proposal writers and reviewers understand correct rhetorical patterns in technical writing without necessarily being able to impart it to early career investigators. Just as incorrect word order reveals non-native English speakers, proposal writers who deviate from expected rhetorical patterns are identified as “non-native proposal writers.” The rhetoric of science contends that the practice of science is persuasive—in proposal writing, the author must convince reviewers that their research is based on sound scientific method or engineering principles. The rhetorical patterns in such writing involve patterns called “situation-problem-solution-evaluation” that showcase the researcher’s observational and experimental competence while demonstrating explanatory and predictive power. If these rhetorical patterns are not mastered, the likelihood of funding may be affected despite the competence of the researcher. Teaching proposal-writing by employing the most successful use of rhetorical patterns may lessen the impact of sociocultural differences in proposal review.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.