The secret to a winning grant proposal lies in blending analytic and narrative writing?styles, according to a linguistic study comparing successful and failed European Research Council applications.?

In general, complex writing with longer sentences, more jargon and a strong narrative style?were all linked to higher scoring applications for?the ERC¡¯s Starting Grant, which offers early career academics up to €1.5 million (?1.23 million) over a period of five years, says a paper published in the .

According to study author Peter van den Besselaar, an emeritus professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the secret is balancing narrative and analytical writing styles.??

¡°It should be kind of a blend. They should write a smoothly readable application which is still analytic,¡± he said. That may mean a dense text deploying technical nouns, but which carries readers through with a narrative, such as by using personal pronouns.?

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Professor van den Besselaar and his co-author Charlie Mom?found that their chosen linguistic features, such as the number of words per sentence, only predicted success in the first stage of the two-step ERC assessment, which only a quarter of proposals survive.

¡°Reviewers and panel members may be willing to spend more time even if they do not understand things very well,¡± said Professor van den Besselaar, explaining why writing style may be less influential once proposals pass to specialist reviewers in the second stage.?

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The authors raise concerns that writing style could soon become even more influential with a push towards qualitative approaches in research assessment, such as narrative CVs.

¡°Perfectly written narrative CVs (and grant applications) may be more informative, but could likewise be a smart way of overselling, resulting in biased grant selection,¡± they write.?

Maciej Eder, an associate professor at the Pedagogical University of Krak¨®w specialising in computer-assisted text analysis and a panel chair for the 2021 Starting Grant round, agreed that style was ¡°one of those elements that somehow do affect the final decision. There are always some tiny, tiny elements that make a good, strong proposal even better.¡±?

Previous work has found that readability, complexity and confidence all figure in a proposal¡¯s success, but style is a complex phenomenon and taste probably plays a part in what works best.?

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¡°I wouldn¡¯t see this as the analytical versus anything else,¡± said Dr Eder. ¡°I would say clear, very much to the point, not very well elaborated but a very clear style ¨C that¡¯s what makes a good proposal very good.¡±?

The authors used software to read?the abstract, project description and CV sections of 2,532 applications from 2014.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com