Review Your Grant Application
Once a grant application is drafted, it’s important to properly review each section to ensure that the style and content are appropriate. Use resources in this section to review your application before it’s submitted.
Questions to Consider:
- What does a successful NIH Specific Aims Page include?
- What are some style guidelines to consider?
- What are some common grant writing mistakes to avoid?
NIH K Grant Specific Aims Page Checklist
The specific aims page, especially the aims themselves, are the crux of your grant application.
The checklist below provides recommendations for a Specific Aims page of a NIH K grant application. In addition to overall considerations, this checklist is broken up into four parts that correspond to the four sections of a Specific Aims page: the introduction paragraph, the body paragraph(s), the specific aims themselves, and the closing, or impact paragraph.
Use this checklist after you’ve completed a Specific Aims page draft to ensure that you have included all the necessary components. Review the completed checklist and carefully note any unchecked boxes.
Please Note: While this checklist is meant to be a comprehensive resource, we acknowledge that there isn’t one correct way to write a grant application and that in some cases, deviation from this checklist may be warranted.
Toolkit
When reviewing your grant application, use this checklist to confirm the use of proper style tips.
Common Grant Writing Mistakes (PDF)
This page lists common mistakes cited by grant reviewers on why a proposal was not funded.
Next Step
Click on the box below to learn more about responding to an NIH Summary Statement.