Thinking About Grant Editing Services? This Book Could Help

In April, the academic editing book club will meet online to discuss The Grant Writing Guide by Betty Lai. This book club is run by the Academic Editing Special Interest Group (SIG), a collaboration of Editors Canada and the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA).

Picking up The Grant Writing Guide

At a time when freelancers compete with both each other and AI to find their next client, diversifying services is at the forefront of many academic editors’ minds, including mine. Research grant editing is an addition I have considered. However, having left academia right after finishing my PhD and having never applied for research funding myself, I had many questions: What does the grant landscape look like for different disciplines? What kind of dos and don’ts are there for grant writing? What do scholars typically struggle with when preparing their grant proposals? And how can an academic editor help? I picked up Betty Lai’s The Grant Writing Guide, hoping to get some answers.

Who is it for?

The first thing to know about Betty Lai’s The Grant Writing Guide is that it’s written for scholars. Unlike other books on academic writing, editors are never mentioned, but other people scholars seek advice from are, including mentors, research development specialists and peers. 

Lai writes to academics from all disciplines. Her goal is to uncover the so-called “hidden curriculum” and provide strategies for grant writing success. To achieve this, Lai uses her knowledge as a tenured professor at a Research 1 university as well as insights from “a hundred experts” she interviewed, ranging from experienced grantees to programme officers. 

Lai’s information focuses on the United States, with occasional references to other parts of the world. For example, in “Types of Grants,” Lai explains that the term “federal grants” refers to government-funded grants in the United States. Although she mentions the Canadian and Australian equivalents (Tri-Agency grants and Australian Research Council grants, respectively), she does so only briefly. 

Nevertheless, plenty of advice from The Grant Writing Guide is transferrable to grant writing elsewhere. Some of the guidance even applies outside of academia. I felt rather pleased with myself when I spotted several suggestions I had intuitively implemented in a (successful) National Geographic Explorer grant I edited for a photographer.

How to make it work for you

Although I would recommend reading the entire guide, the second half is particularly relevant to editors. Sections C (“Draft Your Grant”) and D (“Polish Your Grant”) cover the stages of grant writing where an editor is most likely to step in. 

Much of the advice also indirectly provides clues on how to advise a scholar on their grant writing. The suggestion to “Become a guide” is one I’ll apply to any grants I work on in the future. Lai explains how providing guidance in a funding proposal differs from writing statements, including concrete comparative examples as well as a handy list of “Guidance Mad Lib Stems.” 

This is one of many useful resources in the book (others include a sample literature review outline, a sample research plan, email templates, a submissions checklist) that editors can either adopt or adapt. Similarly, the content covered in the “Tips & Frequently Asked Questions” sections, which appear in every chapter, provides answers that editors may need for their clients.

A useful book for scholars and editors

While some of my questions remain unanswered, and I also haven’t yet made up my mind about adding grant editing to my services, Lai’s The Grant Writing Guide is worth reading, both for its intended audience and academic editors. For editors, it’s a useful book to consult — alongside other discipline- and region-specific resources — for learning about different aspects of grant writing. I would also recommend it to clients with limited budgets who are not able to hire an editor for every section of their funding application.     

Join the discussion

We’re thrilled to have Dr. Betty Lai in conversation with academic editor Letitia Henville (Writing Short is Hard) to talk about The Grant Writing Guide at our next Academic Editing book club event on April 7 at 4:30 pm PT / 7:30 pm ET. Purchase the book online and RSVP here to join the conversation! 

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