One of the greatest challenges in writing is to clearly communicate complex ideas. This is particularly true in grant writing, as there are often many components to the need an organization is addressing and many facets to their programs.

In this post, I’m going to share some advanced grant writing strategies that will help you ensure your writing is clear, even when you’re dealing with complicated topics:

  • Parallel structure
  • Correctly placed modifiers
  • Known-new contract

Parallel Structure

When sentences or parts of sentences are parallel, each equivalent part has the same structure, tense, and importance. Let’s look at an example:

  • Not parallel: When Trish came into the office, she skipped, talking about her fun weekend, and had smiled.

The problem with this sentence is that all the things Trish did are in different tenses. Here’s how the sentence could be improved:

  • Parallel: When Trish came into the office, she skipped, talked about her fun weekend, and smiled.

This corrected sentence has all the verbs in the same tense; notice how they all end in -ed. Errors in parallel structure often occur when the writer uses the conjunction pair of “not only…but also.” Here’s an example:

  • Not parallel: Students without access to healthy food options at school not only have higher rates of obesity, but also they are struggling in school.

The error in this sentence is a little harder to spot than the one in the first example. See how the first word after “not only” is a present tense verb? What follows “but also” should match:

  • Parallel: Students without access to healthy food options at school not only have higher rates of obesity, but also struggle in school.

The corrected sentence puts “struggle,” a present-tense verb directly after “but also” to match the structure of the first part of the sentence.

Similarly, if you include a bulleted list anywhere in a grant, the rules of parallel structure will apply there, too. Check to make sure that each item on the list is the same part of speech or type of phrase or that they are all complete sentences. For example, if you’re listing outcomes of the program, they could all start with “to + verb.”

Correctly Placed Modifiers

Dangling and misplaced modifiers are also common writing mistakes that hurt the clarity of a piece of writing. Again, this is best illustrated with an example. Let’s look at a sentence with a misplaced modifier:

  • Incorrect: She saw a car for sale on the way to the basketball game.

The modifier in this sentence is “on the way to the basketball game.” It should be placed nearest to what it describes. Is the “car for sale” on its way to the basketball game? Nope!

“She” is the one that is on her way to the game, so the modifier should go next to the word “she.”

  • Correct: On the way to the basketball game, she saw a car for sale.

Dangling modifiers are similar to misplaced modifiers, but they are put in a sentence where there’s nothing that they clearly modify. Here’s an example:

  • Incorrect: Reading the rules posted, the dog did not play in the park

Obviously the dog did not read the rules. It must have been a person who read the rules. To fix this sentence, I’ll have to rearrange it and include a person in it:

  • Correct: After reading the rules posted, I did not allow my dog to play in the park.

Now, let’s check out one last example that looks more like something you’d see in a grant application:

  • Incorrect: After participating in a series of workshops, the program will encourage educators to implement new arts activities in their lessons.

Since the program didn’t participate in the workshops, the modifier in this sentence is incorrect. This is a better version of the sentence:

  • Correct: After participating in a series of workshops, the educators will implement new arts activities in their lessons.

The corrected sentence clearly communicates that the educators participated in the workshops.

Known-new Contract

One common pitfall in grants, and the statement of need in particular, is piling in tons of quotations, statistics, and facts. Sometimes the amount of new information is overwhelming and difficult for a reader to absorb.

There’s education research that suggests the only way for people to learn new things is in relationship to things they’re already familiar with.

This applies to your grant writing, as you can use this strategy to communicate complex ideas clearly. Begin sentences with information that you’ve already introduced and use the second half of sentences to share new information.

Here’s an example:

In 2016, the state cut funding for music education programs by 75%, and these cuts have disproportionately hurt rural school districts. The lack of funding has resulted in music classes being cut, which is shown to hurt educational outcomes. For example, without access to music education experiences, students score significantly lower on the SAT and ACT.

Each italicized portion of the sentence is new information. Notice that these pieces of new information then become the “known” information at the beginning of the next sentence.

Readers can very easily follow the reasoning behind this paragraph because of this known-new structure. Try to use the known-new contract to make your grant easier to follow and more persuasive.

Thanks for learning with me today!

If you want to learn even more advanced grant writing strategies, I invite you to join me inside Grant Writing Made Easy.