Responding to Pink Sheets
Posted on September 21, 2006
Judith Ford (bio) and Greg Siegle (bio) share some hints for responding to the NIMH critique of your grant.
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Q: I've just received the critique for my K01 from NIMH and it's a bit unsettling. How can I best respond to it?
A: First, take a deep breath. Everyone gets these, and knowing how to deal with criticism is an essential skill to develop. Here are a few hints:
- You have 3 pages to reply to the critique. Use every bit of it.
- Do not continue your response in an appendix. That is very annoying, and it may not get read.
- Do not simply refer the reviewer to a page in the text to find the changes you have made.
- Respond to EVERY item in the review.
- If you disagree, explain why. "We disagree" doesn't work.
- If the reviewer asks for more detail, do not just refer to a paper, especially if it is not appended.
- Revise the body of the proposal to be consistent with the changes you said you would make in the reply to the review.
- Gray-line important changes in the text. Do not say the changes are too extensive to denote.
- If you made mistakes in the first submission, apologize.
- It is rarely useful to make changes on a revision that were not specifically identified as problems in the first submission, unless they were true design weaknesses.
- Get feedback from your project officer who heard the committee's discussion of your proposal.
Based on on-line document and personal communication with author in July 2006.
Note: This document has evolved over the past three years with input, feedback, and support from many people, most notably sage advice given by Paul Pilkonis, Chris Martin, and Chip Reynolds at the WPIC T32 and R25 seminars, and guides for administrative wrangling from Kathy Slomka.
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