A Literature Review is Not A Thing, It’s Something You Do
The Important Job of Framing Precedents in Grant Proposals
One of the required sections of a grant proposal is often called a “literature review.” But a literature review is not a thing. It’s an action. We do indeed review the literature in a grant proposal…but the key question to ask is: why?
The answer is that successful proposals review the literature in order to frame the precedents for a proposed project. There are at least three important ways that most successful proposals do this. And not all of them happen in the so-called “literature review” section!
What Are the Three Ways to Frame Precedents for Your Project?
Talking about work that precedes your own project helps to do three important things. One is to establish the key area of concern, problem, or need to be addressed. A second is to establish what you are suggesting is the best way to go about addressing the problem or need — a.k.a. your methods or implementation plans. And the third is to establish your and your teams’ track record of achievement in a similar area of work. We might consider each of these moments of establishing precedent as answering a key question that reviewers have:
1. What is the main area of concern and who and by what rationale has it been established as a need or problem to address?
We might also address details about the problem such as how much agreement is there about the nature of the problem? about its importance or potential impact on people? about its scope? etc.
2. What is the best way to address the need or problem?
Here we want to look at methods that are both well-suited to the challenge and which have been shown to be reliable and valid. We may also want to examine past attempts to address this or similar problems — successful or not — to determine if a different method needs to be tried in the proposed case.
3. What is my team’s record of achievement doing similar work?
Once you have a well-established need and a credible method for addressing it, reviewers will want to know if you can execute your plan. Reviewing your own past work in related areas is one of the best ways to do that.
Don’t Think of a Lit Review Section, Think of Need & Opportunity
If you take a look at the three questions above, you’ll notice that only the first one — establishing the need or problem — is something we associate with the “literature review” slot. I would like to suggest we not call it that at all! I think of this section of a proposal as the place where we write about the need and the opportunity our team sees to address the need. To help us do that, we review the literature that speaks to the existence of the problem, we talk about contemporary and historical impacts, and we talk about the potential benefits of addressing the need and the impacts that can have to make things better. All of that requires us to review relevant literature to make the case of what has come before our own work. We then want to indicate what we accept, agree with, and build upon. And what we might seek to change, reconcpetualize, or critique depending on the status of the need and our opportunity to address it.
Want to see more about articulating Need & Opportunity with other parts of a proposal? Check out my short video on that here:
Where Else Do We Review the Literature in a Grant Proposal?
When we are answering the question about the best way to address a need or problem, we writing about precedent in our methods section. Usually, we are referring to methods used by other researchers in the past and linking those to our own decisions about methods. We want to point to methods that are valid, reliable, and useful and also to those which are not likely to yield good results. We cite both positive and negative precedent, then, in support of our own methodology or implementation plan.
When we are writing about our own team’s track record of achievement, we may not be writing very much at length, though sometimes grant proposals will ask for a “project history” that allows us to trace some precedent for the current work. Often, though, we might need to rely on genres other than the proposal itself to help us establish the teams’ relevant preceding work. We can do this in bio sketches, CVs, team descriptions, and even in facilities and resources statements.
Another important place where our team precedent can be emphasized is in the letters of support that others outside the team write in support of a proposal. When you ask external supporters to write a letter, you might wish to offer them access to some of your teams’ publications so they can review YOUR published literature and speak to its value in preparing you to succeed in the upcoming project.
Review The Literature…With a Purpose!
These are just a few key spots when we “review the literature” (or ask others to!) to create a competitive grant proposal package. Some of these moments correspond with similar places we might review literature for other publications such as research articles. But you might consider: are the reason we do it the same? Remember, a lit review isn’t just a section. It’s an action that always has an important purpose related to your goal in writing.
