Writing the Outcomes and Impacts Section

All good proposals must come to an end. In this chapter, we examine conventional ways in which authors summarize and conclude their Project Descriptions. We consider project timelines, lists of expected outcomes, and statements of broader impacts. By the end of this chapter, you should be able to ■ Develop a project timeline ■ Generate a list of expected outcomes ■ Suggest broader impacts of your proposed work ■ Reinforce the importance of your proposed work in concluding remarks As you work through the chapter, you will write the closing section of your own Project Description. The Writing on Your Own tasks throughout the chapter guide you step by step as you do the following: 14A Create a project timeline 14B Create a list of expected outcomes 14C Conclude the proposed work 14D Complete the Outcomes and Impacts section Like the previous sections of the Project Description (chapters 12 and 13), there is no one right way to end a proposal. However, proposal guidelines often instruct authors to include a projected timeline, a list of expected outcomes, a summary of objectives, and/or a statement of relevance or broader impacts in their concluding remarks. For example, the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Graduate Fellowship announcement (excerpt 11A) asks for a statement that links “the relevance of [the proposed] work to analytical chemistry.” The NSF Grant Proposal Guide (see excerpt 15B) asks for “objectives for the period of the proposed work,” their “expected significance,” and their “relationship to longer-term goals of the PI’s project.” Moreover, the PI must describe “as an integral part of the narrative, the broader impacts of the proposed activities.” Not surprisingly, each of the authors of our 22 CAREER proposals approached this task slightly differently. We examine several of their approaches in this chapter. We begin with an excerpt that you can read and analyze on your own (excerpt 14A), specifically, the conclusion to Harpp’s proposal regarding plume-ridge interaction in the Galápagos. She includes a formal timeline (titled “Project Schedule”) and conclusions for her work.