Category Archives: Writing a thesis

6 steps to drafting a grant application


Applying for grants is a time-consuming process. Deadlines can loom suddenly, leading to stress and long days. Success rates can be low, meaning that considerable effort is often not rewarded. 

At the outset, you need to form a realistic timeline to work on the grant application. In addition to identifying your funding source, researching the specific requirements of the grant application and formulating your project budget, you will need to start planning your written proposal. Careful planning and early feedback from your colleagues will maximise your chances of a successful outcome. 

In addition to the detailed advice you will receive from your grant body, following the 6 steps outlined in this article will help you develop the core content of your application. 

Step 1: Identify your audience

Will the grant be reviewed by specialists in your field and will the panel include non-specialists or lay people? In reality, you may have two types of audience:

- Non-specialist or non-scientific reviewers who will require background information to judge whether your project is worthwhile.

- Specialist reviewers within your discipline that will be more familiar with your research.

Depending upon the funding organisation, some of your reviewers may not be familiar with the terminology or the current research problems of your discipline or immediately appreciate why your project is so important. Therefore, it is imperative to make sure your proposal outlines the relevancy of your topic to current issues and that it is clear and concise.

Step 2: Summarise the key research problems overarching your project

Before you can think about convincing people how good your project is, you need to build a picture about the current problems facing your research community.

Successful grant applications clearly define the area of need and how it is relevant to your potential funding source. In addition to outlining the scientific importance of your project, describe how your work might affect society, the environment and the economy. For example, if you are researching a disease, highlight the burden associated with that disease. Outline how many people it affects and the costs to society.

Step 3: Summarise the key problem your project will solve

This is where you focus on the key problem your project will attempt to solve. Clearly articulate what specific problem needs to be investigated and why. Avoid promising to solve too many problems or problems that are too large in scope, otherwise your project will seem unrealistic and unachievable. Describe how the key problem is connected to the broader scope of the research problems outlined in Step 2. Once you have outlined your research problem, then you can clearly state what you aim to achieve (step 4).

Avoid writing vague or generalised statements, for example: “To date, little research has been conducted in this area.” To help you keep your application short, also avoid obvious statements, for example: “This topic was investigated through an extensive search of the literature.”

Step 4: Articulate your aim, hypotheses and outcomes

While directly referring to your key research problem, outline what you aim to achieve, including your hypotheses and what outcomes you can expect from your completed project.

Once the overall aim is stated, the project should be broken down into sub-aims, each with a defined outcome. This approach helps you to define realistic timelines, ensures that the project description is concise and will improve the likelihood that the grant will be successful.

Step 5: Summarise how you will do the work (methods)

A major factor in grant success is being able to convince the reviewers that the project is feasible and important and that the work is likely to be completed within the proposed timeframe. Clearly outline what methods you will use and what experience you have in this area. If you need to develop new methods, clearly explain what is required and provide evidence of your ability to develop other methods in the past.

Outline the scope of the project. How long it will take to complete each component? Is the size of your project feasible within the set time frame? Do you have access to suitable equipment and operational facilities?  Promote yourself. Provide evidence (such as previous publications or unpublished data) to demonstrate that you are capable of successfully completing the project.

6. Seek feedback from colleagues

Give your draft proposal to your colleagues for feedback. They may provide valuable feedback on what is feasible, which aspects are the most interesting and what might be missing.

This early feedback will help you focus on what you want to achieve, why it is important and how likely the project is to succeed. It can be helpful to talk to people who have already received funding from a particular source; what feedback did they receive and what aspects did they think helped them to secure funding? If appropriate, it might also be helpful to seek feedback from colleagues who have recently been unsuccessful in winning a grant from the same funding body.

What to do next?

- After receiving feedback from your colleagues, rework the application so that it is clear, compelling, concise and flows well.

- Finalise your budget and ensure all aspects of your project are justified.

- Seek at least two more rounds of feedback from your peers as you proceed through the writing and submission process. Grants that are peer-reviewed prior to submission are more likely to be successful.

- Pay close attention to the small details in the submission process. You don’t want to have your grant rejected on a technicality or an unchecked box on a submission form.

© Marina Hurley 2026  www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email admin@writingclearscience.com.au 

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When to cite and when not to

What information should be cited? Where do I place the citation in a sentence? These two questions are commonly asked during my writing workshops and online courses. Other problems I regularly see are too many citations to support a piece of information or statements of fact that should be supported by a citation. This blogpost reviews the basic concepts of citation and discusses the importance of always citing your sources.

What is a citation?

Authors of scientific documents use citation to indicate when information comes from another source: who wrote (or produced) the information being discussed and when it was published.

The standard method of citation is to insert in-text citations directly before, or after, the information that is attributed to another source or author. These citations are then listed at the end of the document, within either a bibliography or reference list. A reference list includes only the references that are cited, whereas a bibliography is both a list of the references cited and additional references used when researching and writing the document.

There are many different referencing styles, including the APA style which is commonly used in science publications. The Author – Date in-text citation is where the authors surnames and dates of publication are written within brackets at the end of a sentence or phrase. For example. “Aquatic air breathers periodically break the water surface to gulp air but never leave water (Gonzales et al. 2006).” (Magellan 2016, p 452)

If there is more than one citation for a particular statement, the citations are separated by semicolons. For example: “The conflicting requirements for aquatic and terrestrial life are perhaps most pronounced in air-breathing fishes (Sayer & Davenport 1991; Graham 1997; Sayer 2005).” (Magellan 2016, p 452). This example also demonstrates the convention of ordering citations from earliest year published (1991) to latest year published (2005). If two publications were cited from the same year, then the order of citation would be in alphabetical order of the first author (Sinclair & Ryan 2019; Smith 2019).


Where should in-text citation be placed?

I am often asked whether to place the citation at the end of the sentence, in brackets, or at the beginning where it forms part of the sentence.

Often the citation is made after a statement of fact. If there are three statements within a sentence, there will be three separate citations lists within that sentence; An example from Magellan (2016, p 452), “Amphibious animals are adapted for both aquatic and terrestrial habitats and divide their lives periodically (e.g. Yeomans 1995; Dall’Antonia & Sinsch 2001) or ontogenetically (e.g. Martin et al. 2004; Blob et al. 2007) between water and land (Sayer & Davenport 1991; Sayer 2005).”

Alternatively, the authors of a publication can appear in the beginning of a sentence when they are is used as the subject of the sentence, while the date of publication is written in brackets. In this case, the previous citation example of Gonzales et al. 2006 by Magellan 2016 could be rewritten as ‘Gonzales et al. (2006) found that aquatic air breathers periodically break the water surface to gulp air but never leave water’. However, this type of citation increases the length of the sentence as the verb phrase ‘found that’ needs to be added.

As a general guide, if you use the findings of a study to develop your reasoning, it is easiest and more concise to place the citation at the end of the sentence. That way you can easily list more than one study as a list of citations in brackets, as in the example above. However, if you are discussing a particular study over more than one sentence, it is easier for the reader if you first introduce the authors as the subject of the sentence.
Irrespective of where the citation is placed, hyperlinking can used with electronic publications to link a quote or citation directly to the document being cited, as with the Fensham et. al (2017) paper cited below.

Ideas, quotes and paraphrasing should be cited

You must include a citation if you quote, paraphrase or summarise someone else’s information or ideas. Quoting is writing the exact words used by another author and enclosing the text in double quotation marks; for example: Fensham et. al (2017) concluded that “The findings of the current study support the importance of rainfall variability as the major influence on the demography of E. melanophloia, the dominant tree in a semi-arid savanna” (p. 780). The page number where the quotation appeared should always be included.

Paraphrasing is rewriting someone else’s writing using your own choice of words; for example, I would both summarise and paraphrase this previous quote as, ‘Fensham et. al (2017) concluded that rainfall variability is the major factor influencing the demography of E. Melanophloia.’ or ‘The demography of E. melanophloia is most strongly influenced by rainfall variability.’ (Fensham et. al 2017).

When using quotation marks, whether you use single or double quotation marks, be sure that you are consistent. Note that I used single quotes here to distinguish my wording and double quotes for the direct quotation.

Why do we cite?

The main reasons we cite is to clearly distinguish our work from others and so the source of information can be located and verified. Citation also honours the work or intellectual property of the author. Researchers most often cite other studies when developing their reasoning for their own studies, when comparing their work with other researchers and to indicate when authors reach similar or dissimilar conclusions. In this way, the citation process maintains and further develops the scientific discourse and shows how authors place their work within the published scientific literature.

What information can be cited?

It is a good idea to only cite information that has been published or made publicly available. Be cautious about referencing information from documents that are not publicly available or have not been peer-reviewed.

Unpublished research is referred to as grey literature. Grey literature is defined as “…research that has not been published commercially and is therefore not necessarily searchable via the standard databases and search engines. Much grey literature is of high quality and can be an excellent source of up to date research in certain subject areas. Examples of grey literature: government reports, conference proceedings, theses / dissertations, research reports, maps, policy statements, clinical trials, technical standards, interviews and newsletters” (UNSW Library).

If it is necessary to cite unpublished information, the integrity of this information may be questioned if no other sources are provided. Be cautious about generating conclusions or inferences solely on the basis of unpublished information or uncitable 'facts'.

How to cite different types of publications

Most Australian university library websites will list guides to different referencing styles; for example, Queensland University and Victoria University have in-depth guides on different referencing styles and how to cite and reference different types of publications. Also refer to Colin Neville’s book, The Complete Guide to Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism (2016) for an in-depth guide on how to reference and cite a wide range of published material including books, papers, newspaper articles and audio-visual material.

What doesn’t need to be cited     

Information that is commonly known to be true is not cited. Common knowledge is information that is widely accepted as being true and does not need to be cited. However, what is common knowledge depends upon the knowledge of the audience: what is commonly known to some groups of people would not necessarily be commonly known by another group of people.

As readers, we trust that the author’s knowledge of what is commonly known, is true. For example, the quote from Fensham (see above) included an unreferenced statement that E. melanophloia is a dominant tree in a semi-arid savanna (Fensham et al. 2017, p. 780). I assume that this statement is common knowledge as it was uncited. Another example is that it is common knowledge to entomologists that (most) beetles have only one pair of flying wings, with the second pair of wings evolved to form protective covers to the flying wings. This fact would not need to be cited in entomology publications, not only because it is commonly known, but because it is easy enough to find out.

Avoid inadvertent plagiarism

Remember that unreferenced statements might be considered plagiarism. If you continually make unreferenced statements, you can mislead the reader into thinking that your un-cited information is either common knowledge or that you generated this information yourself.

Publications cited
- Magellan, K. (2016) Amphibious adaptations in a newly recognized amphibious fish: Terrestrial locomotion and the influences of body size and temperature. Austral Ecology 41,452-460
- Fensham, R. J., Freeman, M. E., Laffineur, B., Macdermott, H., Prior, L. D., & Werner, P. A. (2017). Variable rainfall has a greater effect than fire on the demography of the dominant tree in a semi-arid Eucalyptus savanna. Austral Ecology, 42(7), 772– 782
- Gonzales T. T., Katoh M. & Ishimatsu A. (2006) Air breathing of aquatic burrow-dwelling eel goby, Odontamblyopus lacepedii (Gobiidae: Amblyopinae). J. Exp. Biol. 209, 1085–92.

© Dr Marina Hurley 2026 www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email admin@writingclearscience.com.au 

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What citation style should you use?


What is citation?

When writing, if you refer to specific information from another source, you are often expected to identify that source. For example, if I wrote, “Francis Scott developed a new form of measuring temperature.”, I should acknowledge the source by making some type of notation directly after the statement. This is known as citation or in-text citation.

In-text citation is usually written immediately after the citable text, often by inserting the author(s) surname(s) and publication date in brackets. This type of citation is known as the Author-Date System. Another common form is the Number Citation System where a superscript number is written directly after the citable text. In both types, the full details of the source of the citation is compiled as a list of references at the end of the document. The number system is commonly used in all Wikipedia articles where hyperlinking is also commonly used to refer to sources.

Should everyone use citation?

No. Whether you cite the source of your information depends on whether your information is common knowledge, the type of document you are writing and what discipline you are writing for. In-text citations are expected in academic and peer-reviewed research publications and in many scientific reports and other technical publications. If you are writing an industry, client, government or commercially-sensitive report, first check whether you are expected to cite. For scientific blogposts and other online documents, hyperlinking your sources may be sufficient but be mindful that these links should be regularly checked to ensure they are still working.

What citation style should I use?

There are a wide variety of referencing styles stipulating how to record an in-text citation and how to compile a bibliography or list of references. The most common types for the sciences are either Harvard or APA (American Psychological Association) which are both an Author-Date system. What style you choose may depend upon your document type, publisher, discipline or organisation. If working within a research institution or university, check with your library, department or supervisor about what style you should use. However, depending upon the circumstances there is often individual choice.

Further reading:

Monash University: Citing and referencing

Australian National University: Referencing

The University of Sydney: Referencing  and Citation Styles 

© Dr Marina Hurley 2026 www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email admin@writingclearscience.com.au 

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What is science writing?


What is science writing?

Although this question appears straightforward, there are different definitions and common misconceptions about what constitutes science writing. Some students attending my writing workshops initially assume that science writing is restricted to academic writing to produce theses or research papers. Some assume science writing is communicating scientific concepts in plain English to a wide audience, while others assume that their consultancy report is not science writing. I teach that the term is not restrictive. At its simplest and broadest definition, science writing is writing about science.

There are different types of science writing

Science writing takes different forms, according to the topic, the purpose of the author and who the document is designed for. Science writing can create a thesis, a research paper, a report, an email, a conference talk, client criteria, project deliverables, a proposal, a funding application, a blogpost, a magazine or news article, a brochure, a fact sheet or a video script. A scientist publishing a research paper will write for their peers, a journalist writing for a popular science magazine will write for people who are fascinated by science and technology, while a technician writing a report may write for people who need to know about a new process, methodology or technique.

Science writing is writing about science

The key feature of all types of science writing is that the topic under discussion is a scientific topic:  that the information presented has been gathered, analysed and critiqued using accepted scientific methods. This is true whether you are presenting new science (e.g. research papers, theses), reviewing research by others (e.g. literature reviews, desktop reviews), reporting scientific approaches and methods to solve commercial or industry issues (e.g. reports, policy reviews) or writing about the astonishing world of science (e.g. news or magazine article).  

Who can write about science?
You don’t need to be a scientist to write about science. You don’t need a degree to do science writing. Anyone can write about science, irrespective of their background or qualifications. Occasionally some people assume they are not science writers if they are not publishing papers, but if the work they write about describes scientific processes, follows scientific procedure or refers to scientific research, then it is science writing.

Science writing includes technical and industry reports 
Not all science projects produce empirical data or are investigative. These projects might not be considered ‘research’ as such. Not all research projects are designed to be published by peer-review; some projects are written up and published in-house, online or via government publications, or remain unpublished for confidential reasons. Vast amounts of valid scientific documents are produced in this way.

Some projects are exploratory, information-sourcing or descriptive and do not produce empirical data or follow a classic approach of the scientific method. Therefore, these projects are not necessarily written following the traditional science report structure of AIMRD: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.

Science projects that investigate commercial issues are often structured according to topic, industry, client and legal requirements. Separate from the PhD and research paper, there are so many different types of scientific documents that it is not possible to summarise their structure here. However, key sections that are common to both science reports and peer-review papers are a summary (Executive Summary in reports and Abstract in paper), an Introduction and Discussion or Conclusion sections.

What is central to all types of science writing
The key requirement of all types of science writing is that it must be based upon evidence; the information presented and discussed needs to have been gathered, analysed and critiqued using accepted scientific methods. Any assumptions, ideas, predictions or suggestions must not be presented as though they are a scientific fact.

© Dr Marina Hurley 2026 www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email admin@writingclearscience.com.au 

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How to maintain high-quality images for publication


How to ensure your photos, graphs and illustrations are of suitable quality for publication

Digital images are stored in different formats, depending upon the software. Common examples include TIFF, JPEG and EPS. Before preparing figures for the web or for print, it is vital to ensure that the appropriate resolution is used.

Resolution describes the number of pixels within an image and image quality increases with resolution. A pixel is the smallest unit of digital information that forms an image. Resolution can be expressed as the number of pixels per dimension (e.g. 1200 pixels wide by 750 pixels high) or as the number of pixels within a specified area (pixels per inch or ppi). An image that has a resolution of 300ppi and is 4 x 2.5 inches in size, will be 1200 pixels wide (4 x 300) = and 750 pixels high (2.5 x 300). In general, the more pixels you have per unit area, the more detailed the image will be and the larger the file size. Some software (such as Photoshop) allows you to change the units to pixels per centimetre; however, the publishing standard is usually ppi.

The resolution of an image for viewing on a monitor is described in ppi, whereas the term dots per inch (dpi)describes the resolution of a printed image, as printers print dots and not pixels. The terms are used interchangeably but for most purposes, ppi and dpi are essentially the same thing to describe resolution. To view an image on the accepted resolution is 72ppi as most LCD monitors display 67-130ppi. When submitting figures for publication, 300 ppi is the generally accepted resolution for print images.

    High quality (300ppi)                                                                      Low quality (50ppi)

If your image needs to be 300ppi, then you need to consider the size of your image in the final printed form and the number of pixels in your total image. A photo that will be 4 x 2.5 inches when printed will need at least 1200 x 750 pixels to achieve the desired print-quality resolution of 300 ppi. If you have fewer pixels, then the quality of the image (i.e. the resolution) will be reduced. You can also quickly check whether the resolution is sufficient by zooming your image to 400% and if it is blurry (pixelated), then the image may not reproduce well when printed. For more information on image resolution, and another way to check if the resolution of your image is appropriate, see https://www.thecanvasprints.co.uk/image-resolution-for-printing.

When re-sizing an image, some software programmes automatically change the size of the image without changing the number of pixels. For example, if you re-size a 1200 x 750 pixel image from 4 x 2.5 inches to a 12 x 7.5 inches the number of pixels will remain the same but the resolution will drop from 300ppi to 100ppi . The larger image will look OK on the screen, but the image quality will be poor if it is printed. Whatever image size you require, ensure the final version is at the desired resolution.

Additional terminology

Colour space is the way colour information is stored in a file. Grayscale refers to black and white (and grey!) images which use a single colour channel. RGB is a commonly-used colour space that divides colours into 3 channels: Red, Green and Blue. RGB is used by computers and digital devices and is commonly used by publishers who want to make sure their documents are properly displayed on their reader’s devices. CMYK is a four channel colour space (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) commonly used during the printing process. An RGB image might need to be converted to CMYK if it will be printed. Some publishers will do the conversion themselves, so you need to be aware that the colour of RGB images may look different when converted to CMYK.

Re-sampling changes the number of pixels in an image. Re-sampling is different to re-sizing. Down-sampling removes pixels and creates a smaller image, whereas up-sampling adds pixels using algorithms. Because re-sampling adds or removes pixels, a loss of image quality could result. This could be particularly important if you are presenting images that are taken from a microscope; it is imperative that re-sampling does not change the specific features of the data within the micrograph. As a general rule, create your images at the highest resolution possible to avoid the need to re-sample. However, re-sampling may sometimes be necessary; for example, when converting a very high-resolution image to a small size (2 x 2 inches). Always keep original files and ensure that the re-sampling process only happens towards the end of the figure creation process, so that you can go back to the original image if needed.

Image compression: Some file types (e.g. JPG) compress the pixels in the image to reduce file size. Be aware that different compression methods can affect image quality. Pay attention to the publisher’s requirements for compression and whether your software compresses by default.

Raster vs vector images: Raster images use raster data that is stored as pixels, for example, digital photographs. Because raster images use pixels, the quality is highly dependent on resolution. Vector images use vector data comprised of lines and curves, for example, line graphs. Because vector images do not use pixels, they can be re-sized to a very large size without becoming pixelated and losing quality. If you are publishing images that are line graphs only, consider using vector format files such as EPS. However, if you are assembling a line graph into a larger figure that includes digital images, the entire figure will become rasterised at some point; meaning that your vector image will become a raster image and need high resolution.

Infographic Summary


Additional reading on this topic

* Introduction to Digital Resolution.
* Image resolution and print quality.
* How do I make high quality figures for my scientific publication?.
* The difference between image re-sizing and re-sampling.
* Science: preparing your figures.

© Dr Liza O’Donnell and Dr Marina Hurley  2019 www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email info@writingclearscience.com.au 

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