TAA Featured in Episode of The A&P Professor Podcast

TAA was featured in an episode of The A&P Professor podcast on April 12, “Pulse of Progress, Looking Back, Moving Forward,” with host Kevin Patton, an award-winning anatomy and physiology textbook author. Kevin’s comments about the benefits of TAA membership and invitation to attend TAA’s 2024 Conference on Textbook & Academic Authoring come in at 50:22.

In the episode, Kevin says: “With a strongly supportive network of colleagues, TAA provides many resources and active, engaging opportunities for growth and network-forming. TAA meets the needs of those interested in creating textbooks, lab manuals, workbooks, and other learning resources, as well as those who focus on academic writing, such as journal articles, dissertations/theses, monographs, and scholarly or other nonfiction works.”

Jean Murphy Receives $1,000 TAA Publication Grant

TAA member Jean Murphy has been awarded a $1,000 Publication Grant from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association to cover manuscript editing costs for her academic book, A View From The Balcony: Opera Through Womanist Eyes Praxis for Developing a Balcony Hermeneutic of Restorative Resistance, which will be published by Cascade in early 2024.

“Being a member of TAA gave me access to resources and authors who gave pointers, encouragement, and the incentive to bring this book to completion,” said Murphy. “This grant validates all the time and effort spent to bring it to fruition and certainly assists with the cost of being an author. Please extend my thanks to the selection committee.”

4 Secrets to a successful research grant application

If you are considering submitting a research grant application, there are some secrets to success that you should know. First, make sure that your proposal is well organized and that all the required information is included. Second, be sure to tailor your proposal to the specific funding opportunity that you are applying to. Third, be prepared to provide documentation of your research project and explain how it will benefit society. Fourth, be succinct in your writing and make sure that your proposal is easy to read.

Show me the money: How academics can secure research funding

As academics, we are rarely at a shortage of ideas for research topics within our disciplines, but having the money to execute the research of those ideas – that’s a different story.

Research funding generally comes from one of three sources: corporations, government, or charitable organizations. According to an article in Science, referencing data from the National Science Foundation (NSF), federal agencies provided for only 44% of research funding in 2015 representing a significant decline from over 70% less than half a century earlier.

7 Strategies for writing successful grants

Throughout my journey as a grant writer, reviewer, and mentor to aspiring grant writers, I have had multiple opportunities to read grant proposals that received funding—and many more that did not. One question I often get from novice grant writers is: “How do I get my proposal funded?” To address this question, it is helpful to examine strategies that successful grant writers have in common. Here, I highlight seven basic strategies that I consider “musts” when it comes to preparing grant proposals.