The benefits of learning to write a good specific aims page

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be talking with you today. I am excited to talk to you about why you should take time to learn to write the specific games page, the importance of the specific games page. I guess that's a little bit of a shorter title.

1:21 I'm talking about the specific games page. In case you didn't know, now you know. I will tell you that a couple of years ago, I took a course, and the course was not about writing the specific games page. It really was a research proposal development course, but we spent an awful lot of time writing the specific games page. I feel like in a course that maybe lasted about 10 weeks, we probably spent at least five weeks either talking about the specific games, sharing our specific games with each other, getting feedback on the specific games. We spent a lot of time writing the specific games page. By the end of the whole course, what I had was a template, and I went back to the template over and over again to use every time I was going to write a specific games page, I would just go through the formula every time to create my first draft.

2:12 When I started teaching others to write specific games pages, I would still go back to that template. So this is a good time for me to shout out D-Gun and David Allspaw, who are faculty members who taught that course at my institution. Thank you all. Your teaching was invaluable. I'm just saying thank you publicly. But yes, I spent time learning to write a specific games page, and I'm so grateful that I made that investment. I don't remember how much the course was, but it was an absolutely phenomenal investment. And now that having written maybe 100 specific games pages since that course, has it been 100?

2:54 Wow, it's been at least 70. I don't know. I've written a lot of specific games pages. Some have gone somewhere and some have not. I don't know. It's been a lot, so I shouldn't exaggerate, but I've written a lot. But one of the things since that time where I would look and write and then look at the template and write again, now I can create a specific games page without the template, which is awesome. But it really took time to get there. And I remember putting pulling together two specific games pages last week and realizing that, wow, I've come a long way. I can pull together two specific games pages in the course of less than a week. That's pretty awesome. Awesome for me. You may be able to do more, but awesome for me because I came from a place where I totally had no idea what to write.

3:39 And so I now recognize the value of writing a specific games page. And I want to talk to you about seven reasons why you should take time to learn to write a compelling and clear specific games page. OK. OK. I was talking about compelling and clear. You just need to be able to write it first. You know, before it becomes compelling and clear, it just needs a draft. So why should learn to write a great first draft over a specific games page? OK. So the first thing is that I think about the specific games pages that it helps you figure out what you want to do. It really does. You have the idea in your head and it sounds so beautiful or it doesn't sound so beautiful.

4:20 And the moment you commit it to paper into a one page specific games page, it becomes clear what you're saying you want to do. Now it may not be exactly what you set out to say you want to do, but the moment you put it on paper, then in a sense, it looks back at you and it says, well, is this what you want? And you have to look back at it and say, I'm not sure that's what I want. And then you can clarify and shape it to be what you want. Or you look at it and you're like, yes, this is exactly what I want. And then you have a specific games page that you can shop around. But the very first gift of knowing how to write a specific games page is that it allows you to just bring this great idea out of your head and put it on the paper or put it on the document on your computer and then look at it and say, is this what you want to do?

5:08 And that's so important because the first person that you need to convince about the work you're doing is you. And if you can't convince yourself that the work you're doing is important, then don't try to convince anybody else. And if you're like, well, it's my mentor's work. And if they're convinced it's okay for me, it's like, no. The only way you're going to be able to communicate enthusiasm or excitement about your project is if you care enough about it. And hoping that somebody else's enthusiasm is going to carry your work is wishful thinking. And so the very first person that you need to convince about the work that you're doing is you. And writing a specific games page allows you to be very clear about what you want to do.

5:51 And it's important that you're able to do that. Okay. So it helps you figure out what you want to do. And that is the very first step in moving forward a research project or at least a proposal for submission. The second thing it does for you is it allows you now to communicate your idea to others. Now, if you're like me, you love to be able to say what you're going to do, which is great. But it's never the same as when someone can actually read what you're going to do on paper or read what you're going to do on a screen. And so in a sense, what it allows you to do is not only communicate with yourself, it allows you to communicate with others.

6:34 It allows you to communicate your ideas in a way that's short, sweet and compelling. And it allows you to say, well, do you understand what I want to do without me explaining it? It's easy when you're in the room saying, well, this is what I want to do. And then I think I want to do this. And if it's missing from the page, then people just accept what you say. But if you're not there in the room, can people still clearly understand and articulate what you say you want to do? And the specific games page allows you to do that. You can see, can people tell what you're going to do by just reading it, or do you need to add commentary so that they can understand? And if you have to add commentary so that they can understand, then you know that you have opportunity to make your specific games page stronger and more compelling.

7:16 And so not only are you figuring out what to do by committing it to paper or to a document and writing the specific games page, but by committing it to paper, you're able to communicate it to others. And the specific games page is just a really easy way to do that. And until you put it on paper or until you put it in a document, then you're really kind of just, you haven't committed. You haven't committed, but it allows you to communicate your idea to others. The third thing it does is it gives you a chance to solicit feedback early on in the process before you've made too many commitments, before you've invested too much time and allows you to solicit feedback.

8:04 So you've decided this is what you want to do. You communicate, you've committed it to paper, and then you shared it with someone else. And now you have the opportunity to wait for their feedback. What do they think? And this is a great time at which they can look and say, oh, this sucks. This idea is awful. Great. And then you can just revise one page. What you don't want is that you've written six pages of your research strategy, or goodness, 12 pages of your research strategy. And then people are looking at it and saying, I'm not really clear what you're trying to do here. What you want is that feedback early on when you can reshape the specific aims page in a way that allows you not to take too much time investment undoing things that people didn't really care for.

8:51 Writing it in the specific aims page allows you to get feedback. And then you can make major revisions to the specific aims page and not make major revisions to like pages and pages of writing. So it is the earliest form of your idea that allows you to get feedback in a way where you've made the least investment. And when I say the least investment, I don't mean that there's not been an investment, because to be honest, it takes time to write a good specific aims page. And okay, so maybe I can do it now in the course of a day, or some people can do it within a matter of an hour or two. I'm not there yet. But it takes time to put together a compelling specific aims page.

9:31 And if somebody trashes your specific aims page and tells you this idea is horrible, yes, it is a significant amount of time that you've invested in it, but much, much, much less time than if you had written the whole 12 pages of the grant. And many times I didn't realize that I would just keep going with the grant thinking, okay, if I get it all out on paper, it'd be awesome. And in reality, you need the feedback as soon as possible. I would say if you're going to write any component of the grant before you go soliciting feedback, is really writing the background and significance, right? What we're calling significance and innovation most of the time, because you want to make sure that the direction you're going in is actually reflected in your specific aims page.

10:12 So you want a specific aims page that actually communicates what you're going to do so that when you get feedback, it's actually good and actionable feedback. What you don't want is a specific aims page that doesn't even, you know, clearly articulate your idea and you're getting feedback on something you're not going to do. So it is important to be very clear and write a good and compelling specific aims page, and hence the need to learn how to do it. And then the moment you're able to commit your ideas strongly to paper or to a document, then you can go get the feedback that helps you just really reshape the whole thing in a way where you know it's going to be most acceptable or most attractive to the reviewers.

10:53 Okay. So that's kind of like, you know, making sure that you can get feedback before you put too much investment into the whole proposal. The next thing, number four, is that once you've gotten the feedback, it's like the road map to writing the proposal. There's this great general sense of the idea and you're going to turn it into the proposal. Here's the significant section. Here's the innovation and here's the approach and this is aim one. The specific aims page really gives you the direction to go. It tells you, you know, where to take it, where to take your writing next.

11:34 So it's really nice to have that as a nice framework for putting together the whole proposal. And it kind of makes it a little bit easier than trying to like put the proposal together from scratch. And the specific aims page at least gives you kind of like, you know, it gets you over the blank page syndrome where you actually have already something you've written that you can build into the proposal. So maybe, you know, the first line of your specific aims page is this disease kills people. Great. You now have the first sentence of your first paragraph. And so it is a nice road map to be able to build the rest of the proposal.

12:14 The number five is you will likely need to rewrite it a few times. Yes, you need to learn because you're going to have to do it over and over again. So take the time to really learn how to do it so that when you need to do it as many times as you need to do it, as often as you need to do it, you can do it. And it's helpful. And I don't know your process for writing, but when I write my specific aims page, I can't spend too, too, too much time on it because as I start to write the actual body of the proposal, what I can do becomes really clear. You know, the moment you have to go into excruciating detail, or at least relatively excruciating detail about what you're going to do, what your actual plan is, what your approach is, then you see that some parts of the specific aims page need to change.

13:03 And then you can take the proposal that you've written and go back and rework the specific aims page. So, you know, there's a back and forth talk between the specific aims page and your whole grant proposal that goes back and forth. And so you'll need to revise your specific aims page at least once, probably several times along the way. And so it's helpful to know how to write it because you're going to need to rewrite it. And so your first specific aims page is not going to be your final specific aims page. And it's helpful to know how to do it so you're not stuck every time. So learning how to write the specific aims page is an important investment so that you can do it again and then do it again and then do it again.

13:44 Okay. Another reason to write the specific aims page, I think this is number six, is that it is the one page some reviewers will read. So when I first started to write grants and I had not yet served on any study sections, I remember thinking, that's ridiculous. Someone's going to read only one page of my grant and you think this will be the one page they read? And now I realize why. Some people don't even read anything in your grant and they still get to vote. Oh my goodness. It's kind of a crazy process, but it is what it is. And until the process is revamped, this is what we have. And so you literally have one or two, maybe three people review your grant in detail so that the people who've actually read your grant.

14:27 And to be honest, it's probably one person who's really read your grant, one and a half people, because maybe a secondary reviewer has not read your grant to that excruciating level of detail as the first reviewer. Because the first reviewer is going to need to present your work. And because they're presenting your work, oh, they read it so that they know what to say. The second reviewer who kind of has to support the first reviewer, it's like, well, I'm not the primary, they're primary on other grant proposals. So they can read your grant and they probably will read it well, but they may not read it with the same level of detail as reviewer number one, your primary reviewer. The tertiary reviewer is just giving you a score. They don't even have to read things and they're excruciating amounts of detail.

15:08 And so they may not read things very well. So anyway, these three people are probably the three people who will have definitely read through your specific aims page. Everybody else, they have other grants to review, but they're still going to vote on your project. And so the only time that they're really looking at your application in detail is right when your application goes up for discussion. So as the primary reviewer is talking about your project, then they're like, oh, let me look through and see, oh yeah, okay, I see this. Or if there's a point of contention and they're weighing in, then they go start reading parts of your proposal to say, oh yeah, I agree. I think this will be problematic. But in general, they're not reading your grant. And so if they're going to read one page, they're going to read the page that summarizes everything.

15:51 Okay, so now I have that kind of background, or at least I have that experience now as a reviewer, you realize that, wow, it's an important page because some people are not going to read any other part of your grant where you go and explain everything in beautiful and excruciating and painful detail. They may just read that one page. And it helps you be very clear about how to communicate your information, the information that's most critical in that one page. And so it may be the only page a reviewer might read. So you really want to write it in a way that's compelling so that for the person who only reads this one page, they can get a good read out of it and really get a good sense of your project from it.

16:35 So that's reason number six why you should take time to learn to write a specific games page well. And then number seven is that you get better and faster at creating them. And you're going to need to because if you're someone who leads a research program, then to some extent, you're always looking for funding for your research program. You're always looking for funding opportunities. And for that reason, you're probably going to write a lot of specific games pages. Now, if you play your cards right, you are doing kind of research in the same general sphere and so you're not necessarily creating something brand new every time. But it is helpful because if you're not submitting overlapping projects, you're going to want to really have a different specific games page for each project.

17:20 And so they may overlap in some ways in terms of the significance doesn't really change, but your approach is going to change because your aims are going to be different as well. And so you want to learn to write one well because you're always going to be creating them. And the better you understand how to write them, the faster and the better you get at creating them each time. And so those are seven reasons why you should take time to write to learn to write a specific games page. Number one is that it allows you to figure out what you want to do. The accountability of committing your thoughts to the page are it really is helpful to to help you clarify for yourself what you want to do.

18:01 Number two, it allows you to communicate your idea to others. It's not just floating around in your head a beautiful idea. It actually is committed to paper and independent of you. It's going to speak when you're not there. So you can be you can be more clear on how you're communicating. Number three, it gives you a chance to solicit feedback before you've made all these investments. And you are now kind of wedded to the words that you've written on the page. And so it's the least amount of writing you will do to solicit feedback that allows you to actually respond to the feedback in a way that's really responsive. Number four, it is your roadmap to writing the proposal because you have this blueprint and now you can just go through the blueprint and write the proposal.

18:48 And number five, you're going to likely need to rewrite it a few times that you want to know how to do it. And then it may be the only page a reviewer might read. That's number six. And number seven, the more you do it, the better and faster you get at creating them. And it's going to be helpful for you to know how to do that critically. All right, those are seven reasons why you should take time to learn to write a specific games page. Now if you have learned something from this episode and you feel like it would be helpful to someone else, say a mentee of yours or a peer mentor or anybody at all in your sphere who might benefit, I invite you to share this podcast episode with them.

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20:10 All right, I look forward to talking with you again the next time. Thank you for listening. Take care. Take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.