Cultivating Advanced Technical Writing Skills through a Graduate Level Course on Writing Research Proposals

A graduate-level course focused on original research proposals is introduced to address the uneven preparation in technical writing of new chemistry graduate students. This course focuses on writing original research proposals. The general course structure features extensive group discussions, small-group activities, and regular in-class small-group peer review. Since the introduction of this course, it has been found by student surveys, faculty feedback, and student success in winning graduate fellowships that the course is a valuable graduate education component. Detailed here are the course structure, pedagogical approach, and course evaluation.