Hayato M. Yamanouchi

Tag: PD

  • Improving Your JSPS Research Fellowship (DC1, DC2) Application [Advice from a Successful FY2024 DC Applicant]

    The results for the JSPS Research Fellowships (DC1 and DC2) were announced at 14:00 on Wednesday, September 27, 2023.

    I was one of the students who applied, and I am happy to report that I was selected.
    Word going around on X (formerly Twitter) was that this year’s acceptance rate was lower than usual.

    Apparently the initial acceptance rate was around 14%, or about 17% including the second round of selections.

    I had heard that the rate is usually close to 20%, so when I saw the numbers my first thought was, “Seriously?”

    Through this application cycle I read a number of other people’s JSPS applications and wrote my own, so here I’d like to summarize the things worth keeping in mind to improve your chances even a little.

    I think this applies not only to JSPS applications but to grant proposals, job application essays, and any writing meant to be read by others, so I hope you’ll read on.

    What matters is what lies beyond the application

    First, the key to writing an application is conveying what you want to say within a limited amount of space.

    An application explains your research and argues for its importance: this is who I am, these are the things I can do, and therefore I can achieve this goal. So please fund me.

    In other words, you need to keep sight of what your writing is ultimately for.

    While writing, it’s easy to get caught up in immediate concerns—producing elegant prose, writing something your advisor won’t complain about—and lose sight of what an application fundamentally is.

    It isn’t self-satisfaction: there are people who read and evaluate it, and score it accordingly.
    That is what clearly distinguishes it from an exam, and it’s precisely why there is no single correct answer.

    My impression is that many people who have spent their lives taking tests with right answers suddenly hit a wall when faced with an application, unsure what to write or what counts as correct.

    Even while writing, you need to keep in mind who the application is written for.
    For that reason, writing a few applications to other funding bodies before the JSPS one and having people read them makes a striking difference in how readable your writing becomes.

    The keywords are “logic” and “specificity”

    Logic

    The two things I paid the most attention to when writing my JSPS application were logic and specificity.

    Logic means that your argument is consistent and that each topic connects to the next.
    You need to think about these connections at multiple scales: between sentences, between paragraphs, and across the application as a whole.

    To put it in more practical terms,
    logical writing is writing in which the reader finds what they want to know, in the order they want to know it.
    When this is done well, the content flows effortlessly into the reader’s mind.

    The point is to think from the reader’s perspective.
    No matter how logical you think your argument is, that logic may not land with your reader.

    Guides to writing JSPS applications often recommend inserting phrases like “in other words” or “the details are described below,” but the essential purpose of these is to give the reader signposts that make the connections in your text easy to follow.

    Opinions differ widely on whether such phrases are necessary, but one thing I can say is this: if leaving them out makes your structure unclear, put them in, even at the cost of precious character count.

    Specificity

    Specificity means, quite literally, providing exactly as much information as the reader needs.

    You’ve probably heard people say, about applications or research talks,
    “My research requires so much background that I just can’t keep it short.”

    I’ve thought the same thing myself many times before a ten-minute conference talk—there’s no way this fits in ten minutes.

    But even in a talk you’ve confidently packed with content, it often turns out that there was a lot of information the audience didn’t need and almost none of what they actually wanted to know.

    In other words, you haven’t decided what to keep and what to cut.

    To make those decisions, first determine the single thing you most want to convey.
    Then keep whatever is needed to explain that core point and discard whatever isn’t. That is how you achieve specificity.

    Applications like the JSPS one require you to describe your research and yourself in a genuinely tiny amount of text.
    People often say you should divide the JSPS funding amount by the character count of the application to calculate the value of a single sentence.

    I think the point of that exercise is to get you asking: is this sentence really worth that much money? If not, rewrite it.

    Background explanation is a third-person account, and while it’s necessary to make your own work stand out, the text itself describes other people’s research and is therefore low in value.
    Whether you keep it to a minimum or find some other value in it is up to you.

    Through this kind of revision, the content becomes refined.

    So far I’ve talked about specificity while only discussing cutting material, but the real point is to condense the content and raise the specificity of each sentence to just the right level—no more, no less.

    Throughout the process I kept logic and specificity constantly in mind, periodically stopping to reread and rewrite.

    Show it to others early

    One of the most important points is to have other people read your application early.

    Some people wait until it’s finished and they’re satisfied with it, then show it to someone a week before the deadline—but honestly, that’s a waste.

    Showing your draft to others is about confirming that you’re heading in the right direction and getting feedback, not just getting corrections.

    As people often say, the quality of a JSPS application depends on how many people have read it: you gain new insights, and sometimes your fundamental way of thinking changes.

    Ideally, aim to have someone other than your supervisor read it at least three weeks before the deadline.

    Don’t stare at your application nonstop

    When application season comes around, I often saw people put their experiments on hold to focus entirely on their proposals.
    It’s true that you need to invest a fair amount of time, and since you revise it over and over, it ends up eating up an enormous number of hours.

    That said, once you’ve written a decent draft, there’s no point in endlessly rereading it and burning time for nothing.
    In fact, you should leave the draft alone for a while before you go back and revise it.

    An application is an important document with your career riding on it.
    But it doesn’t get better in proportion to the time you pour into it. The real challenge is producing the best possible document as efficiently as you can.

    Rather than being glued to your computer, keep your experiments moving along, or even take a break to clear your head. You’ll write with a much cooler eye.

    I didn’t just write at the university; I would take my laptop to cafes and other places, changing the setting often as I wrote.

    Closing thoughts

    This year’s provisional acceptance rate is said to be around 14% at the first round of screening.
    Put another way, 86% of applicants were not selected for a JSPS fellowship.

    Since the vast majority of applicants aren’t selected, there’s no need to be more discouraged than necessary about not making the cut.

    At the same time, those who were selected got their place at the expense of many other people’s dreams and livelihoods.
    Of course, the selection reflects a real evaluation of your research as it stands, but beyond that, it carries the responsibility to work twice as hard from here on.

    I want to keep this in mind myself and keep pushing forward with my research.

  • How to Write a JST Application [Internal University Application Form]: A Memorandum

    How to Write a JST Application [Internal University Application Form]: A Memorandum

    Introduction

    One task that follows researchers everywhere is the grant application. For anyone aiming at a research career, applications are unavoidable—and yet they are often overlooked.

    I suspect many people struggle with them. I certainly do. I went into the School of Science precisely because I was bad at Japanese language arts, and now, of all things, the very career I am pursuing confronts me with a language problem….

    In recent years, support for doctoral students has become substantial. Beyond the JSPS Research Fellowship (DC), there are university-internal grants funded by JST programs, WISE Programs (Doctoral Program for World-leading Innovative & Smart Education), JASSO, and others—existing schemes have been strengthened and new ones keep appearing. If you can secure this kind of support, you can cover nearly all of your living expenses during the doctoral program and receive tuition assistance as well.

    I myself have faced and submitted several university-internal applications.

    How they differ from the JSPS application

    Basically, university-internal applications tend to closely resemble the JSPS one. The reason is simple: passing the JSPS review is the ultimate goal. Also, writing in a different format would only add to the students’ burden, so most programs match the JSPS format and build in a process that lets you refine the same document.

    Selection is based mainly on the research content and on the applicant’s ability and future promise. What matters is presenting these clearly so that they get through to the reader. There is absolutely no need to write elegant, literary prose.

    Although the JSPS and university-internal applications have much in common, there are differences. The kind of person each is looking for is somewhat different.

    The application materials state what kind of candidate the program is seeking, so you need to write in a way that matches that.

    The biggest difference from the JSPS application, though, is who reads it. The JSPS application is assigned to a field, and reviewers with some degree of relevant expertise read it. With university-internal applications, however, the readers are basically people from within the university, so even within the life sciences, someone working on plants may end up reading your animal research proposal. On top of that, each reviewer often has to handle more applications than in the JSPS review.

    In other words, keep the content more general so that its appeal comes across even to someone in a different field—and make sure the content and its appeal register at a glance.

    As a rule, assume the reviewers have no desire to read your application, and write something that catches their interest and makes them read it. Use figures and highlighting appropriately so that the important points are obvious at a glance.

    Tips for writing

    The keys to a good application are logical flow and specificity.

    Logical flow means giving readers the information they want, at the moment they want it, in the order they want it. In other words, you create logical flow by connecting each sentence to the next and writing what the reader has vaguely started to anticipate.

    For example:
    “During my undergraduate years I belonged to several student organizations and took part in running each of them. Through this, I developed leadership and the ability to work smoothly with others.”

    Running an organization → leadership and the ability to work smoothly with others

    When sentences connect like this, with no jarring gaps between them, we can say the writing has logical flow.

    Next, specificity. Adding specificity to the example above:
    “During my undergraduate years I belonged to several student organizations that planned events and social gatherings for students, and in each one I took the lead in running those events. Through this, I developed leadership and the ability to work smoothly with others.”

    Adding specifics strengthens the logic of how you were involved in the organization and what exactly you did, and therefore what abilities you gained from it.

    The catch, however, is the character limit. Limits are set quite tightly, and the moment you try to describe something concretely you run out of room.

    That is exactly why, in the rush to cram in content, these two elements tend to get neglected.

    Summarize the content concisely and clearly—yet also be logical and specific. This tension is a central problem when writing an application.

    The key to striking this balance is asking what kind of person the program wants to select. Most applications specify which items they want you to address and what sort of content they expect.

    The reviewer must be able to see clearly where in your text each of those items is addressed. Don’t leave it to be inferred or read between the lines—make it unmistakable.

    If you keep this front and center, it becomes clear which sentences you need and which you can cut.

    A writing strategy

    When writing an application, start by listing the points you want to make as bullet points, then write out the text without worrying about length. Then fill in the content with logical flow and specificity in mind.

    At this stage you will usually be well over the limit, so the next job is trimming. Rephrase and reword until you are only slightly over the character count.

    At that point, have someone else look at your application. This step is extremely important. Getting feedback early and often keeps you from drifting far off course and helps you learn your own way of writing applications.

    Showing your work to others is daunting, and pride often gets in the way, but take the plunge, set your pride aside, and show it. In my experience, the more academically accomplished someone is, the more they tend to keep working alone and delay showing it to anyone.

    Once you get feedback, reread your own draft with it in mind, identify what needed improvement, and rewrite.

    Having others read your draft is the single most important step. Nobody writes a perfect application on the first try, and criticism is not a rejection of you—take it as advice that you are capable of more.

    Summary

    An application exists to be read by someone else. Never fall into the complacency of assuming the reviewers will read it, or of thinking it outrageous that they might not.

    If people won’t read it, then write something that makes them want to read.
    No matter how good the content is, it means nothing unless people actually read it and the message gets across.

    A common piece of advice is to take the total amount of funding a grant application could bring in, divide it by the number of lines in the proposal, and work out how much each single line is worth.

    This gives you a clear yardstick for judging whether what you have written is worth that much to the reader.
    If you don’t think a sentence carries that much value, it may need to be rewritten.

    Further reading

Hayato M. Yamanouchi

PhD student, Kamikouchi Laboratory, Nagoya University / JSPS Research Fellow (DC1)
Systems Ethology (Neuroethology × Informatics)

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