Syllabus - History of Science since Newton (Undergrad)

I recently got some bad news that I won't be able to teach a course I've been preparing, History of Science since Newton, in Spring 2016. Instead, I will be taking over a course on "Peoples of the United States," exploring the different ethnic/social/identity groups in American history, and the tension between multi-cultural and "melting pot" ideals. It will be an exciting opportunity to expand my expertise into an area adjacent to my normal work.

I expect I'll use the history of science syllabus eventually, but in case it can be helpful to anyone else planning a similar course (or anyone in the public interested in good reading on these topics), I thought I would post the syllabus here.

Since this was to be the first time I've taught this particular course, it's a very straight-forward and standard structure: a midterm, paper, and final exam. In a future where I have someone to help with grading, I would love to add another paper (or two) early in the semester, to give students early and frequent feedback, and possibly smaller research-skill-building extra credit assignments as well. An example might be a 'scavenger hunt' for a small list of books and articles that aren't all immediately available in the library, and coordinate with a librarian to ensure the students have guidance on how to acquire them.

I'm especially interested in getting students engaged with a few themes and questions, including:

• What is science?: Seeing the many different things that have been called 'science,' how the 'scientific method' described a huge array of techniques, and through this, seeing that we really can (and should) see this big cultural thing called science as something we can't explain away as natural or obvious
• What are the ties between science and technology?
• What does it mean to say that science is social, human institution? I'm not interested in 'debunking' or putting down science, though sometimes I get students who are very enthusiastic about science and get anxious when we suggest its values aren't often its realities. I am interested in making it clear that the social dimension is fundamental and not something to regret or be overcome. Science is what scientists do.
• More concretely, the role of war and national security in shaping science is a recurring theme.

This syllabus emphasizes the 20th century, partly because it's my area of greatest expertise, partly because students often see the connections to the present more readily for the more recent past. In some ways it's better to cover more ground, in others it's better to give more detail about a few topics. I've seen courses like this that went to an extreme of just covering a few episodes in close details (Newton, Darwin, and the Manhattan Project, in that case). I've seen others that try for broader coverage. I think this is a reasonable balance.

Finally, I'm interested in keeping the course as cheap as possible for students. The book I've assigned are available for a total of $57 used from Amazon as of this writing, and possible cheaper with a more thorough search using bookfinder.com and other sources. I think that's reasonable, but it's something to consider. You might be able to get away with something a little cheaper.

Anyway, here's the syllabus:

PDF file

_______________________________________________________________

History 382 – History of Science/Technology since Newton

 Spring 2016 | 3 credits

Instructor:

            Douglas Michael O'Reagan

            douglas.oreagan@wsu.edu

            Office hours: Mondays 12-1pm, CIC 125K; or

                                   by appointment, including via Skype/Google Hangouts/email

This course addresses how science, technology, and society have mutually influenced one another from the time of Isaac Newton (the 17^th century) through the present. Beginning with the natural philosophy of the Early Modern era, which was the pursuit of a small number of elite Europeans, we will move through science's expansion into a global enterprise under American leadership. Major themes of the course will include the relationship between religion and science; the changing nature of the 'scientist,' as that title came into existence and then came to mean different things; the inherent politics of new technologies; and how national security and state spending have been fundamental in making science what it is today, in terms of both organization and content.

Course Goals:

This course is designed around WSU's Seven Learning Goals, especially:

Critical and creative thinking

·        Integrate and synthesize knowledge from multiple sources.

·        Assess the accuracy and validity of findings and conclusions.

·        Understand how one thinks, reasons, and makes value judgments, including ethical and aesthetical judgments.

·        Understand diverse viewpoints, including different philosophical and cultural perspectives.

·        Combine and synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways.

Scientific Literacy

• Identify scientific issues underlying global, national, local and personal decisions and communicate positions that are scientifically and technologically informed.
• Recognize the societal benefits and risks associated with scientific and technological advances.

Information Literacy

• Determine the extent and type of information needed. 
• Implement well-designed search strategies.
• Access information effectively and efficiently from multiple sources. 
• Assess credibility and applicability of information sources.
• Use information to accomplish a specific purpose.
• Access and use information ethically and legally. 

Course Requirements:

Weekly reading: Each week, you will be expected to read about 80-100 pages of material. It is crucial that you finish these readings by Friday of each week. Most Fridays will consists of in-class discussion of the readings, and these discussions will weigh heavily in your class participation grade.

Weekly Discussion Questions: Based off of the readings, you will have to submit three discussion questions to Blackboard by Thursday night at 11:59pm. We will discuss what kinds of questions are most effective. Questions with factual answers (e.g. "What element did Lavoisier discover?") are NOT good questions. Questions that inspire debate and discussion (e.g. "Should we consider Lavoisier or Priestley the discoverer of Oxygen?") are much better.

Midterm/final exams: Exams will consist of two sections. In the first section, you will be given a number of key terms or names, and your job will be to define and explain the significance of several of the options, within about 3-5 sentences each. The second section will be a longer essay, drawing on lectures, readings, and discussions.

Research paper: Students will write a 6-8 page paper (double-spaced, 1" margins, 12-point font) on a topic of their choosing, selected in consultation with the instructor.

            Due dates:     Topic and suggested sources: March 28

                                    Final paper:                            April 29

Lateness policy: All assignments must be turned in by 12pm on their due-date. Any assignments submitted late will lose 2/3 of a grade per day (for example, a B+ becomes a B-, or a B becomes a C+). In exceptional, rare circumstances, you can pre-arrange an extension with me.

Grading:

            Class Participation (40%) – Includes doing readings before class

Midterm exam (15%)

Research paper (20%)

            Final exam (25%)

Required Texts:

We will be using the following books in this class. I include the specific pages for you to judge whether it is best to buy a copy or attempt to check a copy out of the library.

·        Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, revised (or 25^th anniv.) edition. (p. 1-26, 96-223, 274-324)

·        Kate Brown, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (p.1-74, 165-188, 271-281, 287-296, 313-318, 331-338)

·        Thomas Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970. (p. 1-137, 184-248, 353-443)

·        Jeffrey P. Moran, The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents. (p. 1-72)

·        Audra Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America. (entire book)

Course Readings:

All course readings should be available to you via the library, and for convenience I will copy many of them to Blackboard for the semester.

Week	Date	Topic
1	11-Jan	Intro: What is science?
	13-Jan	Scientific Revolution? Newton, Leibniz, and national science
	15-Jan	Reading: ·        Kuhn – The Essential Tension excerpt, p. x-xiii. (on Blackboard) ·        Andrew Cunningham, "Getting the Game Right: Some Plain Words on the Identity and Invention of Science," Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science Vol. 19, No. 3 (1988), p.365-389. (on Blackboard) ·        Shapin, "The Man of Science," ch. 6 of the Cambridge History of Science, vol. 3, p.179-191 (on Blackboard) ·        Schiebinger, "Women of Natural Knowledge," ch. 7 of the Cambridge History of Science Vol. 3, p.192-205 (on Blackboard) ·        http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/NATP00006 o   You don't need to read every word of this one, or to understand everything he's writing about. Just skim through it, looking at what kinds of things he's discussing, his writing style, and how he argues his case. Question to focus on: In what ways does this seem like what we might expect from a scientific article today?
2	18-Jan	No Class (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)
	20-Jan	Enlightenment, the Church, and Science
	22-Jan	Reading ·        Reill, "The Legacy of the 'Scientific Revolution': Science and the Enlightenment," ch. 2 of the Cambridge History of Science Vol. 4, p.23-43. (on Blackboard) ·        Brooke, "Science and Religion," ch. 4 of the Cambridge History of Science Vol. 4, p.741-761 (on Blackboard) ·        Read the Wikipedia entry on the Encyclopédie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die), then browse through at least 5-6 articles from it (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/).
3	25-Jan	Chemical Revolution
	27-Jan	Empire and science; a growing world
	29-Jan	Reading  ·        John G. McEvoy, “Continuity and Discontinuity in the Chemical Revolution,” Osiris 4 (1988), 195-213. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/301749) ·        McClellan, "Scientific Institutions and the Organization of Science," ch. 4 of the Cambridge History of Science Vol. 4, p.87-106 (on Blackboard) ·        "Astronomy and Empire," BBC's In Our Time podcast (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c1cd) ·        Hughes, American Genesis p.1-52 o   This reading is a little out of place, so don't get too confused as to why it's assigned here. We need to read it so we can read more of Hughes later and have a sense of what he's discussing.
4	1-Feb	Models of Education: Universities in America and Germany
	3-Feb	Age of the Earth; 19th century science
	5-Feb	Reading Bowler, Evolution p.1-26, 96-176 Nicoladis and Chatzis, "Technological Traditions and National Identities: A Comparison between France and Great Britain during the XIXth Century," from Science, Technology and the 19th Century State, p.13-21 (on Blackboard) ·        "Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle," BBC's In Our Time podcast (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gbf2g)
5	8-Feb	Darwin
	10-Feb	Social Darwinism
	12-Feb	Reading ·        Bowler, Evolution 177-223, 274-324
6	15-Feb	No Class (Presidents' Day)
	17-Feb	Industry and Inventors
	19-Feb	Reading ·        Hughes, American Genesis p. 53-95, 184-248
7	22-Feb	Review
	24-Feb	MIDTERM
	26-Feb	Interlude: Philosophy of Science Recommended Reading: ·        Frank Pajares, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: A Synopsis from the original" (http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/kuhnsyn.html) ·        "Karl Popper," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sections 2 (Backdrop), 3 (Demarcation), 4 (Human Knowledge), 9 (Critical Evaluation) ·        "Lorraine Daston," Episode 2 of How to Think About Science podcast (http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2009/01/02/how-to-think-about-science-part-1---24-listen/#episode2)
8	Feb-29	Eugenics, New Biology, Germ Theory
	2-Mar	Scopes Trial, Religion and Science redux
	4-Mar	Reading Moran, The Scopes Trial p. 1-72 Lynne Osman Elkin, “Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix,” Physics Today 56:3 (2003), 42-49. (http://www.aas.org/cswa/status/2002/JANUARY2002/Franklin.html)
9	7-Mar	Modern Physics and Einstein
	9-Mar	Social Science, Public Health, Vaccines/flu
	11-Mar	Reading: Einstein, Albert. "What is the Theory of Relativity?" [Written at the request of The London Times, published November 28, 1919]. (on Blackboard) Primary source documents (on Blackboard) "Contagion: Responding to Infectious Disease," BackStory podcast (http://backstoryradio.org/shows/contagion-responding-to-infectious-disease/) Recommended: ·        Cathryn Carson, History of Modern Physics (HIST 181B) lectures https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/history-181b-spring-2008-modern/id461116019?mt=10
10	14-Mar	SPRING BREAK Get started on next week's reading! It's a little longer than usual
	16-Mar
	18-Mar
11	21-Mar	Chemists' War (WWI)
	23-Mar	Physicists' War (WWII)
	25-Mar	Reading: ·        Hughes, American Genesis p. 96-137, 353-443 ·        Crawford, Sime, and Walker, "A Nobel Tale of Postwar Injustice," Physics Today (on Blackboard)
12	28-Mar	Science and Diplomacy PAPER TOPICS DUE
	30-Mar	Big Science and the Postwar State
	1-Apr	Reading: ·        Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets p.1-88
13	4-Apr	Soviet Science; Science in the 'Third World'
	6-Apr	Space Race
	8-Apr	Reading: ·        Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets p.89-140 ·        Doel, "Evaluating Soviet Lunar Science in Cold War America," Osiris Vol. 7, (1992), p.238-264 (on Blackboard) ·        "Lysenkoism," BBC's In Our Time podcast (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bw51j).
14	11-Apr	Nuclear Fear / Plutopia
	13-Apr	Resistance: Environmentalism and Beyond
	15-Apr	Reading: ·        Brown, Plutopia p.1-74 (origins of Hanford), 165-188 (disasters)
15	18-Apr	Global Warming, Anti-nuclear movements, and Expertise
	20-Apr	History of Computing, History of Information
	22-Apr	Reading Brown, Plutopia 271-281 (memory), 287-296 (1984), 313-318 (Cassandra), 331-338 (Futures) Spencer Weart, "Global Warming, Cold War, and the Evolution of Research Plans,"  Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences. Vol. 27 (2) 1997, p.319-356 ·        Matthew Wisnioski, "Inside 'The System': Engineers, scientists, and the boundaries of social protest in the long 1960s." History and Technology 19 (2003):  313-333.  (on Blackboard)
16	25-Apr	Current Issues: Intellectual Property Law/Policy
	27-Apr	Current Issues: [To Be Determined by Class]
	29-Apr	Wrap-up and Review PAPERS DUE

General WSU Policies:

Academic Honesty:

Academic dishonesty, including all forms of cheating, plagiarism, and fabrication, is prohibited, as is knowingly facilitating academic dishonesty. The expectation of the university is that all students will accept these standards and conduct themselves as responsible members of the academic community.

These standards should be interpreted by students as general notice of prohibited conduct. They should be read broadly, and are not designed to define misconduct in exhaustive forms. Faculty and their departments have jurisdiction over academic dishonesty discovered in their courses.

For this course, and all courses at WSUTC, you are responsible to understand and adhere to the

Student Standards and Accountability.

Plagiarism is "knowingly representing the work of another as one's own, without proper acknowledgment of the source .... Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, submitting as one's own work the work of a 'ghost writer' or work obtained from a commercial writing service; quoting directly or paraphrasing closely from a source without giving proper credit; using figures, graphs, charts, or other such material without identifying the sources." Each student is responsible for knowing and adhering to the university's standards for honesty in his/her academic work.

For a first violation of the academic honesty policy, students will fail the assignment, the office in charge of student conduct will be notified of the violation, and the student may be required to attend a workshop. For a second offense, the student may appear before the university conduct board and may be dismissed from the university. Exception: if the instructor or board determines that the academic dishonesty is particularly egregious or blatant the student may be dismissed from the university, even if it is the first offense.

Copyright:

Students can find the WSU copyright policy at http://www.wsu.edu/Copyright.html. Students are expected to read and adhere to this policy and copyright laws.

Severe weather:

The university does not close except under the most adverse conditions. If the decision is made to close the campus or delay the instructional day, key staff members and the news media will be notified. The closure status will also be posted on www.tricity.wsu.edu. If no notification is given, then students may assume that classes will proceed as usual.

Cases of severe weather should not affect our online course.

Emergencies:

In the event of any emergency, call 911. If you hear a fire alarm sound, leave the class and take your belongings (car keys, coats, backpacks, etc) with you. Exit the building immediately to your staging area, which is the Cougar Garden for East and West Buildings or the West Parking Lot for CIC

Building. Stay in these areas during an evacuation until released. Evacuation routes are posted inside the door of each classroom. Remember that elevators do not work and fire doors swing closed during a fire alarm.

Review the Campus Safety Plan (http://safetyplan.wsu.edu/) and visit the Office of Emergency

Management web site (http://oem.wsu.edu/) for a comprehensive listing of university policies, procedures, statistics, and information related to campus safety, emergency management, and the health and welfare of the campus community.

Everyone should become familiar with the WSU ALERT site (http://alert.wsu.edu/) where information about emergencies and other issues affecting WSU will be found. This site also provides information on the communication resources WSU will use to provide warning and notification during emergencies. It should be bookmarked on your computers.

Americans with disability act (ADA)

Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have a documented disability. Classroom accommodation forms are available through the Disability Services Office. If you have a documented disability (even temporary) make an appointment as soon as possible with Disability Services. More information is available at: http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/disability/

You will need to provide your instructor with the appropriate classroom accommodation form from

Disability Services during the first week of class. Late notification may mean that requested accommodations might not be available. All accommodations for disabilities must be approved through the Disability Services Coordinator.

Guest post at Berkeley Digital Humanities - "Learning to Code, Learning to Collaborate"

A while back, I had the privilege of working with UC Berkeley's Digital Humanities Working Group. While I wasn't able to make a particularly large number of meetings, I did get some valuable feedback on a DH syllabus I was drafting and thoughts on how my projects were developing.

As my postdoc came to an end, they asked me to write a piece on collaborating with more technically-inclined scholars on cross-disciplinary projects. That post is now online here:

 http://digitalhumanities.berkeley.edu/blog/15/07/08/learning-code-learning-collaborate

Thanks especially to Camille Villa for reaching out!

Appendix to a Lecture on Science in the Cold War

I've been asked to give a guest lecture on US Science in the Cold War at Washington State University - Tri Cities, and there are a number of links I would like to recommend to those students if they want to follow up on particular topics. So, I'm making this post, and will link to it from lecture.

I'm aiming for general interest and supplementing examples I'm using in the lecture, rather than being thorough or academically rigorous. I'd be happy to provide specific suggested readings on other topics.

First of all, an outline and terms for the lecture:

http://www.douglasoreagan.com/storage/Outline.pdf

Suggested Readings

Audra Wolfe - Competing with the Soviets - good overall survey of this material (http://www.amazon.com/Competing-Soviets-Hopkins-Introductory-Studies-ebook/dp/B00AWA1L3S/)

Daniel Kevles - The Physicists - especially the second edition's preface on the history of the cancellation of the planned Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) project in the 1990s (http://www.amazon.com/The-Physicists-History-Scientific-Community/dp/0674666569)

Loren Graham - Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (http://www.amazon.com/Science-Russia-Soviet-Union-Cambridge/dp/0521287898/)

Richard Rhodes - Making of the Atomic Bomb (http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes-ebook/dp/B008TRU7SQ/)

Hevly and Findlay (eds) - The Atomic West (http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Kathleen-Western-History-Biography/dp/0295977167/)

On anti-nuclear history, using pun-based titles:
Thomas Wellock - Critical Masses (http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Masses-Opposition-California-1958-1978/dp/0299158543/)
Brian Balogh - Chain Reaction (http://www.amazon.com/Chain-Reaction-Participation-Commercial-1945-1975/dp/052145736X/)
Hugh Gusterson - Nuclear Rites (http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Rites-Weapons-Laboratory-Cold/dp/0520213734/)

Suggested Films

The Day After Trinity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5cmmtEfh0E) - An excellent documentary about Robert Oppenheimer and the trial in which his security clearance was revoked 

Secrecy (http://www.secrecyfilm.com/) - a documentary by historian of science Peter Galison and Robb Moss about the enormous amount of classified science created each year

Peter Galison speaking about memoralizing nuclear waste, an issue of special significance to the Tri Cities area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cbNlXVRrb0

Suggested Podcasts

History of Modern Physics by Cathryn Carson (https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/history-181b-spring-2008-modern/id461116019?mt=10) - an entire course's lectures on the history of physics 

BBC's In Our Time often has great episodes on history of science topics, include an episode on nuclear science (http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iots/all)

Suggested Music

Billy Hughes & His Buckaroos - Atomic Sermon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb63FWL6R3k)

Ozie Waters - Old Man Atom (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk-c-mHNBi4)

Sir Lancelot - Atomic Energy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_eY1W7Ezw4)

Golden Gate Quartet - Atom and Evil (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjlJ2F646bA)

Tom Lehrer - Wernher von Braun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro)

On Grant-writing in Graduate School

I've been asked to speak next week at an event on grant-writing, hosted by Berkeley's History Graduate Association. Since some of the students who could benefit won't be able to attend, and as a way of thinking out my comments ahead of time, I'm going to write down some basic advice here. For reference, this applies primarily to history, though the broader principles apply across academia (and beyond).

As far as credentials go, over the course of grad school - excluding the History Department fellowship that funded me by default, and the postdoctoral fellowship I'm on now - I won a dozen or more fellowships worth something like $82,000 over seven years of graduate school. You can see a list of specific ones (in case you're looking for things to apply for) on my CV: https://chemheritage.academia.edu/DouglasOReagan/CurriculumVitae

$82,000 is a lot of money, but that's pennies compared to what it wins longer-term, which brings me to my first major point of advice:

• You can't win if you don't play, and everyone likes giving to the rich. 

There's a reason Harvard is at this point a hedge fund with a small sideline in education, and that's that everyone wants to be generous towards those who 'merit' it. This is America, land of the just world fallacy, and Academia, wherein the...exaggerated...idea of meritocracy is interalized and continually reinforced by selection bias. Success breeds success. You have to act like your work is great and deserving of every fellowship, whether or not you believe it, and apply for everything that remotely fits.

One grant becomes a CV line, which becomes two grants. Not in the course of two applications - it can take a dozen or more to get started, and reliability of grants never gets good. But especially if you come from somewhere prestigious like Berkeley, if you put together a half-decent grant, you're going to get some awards here or there. The people on the other end are simply operating with too little information to make truly merit-based decisions.

Beyond the direct rewards, and the longer-term snowball effect, there have been more than a few fellowships, postdocs, and jobs I have applied for that specifically request someone with grant-writing experience. That's a skill useful well beyond academia, which is a vital consideration in this day and age. Apply for everything.

Get rich, because that's how you get richer.

• You are not too busy to apply. 

As my friend Robert Harkins pointed out yesterday, so many times through our careers we would discuss this or that fellowship with our peers, only to hear "Oh I'm too busy with X to get around to applying." 

No you're not. 

That semester research paper doesn't really matter. Neither do your language course grades, your weekly response paper, your lesson planning, or anything else. No one will ever care that you did "really really well" instead of "barely over passing" in grad school, so long as your letter of recommendation writers and dissertation committee are happy with you. No one worth caring about will ever look at your transcript. Everyone will look at your CV, and everyone will care if you seem, at first glance, to be a winner.

• Done is better than good.

Relatedly, the more often you apply to things, the less time it takes to apply to the next one. I routinely send off applications for grants, awards, fellowships, postdocs, and jobs in less than 20 minutes, sometimes less than 10, because I've written so many that I can find something similar, edit the personalized sections, and send it off. If it's something that really matters to me, then sure, I'll spend more time. But you can never, ever know what a selection committee is really searching for. Spending days agonizing over the phrasing of your intro line is a waste. Spend that time applying to new things, or if you're done applying to things, get back to that research paper / lesson plan / etc. Once your application is competent (which I'll get to more below), any tweaks and improvements are as likely going against the preferences and picadillos of the selection committee as playing into them.

On that note,

• You can never ever know what a selection committee is searching for.

Your application is a prayer burnt on the altar of fickle gods. Do not burn your ewe of awkward self-congratulatory writing and resent that the gods did not reward your supplication with rain. Simply hope that the wafting scents of the burning meat and splint wines were pleasing to them, and prepare your next sacrifice. The gods do not care about you, and they act only according to their own whims, beyond the ken of mortal man. Know only that they will spurn entirely those who ignore them, and that their blessings can be great. Only through faith alone can you be funded.

• Be organized.

Here is a picture of my grants and applications folder:

In case that can't be expanded, the point is simple: Keep everything, and keep everything so you can find it at a few moments' notice years down the road. I use Dropbox, both for the security of off-site backup (crucial in a Bay Area where earthquakes could kill a hard drive with no warning, but really fire/disaster/incompetence can happen anywhere) and so I can work equally at my desktop, laptop, and even phone.

I doubt there is any mistake I've made as frequently, stupidly, and avoidably in grant-writing as forgetting to change the personalized statements - "I would love to teach at Hofstra University," I'd write to Yale. "This grant ties directly to your focus on legal history," I would write to a business history workshop travel grant committee. Organization is key to preventing this.

On that note, for here and so many parts of academia who don't seem to understand this basic feature of word processing (looking at you, rejection letter writers): Please learn how to use a mail merge. 

• Your project might still be half-baked and promising what you can't deliver. Apply anyway.

Almost no one writes a dissertation about the topic proposed in your grad school application. I sure didn't write a history of quantum physics like I proposed; and even more importantly, the committee that chose my application to Berkeley History did not expect me to seriously pursue that topic. It's a lie agreed upon.

That very same principle applies to grant and fellowship writing, right up until someday you do have a great topic you're enthused about and truly prepared to be a world leader in uncovering. I didn't apply for some of the great funding opportunities available exclusively to pre-grad-school and first-year students (like Javits, the first go-round of the NSF GRFP, or others) because I was shy about pretending. Everyone is pretending. I really regret not applying, because those fellowships are worth a ton - and everyone is pretending, so no one really has much of an edge up on you.

• Use Interfolio.

It costs too much money and it's only mostly reliable, but it can make you SO much money in the long-term to have a few general-purpose letters of recommendation stored that you can have sent wherever you want, whenever you want. I got ~$23,000 and amazing intangible opportunities from the Miller Center fellowship, and I got it after stumbling across the application 3 days before it was due. I would never have been willing to bother my advisor (much less my second letter-writer) to write an emergency letter, but I had their letters on Interfolio. Again, an application with less-than-specific rec letters and thrown-together language is infinitely better than no application. Done is better than good. Always always always.

• Don't be shy about asking for rec letters

I know, it's awkward and stressful, like asking someone on a date. But everyone you're asking to write a rec letter is where she is because others wrote letters for her. It's her job, in both literal and karmic terms, to do the same for you, if she's able. If you start getting push-back ("You know, I might not be the best person to write, I'm not sure if I'll have time this semester," etc) that might be an indication that you're not going to get a very strong letter. If you have someone else you've cultivated, then consider backing out. But if you really need 4 rec letters for some irritating laundry list of requirements for an application (and these surely exist), and you have to impose a little on the fourth, it's probably worth it.

On that note, you really need to think consciously, continuously, and as early as possible about who your rec letter writers will be. You will need a minimum of three coming out of grad school. The ideal scenario is:
1) Your advisor, who can speak to your work, character, and potential with far more depth and insight than anyone else,
2) An established faculty member in an adjacent sub-field, who can speak to the value of your research beyond your own sub-sub-field. Ideally also can speak to your teaching ability
3) Someone outside of your university/discipline entirely, who can open new doors for you. This is very difficult to cultivate, obviously, so it's no big issue if it's not there. This third letter is generally the least important by a lot, as far as I can gather.

_________________

So, where do I find grants to apply to? There are a lot of resources, but there will also be some you're just going to have to find by googling. (This, again, is where organization is important - if you find something due 6 months from now, create a folder so you don't forget). Some resources:

• http://grad.berkeley.edu/financial/fellowships/ - Berkeley Grad Division's list of fellowships. Great listing of resources.

• H-Net - Beyond this page, you should also sign up for all H-Net lists that are relevant to your work. Put them on Daily Digest so you don't get 1,000,000,000 emails/day, have them filter to a folder so you don't get annoyed and unsubscribe, but check them at least once a week.

• The AHA - The awards and grants section is mostly beyond the log-in section, which requires being an AHA member. That's a cost that justifies itself many times over if you get a fellowship, though.

• Ask one of your advisor's students a few years ahead of you to send a list of grants and fellowships he applied to throughout his tenure. I've sent such a list to Berkeley history of science grads before - it cost me nothing (what are they going to do, plagiarize my research proposals from a half decade ago?) and helped them.

Your department graduate secretary (the infinitely capable Mabel, in our case) likely has a huge stack of paper announcements, too. Go look through them at least 1-2 times/year.

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Okay, so, that's a lot of words without talking about what makes a good application. 

Well, the first point, again, is that no one knows. Seriously, a great application for one grant/fellowship/job is a hopeless application for a similarly-written announcement one listing over, and there is no way of ever getting feedback from either.

That said, there are a few points worth re-iterating. Note that most grant-writing tips, like most important lessons in History (the academic discipline) and history (the intellectual pursuit), can only really be learned from experience, and any advice tends to come across as cliches. Still, there's something to be said for hearing cliches, if only to point you towards truths you'll only digest later.

• The hardest and most important thing is to read your application from the outside.

You know everything about your project and everything about yourself. It's really, really easy to imagine that you're giving a clear (or worse, coy / clever / understated) look into this project without realizing how much you're leaving out.

Another angle to this problem is to spend a lot of time trying to be clear, to communicate, without emphasizing the even more vital imperative to be interesting. Your project isn't interesting to everyone if they would only understand it clearly. It's interesting if you can make it interesting. 

The Great 'So What' will dominate your life in academia, and this one of the absolute best things about grant-writing: it's constant practice at answering The Great 'So What' over and over and over again to new audiences.

• (a) It might be marketing buzzword nonsense, but you need to imagine yourself as a brand, as being on a hot forward trajectory, then write from that perspective

People like to see a narrative in your research - "I started at X, discovered this interesting thing, and now I want to work on Y because it's so important to Z, Q, and R" is a common one. This isn't always explicit, but it's the reason it's so much easier to fall down than rise up in academia's prestige game. It applies on smaller scales for grant-writing, too. Don't spend a lot of time and energy thinking on this one, but keep it in the back of your head when framing Proposal Narratives and Project Summaries. If you're not you, is it honestly very clear exactly who you are, and what you bring to this project that makes you the right purpose to pursue it? Again, modesty will not be rewarded.

• Tailor your grant-writing to the stated goals of the application.

Yeah, this is both kind of obvious and kind of contradicts the comments above about grant-writing being shouting into a pitch-black room and hoping you don't wake any grues, but the more you can guess at the positions of your readers the better. Some foundations have money from some rich guy who really likes the idea of 'leadership,' or whatever, and as much as they might want to fund a sterling by-the-book historian, they're going to need someone who can make the donor happy when he reads a paragraph about (or has a 30-second conversation with) you. Find a way to explicitly  - NOT just implicitly - tie your topic to leadership (or whatever). (I've seen this exact scenario multiple times, from the many very well-funded Stanton Nuclear Studies fellowships, to a funded fellowship on immigration elsewhere, to schools finding creative uses for very generous multi-million dollar endowments originally designated for 'yoga.' ) Other places really want you to write op-eds and get your (and their) name out there, or organize a conference, or write a nice letter afterwards describing the impact of their funding that they can include in their newsletter. Make your project explicitly serve their needs.

Most selection committees also have some kind of disciplinary bias, and will feel subtly alienated if the historiography you reference is completely foreign to them, and much warmer if they see you're tapped into similar fields. Again, hard to predict, but this is where informal networks come into play. Ask around to find others who have won this award and ask if you can read the application - again, a big advantage of going to a place like Berkeley.