To write a good proposal takes a long time. Start early. Begin thinking about your topic well in advance and make it a habit to collect references while you work on other tasks. Write a first draft at least three months in advance, revise it, and show it to colleagues. Let it gather a little dust, collect colleagues' comments, revise it again. If you have a chance, share it with a seminar or similar group; the debate should help you anticipate what reviewers will eventually think. Revise the text again for substance. Go over the language, style, and form. Resharpen your opening paragraph or first page so that it drives home exactly what you mean as effectively as possible.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Ballot box takes wing
After a regional peace deal, hopes rise for twice-postponed elections
A CARTOON in Nepal depicts a green ballot box as a bird taking to the sky. Its white wings are peppered with bandages and plasters—but it flies. After the government's agreement with an ethnic alliance ended a regional strike on February 28th, Nepalis heaved a collective sigh of relief. Their politics have been tense since a peace agreement in 2006 ended a ten-year civil war. For more than a year, the country has suffered mass agitation in the south. But at last Nepalis believe that an election to a constituent assembly, now scheduled for April 10th, might finally happen, after two postponements. The assembly is supposed to write a new constitution, revamping the rules of politics.
The accord dampened the anger of Madhesis, southern Nepalese who share cultural ties with each other and with India. They complain of being neglected by the Nepalese government. Fourteen months of protests created havoc in the flat farmlands of the south-east and south-west, and claimed scores of lives. In mid-February strikes shut the south down and blocked fuel deliveries to the whole country, worsening shortages of kerosene, gas, petrol and diesel. Two days after the Madhesi agreement the government signed another, with a second alliance of ethnic and regional groups.
A CARTOON in Nepal depicts a green ballot box as a bird taking to the sky. Its white wings are peppered with bandages and plasters—but it flies. After the government's agreement with an ethnic alliance ended a regional strike on February 28th, Nepalis heaved a collective sigh of relief. Their politics have been tense since a peace agreement in 2006 ended a ten-year civil war. For more than a year, the country has suffered mass agitation in the south. But at last Nepalis believe that an election to a constituent assembly, now scheduled for April 10th, might finally happen, after two postponements. The assembly is supposed to write a new constitution, revamping the rules of politics.
The accord dampened the anger of Madhesis, southern Nepalese who share cultural ties with each other and with India. They complain of being neglected by the Nepalese government. Fourteen months of protests created havoc in the flat farmlands of the south-east and south-west, and claimed scores of lives. In mid-February strikes shut the south down and blocked fuel deliveries to the whole country, worsening shortages of kerosene, gas, petrol and diesel. Two days after the Madhesi agreement the government signed another, with a second alliance of ethnic and regional groups.
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