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Often, grant and fellowship applications require applicants to create a curriculum vitae (c.v.), which is a comprehensive biographical statement emphasizing your professional qualifications and activities. For graduate students, it is usually 2-5 pages, though the vitas of more experienced candidates will be longer. You should design your vita so that your strongest qualifications will stand out during a quick skim, but with enough detail so that it can stand up to a more careful reading.

A vitae always includes:

• your name, current address, and phone number (e-mail, web page addresses if applicable)
• education information (name & location of institution, years attended, discipline, degree, date)
• professional experience (name & location of institution, years, position)
• publications (title, full authorship, journal, date)
• presentations (title, full authorship, conference name and location, date)
• honors (if unfamiliar, stress the degree to which award was competitive)

  It may also include:

• certification and licensure (certification boards with date and number, licenses with date and number)
• scholarly and professional memberships/leadership (organization or society name, offices held if applicable)
• areas of research interest (brief description of current research projects)
• current protocols (title, funding source, amount funded, grant period)
• teaching competencies (course titles, brief descriptions)
• personal information (citizenship, etc.)
• language fluency (reading, speaking, writing)
• references (names, titles, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses)

  Be clear: be sure a sound and easily understood organizational plan is followed; be sure there is no confusion concerning any entry; and be sure it is readable

  Be consistent: establish a consistent graphic hierarchy so that typeface for equivalent categories of information is the same; be sure it doesn't mix styles; be sure all sequences are in proper reverse chronological order; and be sure there is an appearance of evenness

  Be concise: use phrases rather than complete sentences; check with your department for appropriate page length, which varies from field to field; be sure it isn't padded; and be sure there are no double entries

  For more information contact the Graduate Student Grants Service, 517 Goodell Building,
  545-5279 or 545-5273; gsgs@grad.umass.edu