How to hook an SSHRC postdoc grant

“Question: I’ve been looking at successful SSHRC postdoctoral proposals available through my institution, and I’ve noticed that they often open with an illustrative example or story to hook the reader. I’m interested in taking this approach, but I’m not sure how to choose the right opening example. What makes for a good hook? – Anonymous, Comparative Literature Dr. Editor’s response: The type of opening you describe isn’t one that I usually recommend, dear letter-writer; I admit that I have a preference for those classic “This X-year project will…” openings. I recognize, though, that my pragmatist’s approach isn’t the only way to go about these things, and I’ve seen the kind of opening you describe done both very well and very poorly. Because these kinds of openings aren’t my forte, I spoke with Daniel Aureliano Newman , the director of graduate writing support in the faculty of arts and science at the University of Toronto, and an expert in graduate and postdoctoral Tri-Agency applications. Here are two tips from Dr. Newman to create an effective SSHRC hook: 1. Be strategic with your choice The best introductions don’t simply replicate familiar structures — they use that opening story or vignette with intentionality. Ask yourself: what do you need your introduction to accomplish? What story or example will enable you to move from a general statement to your specific project? What concepts or problems do you need to establish early in your proposal? It’s easy to get caught up in the storytelling; too often, says Dr. Newman, “the narrative goes on for too long, because the applicant forgets that its function is to introduce a series of concepts or problems.” A too-long opening story risks becoming an end in itself, rather than a vehicle for establishing the intellectual terrain. If your project involves synthesizing approaches that haven’t been brought together before — maybe crip theory and Black feminist theory, for instance — you might concisely close-read one line of a poem in two different ways. The point is not to show off your analytical prowess, warns Dr. Newman; instead, “use that close reading to pull in the concepts that are going to allow you to start talking about your topic.” The close reading then becomes a rhetorical tool, not just another piece of evidence. But there’s no requirement that you go literary. Even though you’re in comparative literature, you might find that a literary work is too complex, too layered, to serve as an appropriate introduction, because you don’t have the space to share a nuanced interrogation of a text. Instead, maybe there’s a recent news story or viral social media post that might enable you to speak to what’s at stake in your project: maybe your research focuses on 17th century poetry, but you open with a discussion of a recent court ruling or the “this is fine” meme . If you take that route, then you’ll need to justify your decision to open with a story that speaks to your stakes in a different century, language, or form from your topic of research. Then, you’ll need to segue with a line that builds a bridge to your subject area — one that opens with something like, “The broadside balladry of the English interregnum offers a compelling context in which to examine these questions, because ____.” That kind of justification strengthens your application, as you’re not simply taking it for granted that your selected period and genre offer the best context in which to consider your key questions. 2. Unpack the key tensions Beyond choosing your opening strategy, the most crucial element of a strong introduction is establishing intellectual tension. Effective introductions create drama by exposing tensions, and a common way to do so is to point to divergent scholarly perspectives: post-structuralists say X; post-colonialists say Y. But scholarly disagreement is only one form of productive tension. You might establish “tension between consensus readings and a new, inconvenient fact,” Dr. Newman advises — for instance, if new archival evidence necessitates a change in how we think of a poet’s writing process. Or, you might identify “a tension between theory and what we actually see in practice,” says Dr. Newman, as when a particular set of feminist novels features passive protagonists, despite passivity often being understood as anti-feminist or the product of patriarchy. Tension can take many forms: what’s obvious versus what’s hidden; what most people say versus what you’re seeing; what you once thought versus what you now think. Why does tension matter so fundamentally? At the rhetorical level, tension engages readers by providing momentum and propelling the introduction forward. But it also serves an argumentative purpose: tension provides the mechanism for moving from broad observations to focused research questions — it’s how you get the chisel to shape general topics into specific interventions, creating the essential connection between rhetoric and argumentation. The contrast with inert facts clarifies this principle. When introductions present only factual information — this many people experience X per year; this is how much Y costs — they can feel flat, even boring. A useful self-check is to examine your introduction while asking yourself, “how many words before I’ve pointed to a problem?” Ultimately, a strong opening isn’t about choosing the most dramatic anecdote or the most comprehensive overview: it’s about selecting the approach that best serves your project’s goals while immediately establishing the tensions that make your research necessary. Get those two elements right, and your introduction will be doing its job. 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