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