A few basic principles for writing a proposal, many of which I got from Scott Gaudi in Astronomy:

1. Make sure that the first sentence of every paragraph summarizes the entire paragraph, and that 

2. All of the important points are covered in the first sentence of some paragraph.  That way a busy "skimmer" gets all of the important points.  Use italics to make the most important points jump off the page.

3. Say up front, right away what you want.  Don't take several pages to build up to it like you would in a paper.

4. Make the case that you (or your group, or collaboration) are uniquely qualified to carry out the proposed plan.

5. Make the case that the proposal is timely

6. Make the case that if they do not fund you to do this now, then the world will fall apart.

7. Identify the strongest weaknesses of your proposal and address them up front.  You can even turn a weakness around and make a major objective of your proposal to fix it.

8. Demonstrate that you are already doing what you are proposing to do.

9. Include a table showing what you will do each year, including what you will publish and when.

10. Leave no ambiguity in what you say you will do (even if in reality you might change it later).

R

Python

Various machine learning tools such as TensorFlow (this is on OSC)

Advice about physics from Marjorie:

• Always start with the physics!
• Triggering is where the physics is

Acknowledge federal funding.

Writing:

Check paragraph structure.  Make sure that the first sentence of each paragraph summarizes the entire paragraph, and every later sentence is there to support the first sentence.

Do not start a sentence with a variable.

Look up the difference between "which" and "that" and check their usage throughout.

Make sure every figure or table is referred to in the text.

Provide enough details that a later student can reproduce what you did, included function names, etc.  Use appendix if needed.

Avoid colloqial language, such as instead of "we got," write "we measured."