NSF Proposals: numerical citations or author-year? I'm preparing an NSF proposal.  I ordinarily like author-year citations because they seem more scholarly and give the reviewer instant information about who(m) I am citing.  However, multiple people have advised me that it makes the text hard to read, and I've heard that the most important thing for NSF proposals is that they are easy to read.  

But still- I hate flipping back and forth between text and citations- it seems like that causes a readability problem of a different kind.  At the same time, numerical citations are much more concise and help me make my page limit.  

So I am in a bind.  What do you people think?
In terms of reference formatting, this is the only paragraph I can find in the NSF guide:


  Reference information is required. Each reference must include the
  names of all authors (in the same sequence in which they appear in the
  publication), the article and journal title, book title, volume
  number, page numbers, and year of publication.


Thanks to @Suresh, I misunderstood the meaning of it and I agree that the instruction does not specify either numeric or author-year format.

However, the page limit is 15, all inclusive, numeric system would give you a few more lines at the end. And you don't need to hate flipping back and forth, because the reviewers will do the flipping. However, should you feel so strong against it, call and talk to the grant program manager or contact person and ask if you can use your preferred system.