SIAS in collaboration with NIMS College, Kathmandu and Sydney based Institute for Study and Development Worldwide (IFSD) organised “Advanced Scientific Writing Workshop from 9th June 2020 to 7th February 2021. This intensive training workshop aimed to enable participants to produce ready to submit draft of article with key guidance from mentors. Considering the COVID scenario, the workshop was organised online through zoom. Google classroom was used intensively to engage the participants and mentors for updates, reading materials, review and comments of the draft papers.
A total of 15 participants consisting of early to mid-career researchers, faculties, doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers actively engaged in the workshop towards drafting the papers while 15 observers benefited from the mentors and participants interaction during the writing process, presentations and series of workshops. Each participant was assigned a mentor to review and provide feedback on the idea and paper draft. At the same time, the peers also reviewed and provided feedback to the draft of the assigned participant. The participants and observers were divided into four themes for the learning process: 1) Forestry, REDD+ and Wildlife; 2) Climate change and disaster; 3) Water, Energy and Land & 4) Agriculture and Water.
The following 9 workshops were organised as part of the series:
- 9th June 2020: Introductory workshop with all the participants and observers was conducted to discuss on the workshop modality and engagement.
- 28th June 2020: Mentors’ workshop was organised separately with 15 mentors and the organisers.
- 10th July 2020 and 12th July 2020: Thematic workshop was organised in separate thematic groups. In the workshop, the four thematic groups discussed on the synopsis of the papers submitted by the participants. The participants presented their paper idea and argument while the peers and the mentors provided their feedback and suggestions. On the basis of the feedback, the participants produced their paper draft or revised them.
- 9th August 2020: Workshop on ‘Writing Introduction and paper structure’ was organised in which Dr. Uttam Babu Shrestha from Global Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies shared his personal experience on writing scientific paper and suggested on framing different sections of paper. Similarly, Dr. Dil B. Khatri, Executive Director at SIAS presented on structuring paper outline and writing the Introduction section of paper. The participants also discussed on sample introductions.
- 23rd August 2020: Dr. Prativa Sapkota from University of Melbourne shared her experiences from forestry and climate change studies on how to read a paper. Dr. Sudeep Jana Thing also added strategies and tips on reading papers effectively. The participants also discussed on the challenges they face in reading journal articles and abstracting key messages.
- 9th September 2020: Workshop on ‘Doing Literature Review’ was organised in by Dr. Hemant Ojha presented on effective ways of reviewing literature, synthesizing the review and challenges faced during review.
- 8th November 2020: Two groups were divided combining two thematic groups each and the participants presented their developed/revised paper drafts in which the mentors provided further feedback in the paper. The other participants and observers also shared their observations and questions to the participants.
- 7th February 2021: The series of workshops as part of Advanced Scientific Writing ended with this final workshop in which Dr. Dilli Poudel, senior researcher from SIAS presented on reviewing and revising journal article as part of publication process and Gyanu Maskey shared the key components to consider in copyediting.
Seven ready to submit draft papers were shared by the participants at the end of the workshop developed through constant mentors’ guidance and discussion. The workshop series helped the participants and observers to gain improved understanding on different aspects of reading and drafting article. Certificate of participation was also distributed to the participants and observers of the workshop.
