Workshop: Helping authors get published: Workshops at Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul

The pressure to publish is no longer limited to the biomedical sciences; researchers in the humanities and social sciences too are faced with the pressing need to get their manuscripts accepted by English journals. Therefore, as part of its mission to help authors get published, Editage conducted two intensive 3-day workshops for researchers in the humanities and social sciences at Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul.

The workshops were led by Steven Ward, consulting trainer with Editage, together with two Senior Managing Editors from Editage, Marisha Fonseca, ELS, and Rachelle Rego, ELS.

Steven has worked with Korean researchers in the academic training environment since 2004 and has been involved in conducting workshops for researchers across Korea since 2006. Marisha has over 6 years of editing experience and is currently heading quality and processes for key accounts at Editage. Rachelle has over 8 years of editing experience and currently manages the Humanities and Physical Sciences editing teams at Editage. In their editing careers, both have worked on over 5000 manuscripts in various disciplines.

While Editage has conducted over 486 training events for researchers across the world, these 3-day workshops were unique as they combined informative sessions with actual on-the-job support through Editage’s editing, journal selection, and translation services. This meant that during the workshop, researchers could get in-depth advice on language that was tailored to their manuscripts and research fields. They could thus deepen their understanding of the publication process as well as improve their writing skills.  Each workshop had 10-12 authors from the humanities and social sciences participating.

The sessions covered various topics of importance to researchers, such as choosing the right journal, tips on becoming a productive writer, and selecting a research question. They were followed by practical tips on grammar, punctuation, word choice, sentence construction, manuscript structure, manuscript formatting, and subject-specific writing conventions. Many of these were backed by examples from the participants’ own manuscripts.

Of note, the small group size made it possible for participants to have one-on-one consulting sessions with the trainers. Some participants also invited their co-authors or graduate students to these consulting sessions, which lasted typically from 20 to 60 minutes per participant; participants booked multiple sessions if needed. Individual consulting was not necessarily limited to the manuscripts currently being handled by Editage; participants were able to discuss any of their on-going papers or research projects. Their queries were quite diverse and ranged from how to paraphrase ethically to how to condense a manuscript and improve its focus.

Feedback on the workshops was overall positive, with participants expressing a desire for a follow-up session or a similar workshop the next year. The one-on-one sessions were particularly well received, as they were an opportunity for authors and editors to directly interact and understand each other’s points of view.

Given the participants’ responses to the sessions and their interest in acquiring a more in-depth understanding of how to get published, Editage hopes to conduct many more such workshops in the future.