Guest Post: From the Intensive Course in Research Writing

[This post is by Joshua Mbanga, who received an AuthorAID grant to attend the 2012 Texas A&M University intensive course in research writing. Thanks very much, Josh! —Barbara]

The shift from doing the technical aspects of laboratory work to writing an accurate and concise paper is not one that every scientist can make. Scientific writing aims to bridge the gap by ensuring that good results in the laboratory translate into an excellent publication in a scientific journal. Intended to help in this regard, the intensive course in research writing took place from 25 June through 13 July at the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, USA.

The course was attended by 16 experienced and junior researchers from all over the world, with 6 being Texas A&M graduate students. Countries represented included Argentina, Bangladesh, China, Mexico, Nepal, Portugal, South Korea, the USA, and Zimbabwe.

Major aspects covered in the course included:

• Writing and editing scientific papers and grant proposals
• Preparing poster and oral presentations
• Scientific style; use and misuse of English in scientific papers
• Writing a book or book chapter, review paper, or opinion piece
• Resources on the World Wide Web

The course entailed a lot of reading and writing assignments and small group discussions, which were very helpful. I learned a lot about writing and editing as well as the journal publication process. I found the course to be relevant and worthwhile. Special thanks go to Dr. Barbara Gastel, Dr. Colin Young, Dr. Roberto Tuda Rivas, and the graduate assistants for an excellent job!