An AuthorAID Mentor Discusses His Experience

Greetings again. I hope that all is going well for you.

Recently Julie Walker at INASP mentioned a video from this year’s Publishers for Development conference. The video is titled “Experience of a Science Journal Editor Mentoring Developing Country Researchers with AuthorAID”.

The video shows a presentation by Matt Hodgkinson, an editor at the journal PLOS ONE. Matt joined AuthorAID in 2010. Since then, he has mentored authors from a variety of countries. He also is active in the AuthorAID discussion list.

Matt noted that AuthorAID mentorship involves more than just helping authors improve the English in their manuscripts. Often, he noted, authors need help with such items as

• placing their research in the context of previous work
• avoiding over-use of other authors’ wording
• analyzing their findings in depth

He praised the Dashboard section of the AuthorAID website, which helps him keep track of his mentorship work.

Matt also spoke highly of the AuthorAID discussion list. He noted that frequent topics of discussion include journal access, journal selection, authorship, peer review, and avoidance of scams (for example, from predatory journals).

Finally, Matt said a little about the PLOS journals. He indicated that their publication fees are waived for authors from low-income countries and reduced for those from middle-income countries.

The handout from Matt’s presentation also is available. Because the speaking in the video is fairly fast, I especially appreciated being able to access this handout.

Thank you, Julie, for mentioning this video. And thank you, Matt, for giving the presentation and contributing greatly to AuthorAID.

Until the next post—

Barbara