Guest Post: An AuthorAID Scientific Manuscript Writing Workshop in Kenya

[Special thanks to AuthorAID workshop grant recipient Albert Getabu for this guest post! —Barbara]

This report is posted by Prof. Albert Getabu, Senior Research Fellow at Kisii University, Kenya. The university held an AuthorAID workshop on scientific manuscript writing on 24–25 June 2015. There were participants from 5 universities in southwestern Kenya: Moi, Maseno, Eldoret, Egerton, and Kisii. The workshop was coordinated by Prof. Albert Getabu and Mr. Nemwel Aming’a, assisted by staff from the Research and Extension Division.

Participants were drawn from MSc and PhD students undertaking natural resources courses. The workshop was very successful, and the students expressed a lot of interest for similar fora in the future where they come together to learn from different universities.

The workshop was opened by the Registrar, Research and Extension Professor Anakalo Shitandi. Facilitators were drawn from the Kisii University main and Nairobi campuses. The facilitators were Profs. Anakalo Shitandi, Albert Getabu, and James Njiru and Drs. Margaret Barasa and James Onchieku. Of great significance was the inclusion of a facilitator specializing in linguistics, who took the participants through effective communication of research findings in English.

Participants were introduced to AuthorAID and its functions, and they were encouraged to join as members and to network among themselves and with the facilitators to share scientific information. Doing so could facilitate organization of future workshops for the participants and other interested individuals.

All the names of the participants have been included in the University email system to facilitate follow-up action, which will include sharing of AuthorAID and other scientific information and invitations to future events.