The Academic Publishing Workshop Series is a response to the perceived challenges faced by academics when writing, submitting, and publishing their work. In line with the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI) theme of “The Year of Publication”, the workshop could not have come at a more opportune time. This series aims to provide expert advice on a broad range of topics and bring aspiring researchers into one room with publishing experts. One of its goals is also to assist early career academics in gaining insight into editorial processes and offer them an opportunity to engage the editors directly.
On Thursday October 27th, the second workshop of the Academic Publishing Workshop for Emerging Researchers was hosted. The purpose of this session was to explore various segments of publishing, to help ease the publishing journey for emerging researchers and academics. Included in this session were lessons on how to prepare academic papers for submission by Dr Sara Amin, the peer review process by Dr Jones-Odei Mensah, preparing
manuscripts for publication and online publishing by Dr Linda Fick. Lastly, the workshop explored the challenges and opportunities for new researchers on the publishing journey that was presented by Dr Emmanuel Quaye.
Chaired by CAPSI’s Digital Publisher Xolani Dlamini, the session welcomed academics and emerging researchers from different fields who joined in to gain lessons from the presenters while improving their publishing experience. Xolani added that one of the challenges that publishers face is when researchers do not understand the work that happens behind the scenes and the importance of quality control when it comes to ensuring the optimization of their article on online journals.
Synthesizing and concluding the workshop was Prof. Imhotep Alagidede, Editor in Chief of the International Review of Philanthropy and Social Investment Journal, who quoted how ‘the world of publishing requires one to continuously learn, invent and re-invent oneself’. Prof. Imhotep further encouraged attendees by expressing how rejection is inevitable in the game of publishing, but how that should not deter them from their journey.
“There are many benefits of being an academic, you are able to teach what you are passionate about, mentor students, freedom of how you manage your time, and you get to travel”, stated Dr Quaye in his motivation for why we need more academics. The Centre of African Philanthropy and Social Investment will host more workshops that will cater to the diversity of the researcher community. Subscribe to our newsletter to be alerted.
