A Workshop for the Shoemaker's Children

Greetings again. Do you know the saying “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot”?

Young researchers at my university might be like the shoemaker’s children. Although I give research-writing workshops in various countries, I rarely give such workshops at my own university.

I did, however, just finish giving such a workshop. The story began when a highly productive researcher at my university asked me to give his research group some instruction in scientific writing. After some discussion, we decided that a 2-day workshop would be best.

Originally, I envisioned giving the workshop on 2 successive days—for example, a Friday and a Saturday. But the researcher had a better idea: have the 2 sessions a week apart, so the attendees could do homework in between.

Having the sessions a week apart worked so well that I hope to give more workshops here this way. I also suggest that others consider using this plan.

In case you’d like to give such a 2-day workshop, I’ve added to the AuthorAID Resource Library the plan from this recent workshop. It includes the schedules for the 2 days and the homework assignment.

For the main presentations in this workshop, you can use PowerPoint presentations already available—in several languages—in the AuthorAID Resource Library.

At the request of some young researchers, I included in the workshop a presentation on dealing with “writer’s block” (difficulty starting to write). I’ve added this presentation to the Resource Library.

Maybe with these resources fewer researchers will be shoemaker’s children.