Guest Post: A Workshop in Biratnagar, Nepal

[Earlier this year, AuthorAID held a research writing workshop and train-the-trainer workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal. Some attendees now have gone on to give an AuthorAID workshop in Biratnagar, Nepal.

Below, Devendra Adhikari writes about the Biratnagar workshop. This post also includes some information from Kul Prasad Limbu. Thank you for this post! —Barbara]

We held an AuthorAID workshop on research article writing and publishing in Biratnagar, Nepal, on 29–30 July 2011. The 16 attendees were master’s degree students in botany, chemistry, physics, and zoology. I was lead facilitator, and Dr. Shiv K. Rai, Kul P. Limbu, and Basant K. Rai were co-facilitators.

The workshop was held in association with BIBECHANA: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Science, Technology and Mathematics and Our Nature: An International Biological Journal. INASP provided support, for which we are thankful.

During this workshop, a guest speaker told of his experience publishing his first research paper. There were 7 authors. They submitted the paper to an international journal.

After 3 months, the journal editor sent the reviewers’ comments to the authors. The comments included the following: "There are 7 authors in the paper, and there are spelling mistakes in more than 70 words. This shows that the authors are not aware of the research work and the methodology and results are not reliable. So this paper should be rejected.”

After receiving this comment, the authors spent 3 months correcting this paper. They then sent it to another international journal. This time the paper was accepted as it was (no revision required).