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Writing is about communicating our work to our intended audience effectively. COMDIS-HSD with the support of International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IULTD), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Luxembourg Operational Research (LuxOR) organized a Paper Writing Workshop for researchers from November 9 to 14, 2015.

This event was organized to orient researchers about various principles and tips of writing for publication. The sessions included:

• Writing in clear, scientific English
• Choosing a journal and identifying guidelines for choosing a journal
• Principles and examples of writing Introduction
• Principles and examples of writing Methods
• Literature search and using PUBMED
• References and styles
• Principles and examples of writing Results and Discussion
• Principles and examples of writing Abstract, Title, Authors, Acknowledgements, Conflict of Interest
• Principles and examples of Final Submission and Peer Review

This was based on a ‘mentorship model’ where the mentors guided the researchers through the paper development process. The intended outcome of this workshop was to a draft paper ready by the end of the workshop period followed on by distant supervision and support from the mentors until the paper publication period in the respective journals.  

Antonia James, Consortium Manager of COMDIS-HSD, the main organizer of the event regarded this workshop as a Capacity Development Initiative of COMDIS-HSD partners in the lines of needs assessment that COMDIS-HSD carried out where the partners had highlighted the need for close technical support in developing papers of high quality that could be published in reputed peer reviewed journals. Antonia was very pleased with the way the sessions were conducted: “I am delighted to see that our decision to select Anthony Harries and his group as mentors for this workshop has paid off as they have done a fantastic job in giving precisely the right kind of technical support that the researchers had desired for.” She added, “The level of intensity that the mentors have shown to orient the researchers practically about the nuances of publication and the interest shown by the participants has already shown early signs of the workshop being a successful one”. Antonia highlighted that these sorts of coordinated efforts bringing in expertise from MSF and IUTLD apart from stand-alone COMDIS-HSD events have really upgraded the standards of mentorship with ‘blended’ technical expertise. She also stressed on the need to continue the momentum whereby the participants could replicate similar sorts of workshops in their own country settings to provide similar opportunities to their colleagues to have practical understanding on various aspects of paper writing and publication.

Anthony Harries, one of the five facilitators of this workshop expressed his satisfaction the way the participants have come up in terms of developing their papers. Harries and his team have already conducted about 30 similar courses with a very high success rate (about 90 percent) of the papers being published in peer reviewed journals. Harries regards that the principle of ‘tailored approach’ is important to provide the participants with the exact nature of support they require as the ability of participants varies to a great extent. Harries spells out the need for promoting such tailored paper writing workshops as he opines, “Research Programme Consortiums such as COMDIS-HSD should understand the added value of workshops such as these whereby their work has great potentiality to be cited and acknowledged by the broader research community through peer reviewed journal publications and the developed capacity of their researchers to develop high quality journal papers in the process.”

Ajay Kumar, another facilitator considers this workshop as one of the very few workshops of its kind where the mentors involve with participants in such an extensive manner providing dedicated technical support which would have been difficult from a distance. “The uniqueness of our workshop is that we are ‘product –oriented’, time-bound and following ethical standards and therefore our output – a high quality journal paper can only be achieved with dedicated involvement of both the researchers and the mentors”, Ajay added.

Shaheer Ellahi, one of the participants shared about how the ‘interactive’ and ‘shared-learning’ approach of the workshop has helped him to understand the broader picture of research in different settings. Nida Khan, another participant was very impressed about how very complex research components and perspectives were dealt with in such ease by the mentors. She opined, “I have realized how important and how easy it is to go through a simple, step by step gradual systematic process can lead to you developing a high-quality journal paper.” Professor Xiaolin Wei from China, highlighting the very informative and insightful session that facilitators Anthony Harries and Rony Zachariah took the participants through as a “contemporary art” of responding to reviewers’ comments while they review the paper submissions for journals. Deepak Joshi from Nepal shared how delighted he was to actually see being able to produce a draft paper in 6 days during this workshop which he felt earlier as "Mission Impossible".

Nilam Ashra-McGrath, Research Uptake Manager of COMDIS-HSD and the coordinator for the event wrapped up the 6-day workshop with a take-home message, “There are NO SHORT-CUTS to writing a good paper. As researchers, we all need to go through the painful process of understanding, analysing and writing up our paper keeping in mind all minute details.” Overall, thanking all the mentors and participants, she expressed her deep satisfaction for the workshop being ‘OUTSTANDING’ in all terms.

Through this workshop, the 8 participants were able to draft 8 papers on 6 different topics: Cardio Vascular DIseases, Antibiotics Use, Media Coverage on Health, Community Health Clinics, Malaria and Maternal-Child Health.

HERD Researchers Sudeep Uprety and Deepak Joshi are following up upon this workshop finalising their paper with respective mentors as well as conducting a similar workshop sharing their learning to colleagues at HERD.

Photo Courtesy: COMDIS-HSD