The School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH), has successfully organized a two day workshop on 9th & 10th March 2015 for senior research students of the School of Social Sciences on the theme “Writing an article for a Foreign/Indian Journal.” This two day intense Workshop was `the third in its Workshop series “Writings across Discipline: From Ideas to Dissertation/ Publication”.

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The Workshop was attended by registered 50 PhD Research Scholars from various Departments and Centers of the School of Social Sciences. The first day of the program began with an introductory note of the Workshop given by Prof. Aloka Parasher-Sen, Dean, School of Social Sciences. This introductory session was followed by the inaugural lecture given by Prof. Rama Govindarajan, Centre for the Inter Disciplinary Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad. While making her presentation on the theme “Can Writing a Science Paper Be a Creative Exercise?” she explored the possibilities and methods of writing a science paper with a lot of creativity. She stressed on the need that like a good science, a good research also should always carry some solid questions which can be helpful for humankind. With her stimulating presentation, the students had an opportunity in developing an insight into the writing process as a creative exercise and amalgamating the understanding of natural sciences with the social sciences.

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The second, third and last session on the first day of the Workshop was presented Dr. James Avis, Professor & Director of Research and Professor of Post-Compulsory Education and Training at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He began by elucidating his concerns on the topic titled “Writing an Article for a Foreign Journal – General Issues”. Elaborating on the general issues of publishing, the speaker initiated the various processes involved in publishing an article in a foreign journal. The third and the final session of the first day was an interactive session between the resource person and the students. Based on the pre-workshop assignments carried out by the students they were asked to play the role of a journal referee to accept or reject papers submitted for publication based on necessary guidelines. Students were divided into groups and two articles were critically analyzed that had been written by Prof. Avis. Later the journal editors and actual referee’s comments on these papers were discussed before the final paper as published was circulated to all students.

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The second day of the workshop began with a session titled “Incorporating Data Analysis and Writing the Text of Articles” by Dr. Tarun Jain from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Dr. Jain – an Economist by training explained some of the vital stages involved in writing a research paper by utilizing data from both quantitative as well as qualitative methods.

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The second, third and the last session on the second day were conducted by Dr. N. G. Satish from the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. Dr. Satish focused on one of the seminal issues in writing a research paper – “How do you write and what do you write?” This introductory session was highly profound and thought provoking to the participants as they were introduced to the idea of writing a condensed and precise research argument with a crisp elaboration within a limited space available in a journal. The third and the final sessions focused on themes such as “why this is article better” – an intense content analysis and “how to sharpen your writing” – creatively identifying and eliminating unwarranted, parenthetical sentences in a proposed article. The participants have extensively benefitted from of these sessions. Dr. Satish finally analyzed the writing done by students that had been submitted to him during the pre-Workshop period and asked the participants to assess various journal articles for “good writing” that had been distributed to them before the Workshop.

The two day program came to an end with the Dean of School of Social Sciences – Prof. Aloka Parasher-Sen and Dr. N. G. Satish handing over the Certificate of participations to the PhD scholars for their sincere and attentive participation in the Workshop. All the resource persons were thanked by the students for offering them exemplary guidance and mentoring them towards writing a research article for International and Indian journals.

The Workshop was coordinated by Dean, School of Social Sciences, Dr. Thirunavukkarasu, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Sociology and Dr. Naveen Kumar, Asst. Professor, Centre for Folk Culture Studies.

By Hemanta Phukon and Sudarshan B.