Mentoring

OWSD has partnered with AuthorAID, so that all OWSD members can sign up to their wonderful mentoring programme.

Communicate your research and advance your career

Writing your first journal articles can be especially difficult if you have little or no local guidance. This is where AuthorAID can help. The aim is to help early-career researchers contact experienced researchers and editors in order to get help with:

• Using appropriate research methods and performing data analysis
• Choosing appropriate journals for submitting manuscripts
• Preparing manuscripts
• Refining writing style
• Understanding the peer review process and responding to reviewers' comments
• Preparing presentations and posters
• Preparing grant proposals
• Otherwise communicating about research

How might I benefit from mentoring?

AuthorAID mentors are experienced researchers and editors, and they are encouraged to be supportive and helpful. Mentors can give you both specific and general information about writing, publishing, and research. You may ask them the smallest of questions, seek large-scale guidance from them about research directions and potential grants, and everything in between. Their knowledge can be very valuable.

How does the mentoring process work?

The first step is to register online with AuthorAID. During registration, you can create a short profile about your research, and you can say what sort of help and advice you would like.

Then you may either (1) be contacted by mentors who are already AuthorAID members or (2) use the Find Researchers page to locate and contact potential mentors.

Once you have contacted a potential mentor, you can start discussions (for example, via AuthorAID's own messaging system or more informally via instant messaging, e-mail, telephone calls, or Skype calls). If both members agree to start a mentoring relationship, you can decide whether to set up a formal learning agreement.

What we expect from mentees

We expect mentors and mentees to show mutual respect and to maintain confidentiality where necessary. Also, before showing mentors drafts, mentees should try to make the drafts as clear and well thought out as possible. (Note: The AuthorAID resource Library contains many resources—in English and other languages—that can help you start to improve your drafts yourself.)

Want more information?

For a general example of how AuthorAID works, follow Rahim on his Mentoring Journey, or read Learning from Experience (PDF, 287K), a real-world case study.

If you have any specific questions, contact authoraid@inasp.info and mention that you're an OWSD member!