Kondwani Chidziwisano attends Science Writing Capacity Development Workshop
- Details
From 13th to 19th November 2016, the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) conducted the Science Writing Capacity Development Workshop in the Lake Kariba lakeshore District of Siyavonga, Zambia. The workshop which was fully sponsored by CIDRZ through Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity (SHARE) and ViiV HealthCare grants brought together academicians, researchers and postgraduate students from Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya. The participants were oriented on various research skills such as Scientific Literature, Hypothesis Setting, Medium of Publication, understanding qualitative and quantitative data, surving peer review, meeting the journal editor and review of published paper.
Meeting the Facilitators
The workshop was run by well experienced researchers and regular publishers which included Dr. Roma Chilengi, Dr. Angali Sharma, Dr. Joseph Mutale, Dr. Michael Vinikoor and Dr. Samuel Bosomprah. With the one to one approach, all participants were intensively drilled on how to publish a peer reviewed article where all sections of an article (i.e. abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion) were facilitated within the 5 days of the training.
What was more exciting was that each participant was assigned to a facilitator (mentor) who provided individual needed skills as the participants wrote their individual papers. Kondwani Chidziwisano from Malawi was working on a paper with the title Microbiological quality of drinking water sources in selected rural flood-prone communities of Chikwawa and Nsanje districts, Southern Malawi.
Meeting the BMJ Journal editor
On the 4th day of the workshop, the participants had an opportunity of interacting with a journal editor from British Medical Journal (BMJ). Through skype call, the editor clearly presented on How to write a paper that editors would want to publish. Her presentation highlighted on key points about writing and what editors look for in a paper.
All in all, it was an exciting opportunity to interact with people from different backgrounds and share various research skills and experiences. The workshop inspired many of us to contribute to the body of knowledge through scientific writing.
