Scholarly Communication

Listen to this interview of Christophe Bernard, Director of Research at INSERM and Editor-in-Chief of eNeuro. We talk about the review process, about education in the sciences, and again a little bit more about education in the sciences.Christophe Bernard : "Science is everything that a scientist does. But for many people, science is only the bench work — to them, that's what a scientist really does. And the publishing part — well, that's just something that others do. Even the review process, for too many people, is just not fully integrated into the work that scientists are doing. But there should not be a barrier between doing science and reviewing science. It should be the same world — a continuity between the two. Now, in institutions, they focus all their efforts on teaching people how to do science. But doing science also is knowing how to review a paper. Perhaps you know, but there is a crisis in the reviewing process. Many authors have commented on being mistreated by reviewers, and although there'll be many reasons why that happens, the main reason is that we are not taught how to review a paper. And this just leads to frustration, or worse, because when you're an author and you submit a paper and you receive comments which are aggressive and do not make sense and are just plain unhelpful, then you start to distrust the system."Watch Daniel edit your science here. Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, cofounders of Retraction Watch. We talk about lots of things, retracting very few.Ivan Oransky : "Accountability in science certainly does not come down to only retracting papers, because there are just lots of issues. And by the way, just to remind everyone, science is very much a human endeavor. It doesn't exist outside of humans doing the science. I mean, facts exist, and there is truth out there, and we'd very much appear to be getting close and closer to it — that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the actual process, like, how do we learn these things. How — as this podcast more generally looks at — how does knowledge get known. Basically, epistemology. But that requires human beings. It requires human beings interpreting, talking and listening, collaborating, and so that's one part of science that is really critical. Therefore, of course, the issue of accountability is multifactorial."The Retraction Watch database is here. You might also be interested in this article: "Repeat Offenders: When Scientific Fraudsters Slip Through the Cracks." You can learn more about retraction here. Watch Daniel edit your science here. Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hear from Catherine Cocks, assistant director and editor-in-chief at Michigan State University Press talk about her attempt to replicate the success of the Scholarly Kitchen blog in the humanities with the 'Feeding the Elephant' forum, her work to make university publishers more accessible to authors through ASK UP and publishing on the Great Lakes at Michigan State! Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Pascal Patrick Matzler, Associate Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile. We talk about his book Mentoring and Co-Writing for Research Publication Purposes: Interaction and Text Development in Doctoral Supervision (Routledge, 2021), mentorship in STEM — we talk about writing in STEM.Pascal Matzler : "For me, perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the years that I spent with these three supervisors and three doctoral students was just seeing how scientific knowledge is gained, how it is reproduced, and how new scientists are born — so, just seeing how these students became scientists who are capable of reasoning and arguing as members of their fields, and also seeing how they even developed this notion, because that's maybe the one key point of my book: that the student walks into a meeting with a graph or a chart, and the student is convinced that this graph or chart contains the truth, and so all they need to do is send that graph or that chart to a journal and there will be a round of applause for the new knowledge. And the supervisor, slowly and carefully, over many months, will explain to the student, 'No, that's not how it works. First you have to verbalize this chart, verbalize what you see on it. Then you have to verbalize what you think it means, whatever you're seeing on the chart, and also why you think it means this. And then you have to convince your readers that it actually means this. And this process is going to be terribly challenging, because your readers are going to disagree with that. And some people's careers might be ruined by your interpretation. So we're going to have to do this very slowly and very carefully — and, we might even be wrong! We have to deal with that, as well.' So there's this slow and gradual awakening of the rhetorical persona in the doctoral student over the course of writing a first research article." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it take to become a digitally agile scholar? This manual explains how academics can comfortably navigate the digital world of today and tomorrow. It foregrounds three key domains of digital agility: getting involved in research, education and (community) service, mobilising (digital) skills on various levels, and acting in multiple roles, both individually and interlinked with others.After an introduction that outlines the foundations of the three-dimensional framework, the chapters focus on different roles and skills associated with evolving as a digital scholar. There is the author, who writes highly specialised texts for expert peers; the storyteller, who crafts accessible narratives to a broader audience in the form of blogs or podcasts; the creator, who uses graphics, audio, and video to motivate audiences to delve deeper into the material; the integrator, who develops and curates multimedia artefacts, disseminating them through channels such as websites, webinars, and open source repositories; and finally the networker, who actively triggers interaction via social media applications and online learning communities. Additionally, the final chapters offer a blueprint for the future digital scholar as a professional learner and as a change agent who is open to and actively pursues innovation.Informed by the authors' broad and diverse personal experience, Evolving as a Digital Scholar: Teaching and Researching in a Digital World (Leuven UP, 2021) offers insight, inspiration, and practical advice. It equips a broad readership with the skills and the mindset to harness new digital developments and navigate the ever-evolving digital age. It will inspire academic teachers and researchers with different backgrounds and levels of knowledge that wish to enhance their digital academic profile.Free ebook available at OAPEN Library, JSTOR and Project Muse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can libraries be radical positive change agents in their communities?R. David Lenkes offers a guide for librarians who see their profession as a chance to make a positive difference in their communities —librarians who recognize that it is no longer enough to stand behind a desk waiting to serve.Lankes reminds libraries and librarians of their mission: to improve society by facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. In this book, he provides tools, arguments, resources, and ideas for fulfilling this mission. Librarians will be prepared to become radical positive change agents in their communities, and other readers will learn to understand libraries in a new way.The libraries of Ferguson, Missouri, famously became positive change agents in August 2014 when they opened their doors when schools were closed because of civil unrest after the shooting of an unarmed teen by police. Working with other local organizations, they provided children and their parents a space for learning, lunch, and peace. But other libraries serve other communities—students, faculty, scholars, law firms—in other ways. All libraries are about community.In The New Librarianship Field Guide (MIT Press, 2016), Lankes addresses the mission of libraries and explains what constitutes a library. He offers practical advice for librarian training; provides teaching notes for each chapter; and answers “Frequently Argued Questions” about the new librarianship.Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at reneeg@vanleer.org.il Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hear Dr. Rosina Lippi-Green talk about some of her shocking findings on language discrimination and bias on campus. Lippi-Green and Avi discuss her book English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the US (Routledge, 2011) and what the academic community can do to be more inclusive of scholars with different levels of English. We also discuss Rosina's transition from researcher to popular novelist.Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Nigel Caplan, Associate Professor at the English Language Institute, University of Delaware. We talk generically.Nigel Caplan : "And this sort of brings us to an important point about knowledge and expertise in a discipline. The great genre scholar Doreen Starke-Meyerring said that academic writing tends to be transparent to experts in the discipline, and they forget how opaque it is to novices. So, if you study engineering, biology, philosophy, whatever it is, and you're immersed in that world all the time, it's very easy to believe that that is the only way of writing, because that's the only type of writing you have done for decades. And it quickly becomes, 'Well, that's obviously good writing.' And the idea is, 'Anything else is bad writing.' But experts don't realize what we see as English teachers, especially as teachers in English for Academic Purposes, where we work with students across the disciplines — what we see is that each discipline does have its own way of creating knowledge and communicating that knowledge. But that can be very opaque to a novice. And I think what novices need are the tools to crack open that opacity, and what experts need is a little reminder now and then that good writing is actually not transparent. It is highly contextual, it is something that needs to be learned, it is not natural in any sense. It is not automatically good writing just because you like it and it works in your field."Visit the Michigan Series in English for Academic and Professional Purposes here. Visit and join the Consortium on Graduate Communication here.Watch Daniel edit your science here. Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tune in to hear Prof. Talya Miron Shatz, author of Your Life Depends on It: What You Can Do to Make Better Choices About Your Health (Basic Books, 2021) discuss her surprising decision to publish her book with a non-academic publisher and how her writing and revision were driven by her desire to get her book into thousands of homes around the world.Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Ayelet Baram-Tsabari. We talk about the accessibility of science using Google to scholars and students in languages beyond English and how scholars can de-jargonize their research to ensure increase their reach.Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices