CCUGH English Writing Workshop held at Duke Kunshan University

The Chinese Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CCUGH) held the second English Writing Workshop at Duke Kunshan University in the City of Kunshan, China from May 30 to June 2.

As the chair institution of the consortium, Duke Kunshan University organized the workshop on behalf of the CCUGH and offered lectures and training on how to write and publish an English research paper. The workshop included a one-day open lecture event, followed by a 3-day hands-on training in manuscript revision provided to 16 selected participants primarily from member universities of the CCUGH.

On the first day, Professor Patrick Moreton, the associate dean for graduate programs and conference planning at Duke Kunshan, stressed on the importance of effective writing in his opening remarking to the workshop participants, most of whom are young researchers from member universities, and.

Group photo

Group photo

Then four professors from Duke University and Duke Kunshan University lectured on practical skills in writing and publishing academic papers.

Gavin Yamey, professor of the practice of global health at Duke University, presented guidelines on how to get research papers published from the perspective of an experienced editor. His session also touched on practical skills to present qualitative studies and proper ways of responding to reviewers’ comments.

Gavin Yamey

Gavin Yamey

Lijing Yan, associate research professor of Duke University and Duke Kunshan University, spoke on how to write research papers for Chinese-speaking researchers based on her abundant research and publication experience.

Lijing Yan

Lijing Yan

Edie Allen, English language instructor at the Language and Culture Center of Duke Kunshan University, gave a presentation on practical English writing skills for non-native speakers in terms of writing norms and styles.

Edie Allen

Edie Allen

Keith Dear, research professor from Duke University and Duke Kunshan University, lectured on the presentation of quantitative studies.

Keith Dear

Keith Dear

Over 90 attendants from 18 member universities and other institutions of interest participated in first day’s lectures, during which they also had a lot of interactions with the professors.

The hands-on training in manuscript revision in the following three days featured master classes, break-out group revision and one-on-one mentoring sessions. A total of 16 selected trainees were divided to four groups based on the topic of their manuscripts, under the mentorship of Lijing Yan, Edie Allen, Keith Dear and John Ji respectively. John Ji, assistant professor of environmental health science at Duke Kunshan, joined the workshop to help with group revisions and one-on-one mentor sessions.

John Ji

John Ji

The one-on-one session was specially designed for the mentor to provide individualized instructions to the trainees on how to revise their manuscripts. The evaluation results showed that the hands-on training was well received among the trainees, especially the one-on-one mentor session. Trainees found that they had made great progress in improving the quality of their manuscripts and learned practical writing skills through the intensive training and in-depth communications with the mentors and peers.

Duke

The first CCUGH English writing workshop was held in Sun-Yat Sen University in April 2016. Fifteen out of the 18 revised manuscripts have been submitted and 4 published on English peer-reviewed journals, based on our brief follow up survey in Jan 2017.

Established on November 9th, 2013, CCUGH has been working on strengthening partnerships among member universities, providing support to member universities in global health education, research, capacity building, social services and international collaborations, and addressing global health challenges through joint efforts. More information about the CCUGH can be found at: www.ccugh.org.

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Media Contact

Senior Editor/Writer

Gareth McPherson

Email: gareth.mcpherson@dukekunshan.edu.cn

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