Writing Schools: Enhancing the Academic Writing Skills of Early Career Researchers from Africa
One of MIASA’s main goals is to strengthen the voices of African scholars in global academia. To this end, improving the writing skills and publication strategies of early career researchers in Africa is key. For this reason, MIASA established its own format of annual writing schools for postdoctoral scholars from the continent in 2021. Since then, four writing schools have been organised at MIASA in collaboration with the Goethe University Frankfurt. Demand is high, as evidenced by the ever-increasing number of applications (257 in 2024). Since its inception, the Writing Schools have been convened by Prof. Akosua Keseboa Darkwah of the Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana and her team of five mentors and editors, mostly from Ghana, who have so far trained a total of 72 early career researchers (including 33 women) from across the continent who applied with their article manuscripts on MIASA-related topics that they wish to publish in peer-reviewed journals.

During the writing workshop, problem areas in writing were first identified. Other topics included the identification of research gaps in the literature and the conceptualisation of one’s own contribution to filling these gaps. Different publication strategies were also discussed. The workshop was characterised by a high degree of practical relevance and offered the mentees plenty of time each day for group and individual discussions to improve their own manuscripts with the mentors and editors. To this end, each mentor was assigned a group of mentees with similar research interests. With the help of breakout sessions, the postdocs worked specifically on their article manuscripts. Each day, participants were given a specific task to complete in order to improve the quality of their work. On the last day of the workshop, the participants were assigned responsibility partners to ensure that the work was completed and submitted for publication. Each of the mentors/editors freely chose to oversee this process as well.

Even with this intensive input during the five days of the workshop, publishing in international peer-reviewed journals remains a challenge for early career researchers in Africa. For this reason, the mentors and the coordinator in Frankfurt continue to monitor the mentees’ publication efforts after the workshop and try to help where possible. Of the first two cohorts of mentees, half have managed to publish their articles, while others have been rejected and have submitted their articles to other journals. This reflects one of the main benefits of the writing schools, which is to learn how to deal with discouragement and to remain positive and confident about one’s own scientific output.

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Marko Scholze (February 19, 2024). Writing Schools: Enhancing the Academic Writing Skills of Early Career Researchers from Africa. Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2025 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/2596