Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur,organised a one day workshop on ‘Editing and Publication for Research Papers’ on the 12th of April 2013. Institute of Management, Jaipur conducted the workshop toacquaint participants with research paper writing styles. Numerous pitfalls in the writing of research papers were addressed in this workshop at Jaipuria Jaipur, and the best ways to avoid these pitfalls were discussed by the faculty members.

“Over the years, publication and presentation of research papers have become as important as the research itself,” elaborated Ms.Payal Kumar, who was specially brought in for the purpose. Ms. Payal Kumarcomes with rich, hands-on experience, having headed the Editorial, Production and Designing departments of SAGE India Publications Pvt. Ltd. as Vice President, Editorial and Production.In this capacity, Ms.Payal Kumar spearheaded the production of 120 academic books. Her team was also responsible for publishing 60 journals a year.

Ms.Kumar mainlydiscussed research paper writing styles,such as APA, MLA and Chicago Manual of Style, in great detail. She also explained to her audience how to give citations in the text and write references in the research papers. She elaborated upon the mistakes commonly committed by researchers or faculty members in writing the research papers, and how to avoid them. The last two sessions were focused on learning by doing. In the first activity session, an exercise was given to discover the faults in a given text and references, followed by a series of objective-type questions to be answered by the participants in a ‘True’ or ‘False’ format. In the second activity session, three set different research papers on the same research topic were discussed. The three versions of the same research paper were at the three stages of publication – from the first communication till the publication of the research paper in the journal. Through this exercise,participants got a practical look at how research papers should be dispatched,what the usual mistakes found by the reviewers were and how to respond to them.

All faculty members of Jaipuria Jaipur – along with the three librarians and the research assistant – attended this workshop, which was coordinated by Dr. Shailesh Rastogi.

“This is a highly specialised workshop, aimed at demystifying the presentation part of the research,” pointed out Dr. ShaileshRastogi, who was the coordinator for this workshop on Editing and Publication for Research Papers. “Jaipuria Institute of Management has a sterling record of capacity building workshops for its faculty members. We believe in investing in such niche workshop to help take the researchers’ minds off peripheral issues like the format, the dos and don’ts, the structure of the research document, etc., and help them focus completely on the research itself.”

Faculty members of Jaipuria Jaipur who had participated in this highly engaging workshop were unanimous in their appreciation of the initiative. Many felt that such a workshop has taken quite a big load off their shoulders by establishing clearly the protocol for the publication of research papers.