Prof. Iain Taylor visited IHME and held a scientific writing and editing workshop

      In November, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE) was honored to invite Dr. Iain Taylor, Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia (UBC) of Canada, also the Associate Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Mountain Science (JMS), to visit this institute and held a workshop on scientific paper writing and journal editing.

      Prof. Taylor has been involved in scientific publishing first with the Canadian Journal of Botany and with the journal Cellulose. From 1991-2006 he served as Assistant Editor-in-chief of the NRC of Canada Research Press. He is currently the editor in-chief of the UBC Botanical Garden Journal, Davidsonia, and serves for the editorial boards of Canadian Pharmacists’ Journal and the BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management. He is a former organizer of the Council of Science Editors Short Course for Journal Editors. He teaches and lectures widely on best practices for editorial processes and is the founder of the UBC editors’ network.

     During his staying in Chengdu from November 7th to 18th, Professor Taylor had a warm talk with Prof. Deng Wei, the Director of IMHE, and Prof. Wei Fangqiang, the Vice Director of IMHE. He also had a detailed discussion with Prof. Cui Peng, the editor in chief, Prof. Qiu Qunlian, executive editor in chief, and the scientific editors and editorial staffs of the JMS about how to improve journal quality and international influence.

     During a five and half days scientific writing and journal editing workshop, Professor Taylor gave the editors and Ph D students and young scientists a total of 7 sessions concerning about how to prepare and submit scientific manuscript for international journals. He gave detailed guides on how to write a research paper, and deeply discussed the ethics of scientists in preparing scientific papers such as the authorship and acknowledgement, and the ethical obligations of reviewers and editors, such as prompt response to authors and fair treatments to all authors around the world. He required the participants write their own papers during the workshop period and sent their manuscripts to each other for pre-review, he said, which was a very good way to improve manuscript quality...

     Several Ph. D students and scientists said that they had benefited a lot about how to plan their research work and present their research results in writing manuscripts for international journals. The editors of the JMS also had broaden their horizons on how to operate academic journals more efficiently.

 

Prof. Iain Taylor on the workshop discussion