Tuesday, December 20, 2005

New Zealand Science History



A new site for commentary on New Zealand Science History has been added to our Cooperative weblog community.

By highlighting the efforts and writings of previous scientific generations in New Zealand, we hope that this weblog will complement the present role of the Research Cooperative NZ, which is to promote interest and higher standards in current and future scientific writing.

As the above picture by Donovan Govan indicates (courtesy Wikimedia Commons, 2005), the field of New Zealand Science History is fairly wide open. There may be a few fences to cross, and the occasional angry bull, but there is no telling what might turn up in some distant paddock or bit of forest.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Volunteer Match

The following description of our Cooperative has been submitted to Volunteermatch.org in an attempt to raise awareness of the volunteering aspect among potential volunteers around the world.

The Research Cooperative

A collection of online forums open to volunteers with language and writing skills, and to research writers and organisations around the world who require help to get their work published. This is NOT intended for ghostwriting services, but for legitimate and transparent language services. Volunteers may identify themselves as learners, experienced or professional. The Cooperative encourages international volunteer collaboration to raise the standards of academic research writing in all countries. The Cooperative recognises the important role of language services in helping to build academic and research communities at the local and international levels. The Cooperative also reocgnises the need to build communities that reach across economic and linguistic boundaries, so that poor and wealthy nations alike can benefit from research.

For listing on the Volunteer Match website, the following title and statement were provided:

Volunteer language and writing services

Join our online forums to provide support for researchers and research organisations around the world, regardless of their economic and linguistic circumstances. Volunteers may be learners, experienced or professional as editors, translators, proof-readers, website checkers, illustrators and so on. By volunteering, you can gain experience, meet people with similar research interests, and perhaps help raise standards in academic research and research publishing internationally. Volunteer for any topic of interest to yourself - from archeology to zoology (A to Z)!

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Greetings and best wishes for the Year End.

SideLines, December 2005

Our thoughts are especially with those who have received the rough end of the stick, through natural or social disaster.

As a gift to present and future Co-op members, we have created a new family of blogs. These are centered around a blog called "The Research Cooperative Community" (see www.researchco-op.blogspot.com). The subsidiary sites are all free, courtesy of blogger.com, and could be useful for individuals, groups, or companies that wish to promote or discuss research writing or language services online.

Blogger.com provides free hosting for simple blog sites that are adequate for many purposes. The sites are easy to use because the instructions are all online, and because blogging systems have improved rapidly in recent years. The system offered by blogger.com is highly refined and is designed for first-time users. No previous internet experience is needed to set up your own site.

What I have done, in effect, is reserve a goodly number of relevant addresses for the use of Co-op members. Since no cost is involved (other than my time), these can be maintained indefinitely on the zero budget of our Co-op.

The new blogsites are listed in the menu at www.researchco-op.blogspot.com (visit the blogsite and the links menu to see them). If you have registered at our main Co-op site (www.researchco-op.co.nz) to use the forums, then you are automatically a Co-op member and can apply, by email to me, to use one of

For editors, translators and others who have limited financial resources, or who are trying to get themselves known and established in their chosen field, these free blog sites may be very attractive. Because they are linked to the main Co-op website, they form a family closely-related sites that has the potential to become highly visible on the internet.

Do not expect these sites to be highly visible immediately - their visibility will depend on the combined efforts of all persons involved, over time (for members with suitable financial resources, a single blog could be given greater visibility through paid advertising).

Please visit our new Network site, consider, and apply! If you have questions about how to use the sites, or what can be done with them, then ask me, or use the online Help system at blogger.com.

Thanks, Peter J. Matthews (for The Research Cooperative), with the assistance of Jules Verne of the Wikimedia Commons, 2005.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Welcome

Through a combination of websites and blogs, the Research Cooperative network provides online support for academic research and research writing, editing, translation, proofreading, web design, illustration, and other work. The present blog links our network and serves as an archive for the SideLines monthly commentary at our first site, The Research Cooperative NZ (see menu at left)

The present blog will eventually provide the following:

(1) ) an email list subscription service for registered members of the Research Cooperative.

(3) an archival service for The Research Cooperative NZ

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Support Universities in Pakistan and India

SideLines, November 2005

Three to four million people were made homeless in the South Asian Earthquake just one month ago. In Pakistan, entire villages and more than 7,000 schools were destroyed.
Local universities in the region will feel the impact of this earthquake for decades, and many are involved in the immediate relief efforts. If you have colleagues in Pakistan, please contact them to offer help in some way. The Research Cooperative is attempting to collate information on affected universities in Pakistan, and the relief efforts being carried out by universities in that country.

If you can offer any relevant information, please contact Peter at the address below. See also our pages for this subject at http://researchco-op.net/universitiespk.html

Contact The Research Cooperative (NZ): info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz ).

Monday, October 03, 2005

An evolving plan

SideLines. October 2005

Higher education, academic research, and applied agricultural research have all been important for society and the economy in New Zealand. While there has been much debate about how universities and other research institutions should be managed, there has been fairly consistent support - across political parties and social groups - for maintaining strong education and research systems in New Zealand.

As a result, there are probably a relatively large number of people in many different professions who have sufficient experience to be either research writers, or to offer language services of one sort or another.

It is a founding premise of this research cooperative that many people's talents - internationally - are underused and under-recognised, to the detriment of good communication. This may be especially true in New Zealand, where the number of obvious job opportunities does not match the large number of graduates emerging from universities.

There is no particular reason why there should be any close match - a very predictable world would also be a world with few opportunities and little interest.... but it does mean that a special effort to promote the Research Cooperative in New Zealand may be useful.

In the near future this website, at .co.nz, will be re-orientated with a focus on New Zealand (while remaining internationally accessible). At the same time, an international website, at .org, will be developed, using a different computer operating system. Users will be invited to use either or both websites.

The main difference between the two websites will be in how they are promoted in order to attract new members and the ettenti0on of research writers. More later, as news comes to hand on this evolving plan...

Contact The Research Cooperative (NZ): info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz ).

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Advertising costs - information needed

SideLines, September 2005

In order to reach research writers more effectively, we need to advertise our cooperative in research newsletters and journals worldwide, in multiple languages. For a simple text advertisement of 20 words, how much would it cost to advertise in journals you (the reader of this advertisment) are familiar with? Please investigate the costs in journals you regard as interesting, and send the information to Peter:

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Science writer responds...

SideLines, August 2005

In the Weekend Beat column of the Asahi Shimbun (English version, 30-31st July 2005), K. Fujimoto reported on Keiko Yanagisawa, a science writer living in Tokyo: 'Yanigasawa feels there are endless things a scientist must talk about, yet laments that there are not enough writers'.

We can only agree!

Co-op contact: info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz

Sunday, July 03, 2005

In transit

SideLines, July 2005
Greetings from Terminal 1, Singapore Airport. Free internet access is provided for weary travellers in this sprawling aeropolis. It is a nice thought, but we have to stand at the screens, and it might be better if we could all have couches for a quiet kip. This is no place for work.

Co-op contact: info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz

Friday, June 03, 2005

Own-goal in the academic field?

SideLines, June 2005

Many academic meetings In Japan are organised in haste with invitations being sent out at the last minute to local and international participants. This haste often reflects budget-balancing efforts in administrative departments around the end of each financial year. The academic organisers do not know exactly what money will be available until very shortly before their spending deadline.

The result is that many participants do not have time to prepare full papers for presentation, and this in turn means that the work of writing, editing and translation must continue after the meeting in order to produce a set of publishable papers.
The whole process is rather back-to-front, and not cost-effective. More importantly perhaps, it gives the Japanese academic world a bad image locally and internationally, and makes it less likely that good people will be found to attend academic meetings.

Research is not a just-in-time factory process, and the presentation and publication of academic results is not like putting food into cans to fill orders for a supermarket chain. A lot of good research is done in Japan, and there are many good meetings. It is a pity that the funds that are available cannot be managed more flexibly and efficiently.

If you have had any experience of this, as a Japanese or as a guest in Japan, please tell me. I would like to collect some relevant reports (contrary reports are welcome). Please contact:

Dr Peter Matthews, Research Develepment Center, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka 565-8511, Japan (email pjm at gol dot com).

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Research writing in New Zealand

SideLines, May 2005

Research writers - and especially academic research writers - are often unwilling to part with money for help with editing or translation, or do not have anything other than their own pocket money to pay for it. If writers are lucky, journal referees will do some editing, but this partly explains why journals have trouble finding good referees. Referees do not want to lose time reading rubbish.

The end result is that academic editing payments are less on average than commercial payments. Fortunately, the volunteer spirit of many researchers, and promises of mutual assistance, mean that most research papers are given at least some reading by a second person, before going to a journal.

Volunteer and mutual assistance have long been important New Zealand research. Through good teaching, volunteer efforts, and a sense of professional obligation, our small research population has been maintained relatively high standards of research, writing, and publishing - despite very limited budgets for these activities.

Research writers need help in a very wide range of subjects, and there is also a general need - worldwide - for paid professional editing and translation. Volunteer and professional editors or translators can usually find work that is close to their own interests, and valuable for their professional development.

When a good match is made, then the writer, editor or translator, and reader all benefit. The aim of this website is to help make the triple benefits more common.

Contact: info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Academic societies in crisis

SideLines, April 2005

In November 2004, the Business Center for Academic Societies Japan (BCASJ) was declared bankrupt (International Herald Tribune, 26.11.04). One role of the Center was to collect membership fees used by academic societies for their conferences and publications. This financial crisis has affected some 300 academic societies in Japan, and may have continuing consequences for academic writers, editors and translators (fewer publishing opportunities, fewer editing contracts?). It may also be a wake-up call for improvements in academic publishing and distribution. Please send comments on this matter to:

Peter Matthews email: info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Reaching out to research writers

SideLines, March 2005

Help is needed to encourage research writers to make active use of our forums. Anyone can help by mentioning this site to writers they know, or by posting notices about the site on university noticeboards (any city, any country). Copies of notices prepared for this purpose can be obtained by contacting Peter Matthews at the email address below.
Thank you.

Peter Matthews email: info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

SideLines, February 2005

Research writing conference

A Conference on Research Writing in Japan was held at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, 15-16th March, 2003. The conference report, a fully edited book published by the museum, can be obtained for free by contacting Peter Matthews at the email address below.
See http://www.researchco-op.net/conference.html for details about the conference and publication.

Peter Matthews email: info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz



Photo: an 11th C. Syriac text (Wikimedia Commons, 2005). Maybe the maker needed a layout editor.