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Book tells Indonesian researchers how to get their work published

February 23, 2006

Adnan.thumb.JPGA lecturer in Indonesian at The University of New England has published a book that will help Indonesian researchers gain a higher profile in scholarly international journals.

Zifirdaus Adnan (pictured here) has made a detailed study of the style and structure of English-language research papers, and has developed strategies that will help Indonesian authors conform to those patterns when writing in English for international journals.

The book, "Merebut Hati Audiens Internasional" ("Winning an International Audience"), written by Mr Adnan in collaboration with Mrs Indrawati Zifirdaus from Curtin University in Perth, is the first of its kind in Indonesian. Its publication is in response to an acute need among Indonesian academics, who are finding that the time and money they spend on research projects are not matched by publication outcomes. Mr Adnan said researchers had been coming under increasing criticism from the Indonesian Department of Higher Education for this reason.

He explained that the problem was "more one of structure than of language". "While the editors of English-language journals are fairly tolerant of deficiencies in grammar and spelling," he said, "they do require authors to demonstrate clearly - through the structure and content of their papers - that their research results represent an important new contribution to work in the field. In the international (English) academic tradition, this usually involves a critical review of relevant previous studies."

Mr Adnan’s research has shown that Indonesian authors often fail to meet this requirement. He believes the reasons for this are partly cultural – including a reluctance to identify deficiencies in earlier research. "One author actually told me he thought it was unethical to criticise the work of a more senior academic," he said. "Related to this is a commonly-held belief among academics that such criticism could backfire on them."

"These attitudes specific to academics can be seen in the context of a national literary culture that is still in the process of transition from ‘oral’ to ‘written’," he continued.

Using a wide range of examples, the new book follows the publication process through from the writing of a well-structured article to making final amendments based on referees’ comments. Published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama (one of Indonesia’s main publishing companies), it was launched late last year during a national conference on English studies at Atma Jaya University in Jakarta.

Mr Adnan, a specialist in patterns of academic writing, based his book on a study of 63 articles by researchers in the disciplines of Education, Linguistics, and Sociology / Political Science. In addition, he interviewed three of the authors in each discipline, and the editors of several Indonesian and international journals. The research also forms the basis of his PhD thesis, submitted for examination earlier this year.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at February 23, 2006 04:11 PM