Scholarly writing and publishing among
younger African researchers have been under considerable
strain for some time now. The reasons for this state of
affairs are multifaceted but are uniformly connected to the
prolonged crises which the continent’s higher education
system has been experiencing for the last two decades.
Remedying the problem has become urgent in order to ensure
that the presence of the African voice in the production of
knowledge about the continent and other regions of the world
is assured at the highest level of quality. As an
institution with a long track record in scholarly
publishing, and which has a mandate to project African
voices through a variety of programmes, CODESRIA has
increasingly been concerned with the deterioration of the
quality of academic writing among the younger generation of
scholars who have borne the brunt of the crises of the last
two decades in African higher education. The Council has
been particularly well-placed to track the magnitude of the
problem through the regular assessment it carries out of
contributions received from across Africa for consideration
for publication in any one of the nine journals in its
stable, the applications that are submitted for
consideration for admission into its various training
programmes, the regular feedback it solicits from sister
institutions on the strengths and weaknesses of scholarly
essays which they have occasion regularly to review, and the
gaps in foundational training in the university system that
currently affect capacities to muster a written argument,
project an informed point of view, develop a
presentational/analytic style, cite references correctly,
and adequately prepare manuscripts for consideration for
publication in scholarly outlets. It was with a view to
remedying this situation that CODESRIA decided to launch its
scholarly writing programme targeted at younger third and
fourth generation African scholars.
For more information on the
workshop please
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For more information on the
workshop's framework and target content please
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Workshop on Writing for Scholarly Publishing 2009
