On Monday, July 23, 2018 from 9am to 11am, the Thammasat University Library invites TU students, researchers, lecturers, and staff to a special seminar, How to Publish Your Articles/Books with Cambridge University Press. The seminar will be presented by Mr. Joe C. H. Ng, a social sciences acquistions editor at Cambridge University Press (CUP). It will be held in the Information Literacy Room on the Underground 1 level of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus. CUP is the oldest publishing house in the world. It was officially created by a decree of King Henry VIII almost 500 years ago. CUP also ranks as the second-largest university press in the world, after Oxford University Press. The mission of CUP:
To further the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
Present in over 40 countries, CUP publishes academic journals, monographs, reference works, textbooks, and English-language teaching and learning publications. Mr. Ng mainly works as an editor with books in the fields of law, economics, business and management. He has developed and produced the following information products meant for Asia:
- printed books and e-books (higher ed, academic textbooks and monographs, reference texts)
- printed and online journals (Science, Technology, Medical, Professional)
- customized course guides
His skills and knowledge relate to
- project management and scheduling
- copy editing and proofreading
- academic publishing workflow and processes
- information management principles
- information organization principles
- search and retrieval of information resources for users
Having worked as an acquisitions editor in the social sciences for CUP since 2014, based in Singapore, Mr. Ng graduated with a master of science degree from of Nanyang Technological University, a highly ranked research university in Singapore. That degree followed studies at the National University of Singapore, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English. In addition, he received an advanced diploma in computer studies from the Informatics Computer School, Singapore. He is a member of the Library Association of Singapore, among other professional associations.
The goal of the seminar is to guide researchers to internationalize their research output. The challenge for Thai students and ajarns when writing in English for publication, that the research may be read by people overseas. Thai English usage may confuse readers in other countries. There are also ways of organizing and presenting research that make it especially useful for an international group of readers. This is the type of advice which Mr. Ng will likely offer listeners, since he frequently travels around Asia giving presentations and seminars, and is familiar with the ways English academic writing is presented in the ASEAN community and Asia in general.
As anyone knows who has tried to have a research paper or thesis published, the effort can take a lot of time and energy. Mr. Ng also aims to familiarize TU researchers with guidelines and procedures for writing and submitting papers and manuscripts. Sometimes students who prepare academic research do not devote enough time to strategy about how to win approval from editors. Since Mr. Ng knows editors on a personal basis, and has editorial experience himself, he can inform TU students and ajarns about the way to present research to make it likelier to be accepted for publication. Also he can explain why some formats for organizing research may not win approval from CUP editors.
Mr. Ng also intends to update researchers on publishing trends within the international scholarly community. This is also useful for our students, who may not have had the opportunity to seeing the research work done at universities overseas , and how it is published. Among potential subjects for the seminar on July 23:
• Publication ethics for researchers
• The peer review process and journal editorial decisions
• Selecting a journal for your paper
• General tips for writing scientific papers
• Tips on using Cambridge Core for your research
• Author resources from Cambridge
• Introduction to Open Access publishing
• Tips on identifying predatory Open Access journals
• Publishing your book with Cambridge
Not all of these important matters can be included in a single presentation. In choosing which journal to send research to for possible publication, students generally rely on good advice from their ajarns. Do they always take the time to go to the TU Library to look at some different issues of the journal in printed form or read them on a database? If we have seen a journal and have some idea of the sort of articles that appear in it, we will better understand if our own research fits in with the general trend of the publication. If our work does not resemble in format or subject matter other articles in a journal, it may be more time-efficient to send our work to a different journal.
Mr. Ng is eager to see proposals for academic publications – scholarly works, handbooks, and graduate textbooks – which are about Asia, either a comparative overview of the region or an in-depth study of a particular nation or area. Members of the TU community may wish to consult Mr. Ng’s professional homepage, which offers details about the sort of materials he is looking for as an editor. The CUP website contains similar information about editors in other subjects. Mr Ng writes on the CUP website:
For law, I welcome submissions of proposals for scholarly and reference works that have a strong focus on Asia (comparatively, contextually, or of a theoretical nature) across all fields of legal and interdisciplinary research. I also manage the ASEAN Integration Through Law series, the outcome of a research project by the Centre for International Law, NUS.
In economics, I invite authors based in Asia to submit proposals for graduate textbooks and digital learning resources across all the subfields of economics.
For business and management, I am keen to expand our program of textbooks and course books on Asian businesses and markets, in the areas of human resource management, family business, entrepreneurship, responsible leadership, cross-cultural management, corporate governance, technology and operations management, emerging markets, strategic marketing management, luxury and brand management, consumer research, marketing research methods, business analytics, and digital marketing.
I also manage the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy series, which welcomes works that compare public policies in two or more cases, as well as theoretically informed critical case studies that test more general theories, and works that compare policy development over time. For Cambridge Elements in Public Policy, queries and submissions should be sent to the General Editors.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)