How to Write a Good Story?? 10 useful Tips from an Editor of A well-known international Journal in conservation

I was so fortunate to have a rare opportunity in attending a "Writing for Conservation Workshop" organised by Conservation Leadership Program (CLP, Thanks to Kiragu Mwangi) in Bogor. The best thing of this workshop is we were trained by a very nice and professional person who works as a Chief Editor of ORYX, a well-known international journal in conservation, Dr. Martin Fisher.

There were 20 people attending this workshop and they come from various organizations that focus on nature conservation such as Burung Indonesia (Birdlife International Indonesia), Flora Fauna International (FFI), Zoological Society of London (ZSL), World Conservation Society (WCS), Sumatran Tiger Conservation Forum (Forum Harimau Kita) and some researchers from several universities such as Bogor Agricultural University, Padjajaran University, Bandung Institute of Technology, University of Indonesia, and Andi Djemma University in South Sulawesi.

Writing for Conservation Workshop on 16-20 Feb 2015
(Photo by Kiragu Mwangi, Birdlife International)

I believe that this kind of workshop or training is very important for us as Indonesian researchers to enhance our writing skills in order to let the World know of what we are currently doing to reach the conservation objectives. Dr. Mirza D. Kusrini presented a very good presentation of her perspective in writing for international publication. Generally, she stated that we have so much information with big amount of data from the field and sometime we have difficulties to publish it to have a wider impact. Consequently, many foreigner scientists have been thinking that we have done nothing. 

"We are not alone", a nice sentence comes from Dr. Martin to emphasize that Indonesian people are not alone on this mater. Many people around the World have the same problem especially those who English are not their first language.In fact, even English people have the same problem, this is because writing is a skill or an Art that we need to learn to better communicate of our findings or studies.

From left to right (Dr. Mirza, Dr. Martin Fisher,
and my self)

Enough talking, let just start the tips and tricks!!!

According to Dr. Martin Fisher, writing a scientific article is similar with writing a poem that has particular structure. This means in writing article, we have to started with Introduction and finished with references, not the other way around. He stated that "the important thing is how to write in a clear and simple interesting article to attract many people around the world to read". The readers are not limited to only English native speakers, but also to those who English are their third or fourth language. 

Ready to write?

Just bear in mind that "Writing a good story" is fun. It just needs our patience and some skills in doing it. But before writing, just make sure that you have all the data and materials you need including data analysis. And then lets rock!.

Source

1. Write the manuscript when you have just done the field work and data analysis. 

It is very important to do it as soon as possible in order to write something fresh from your brain, or at least you have wrote every detail of your research in a field note during the field work. It's very useful to organize the information or data to make it easy to write the report or manuscript. In addition, some journals will reject a manuscript if the data is too old to publish and becomes less informative.

Akankah perluasan areal perkebunan berdampak terhadap perluasan habitat bagi spesies kura-kura atau labi-labi??

I was holding a trapped soft shell turtle

Deforestasi telah menjadi penyebab utama hilangnya keanekaragan flora dan fauna saat ini. Secara umum, Konversi hutan alam menjadi lahan perkebunan dan pertanian sangat berdampak kepada berkurangnya keanekaragaman hayati. Berbagai study telah dilakukan untuk memperkuat alasan mengenai dampak negatif perubahan lansekap hutan menjadi kawasan perkebunan atau pertanian seperti perkebunan kelapa sawit, perkebunan karet, kelapa, dan kawasan monokultur lainnya terhadap kekayaan flora dan fauna. Akan tetapi, beberapa penelitian juga menginformasikan mengenai beberapa kegiatan industri perkayuan dan perkebunan juga dapat menyediakan habitat tambahan bagi satwa liar termasuk satwa yang terancam punah. Sebagai contoh, (Brockerhoff et al., 2008) menyatakan bahwa konversi hutan alam baik primer maupun sekunder menjadi hutan tanaman industri berpotensi membantu upaya konservasi dalam hal menyedikan habitat hutan yang kompleks bagi satwa liar, sebagai kawasan penyangga untuk meminimalisir efek tepi (edge effects), serta dapat menyediakan koridor bagi satwa liar, terutama bila dibandingkan dengan perubahan tutupan lahan lainnya. Pernyataan ini telah menjadi perdebatan dikalangan ilmuwan di dunia. Sehingga, berbagai bukti untuk mendukung atau mematahkan pernyataan tersebut sangat diharapkan.

Beberapa waktu lalu, saat kami melakukan penelitian mengenai konservasi kura-kura dan labi-labi di Taman Nasional Berbak dan sekitarnya (Lubis, 2014a), kami dihadapkan pertanyaan yang sama; apakah konversi hutan alam menjadi kawasan perkebunan berdampak positif terhadap habitat dan populasi reptil di kawasan tersebut. Kawasan Taman Nasional Berbak (Gambar 1) memang dikenal sebagai kawasan ekositem hutan rawa gambut terluas dikawasan Asia Tenggara yang memiliki keanekaragam hayati yang tinggi yang juga menjadi habitat penting bagi beberapa satwa liar yang terancam punah seperti Harimau Sumata (Sumatran Tiger) (Lubis, 2014b). Berdasarkan McCord and Pritchard (2002), kawasan ini juga dikenal menjadi habitat Labi-Labi Bintang (Chitra Chitra Javanensis) yang termasuk dalam list Endangered species serta kura-kura dan labi-labi jenis lainnya. Oleh karena itu, perubahan tutupan hutan rawa gambut di kawasan ini dapat mengakibatkan hilangnya habitat penting bagi satwa liar khususnya herpetofauna yang berakibat pada penurunan populasi yang pada akhirnya menyebabkan kepunahan massal.