Yogyakarta – Thursday, October 17, 2019. A total of 119 students of the Master of Science program, Faculty of Economics and Business, Gadjah Mada University in the third and fourth semester participated in the activity titled “Writing of Scientific/Academic/ Professional Works: Principles and Aspects of Language”. This activity is part of the Researcher’s Enrichment (REACH) Program. The REACH program is a soft skills improvement program delivered at Academic Direction for New Students. Prof. Dr. Suwardjono, M.Sc., professor of the Department of Accounting FEB UGM, was present as the main speaker at this activity. Over a span of two hours, participants are invited to understand that writing scientific papers requires technical knowledge of writing, interests, and strategies so that the results will provide high benefits to the intended readers and provide satisfaction and pride for the writer.
This method of delivering material by a professor from Kent State University, USA is somewhat unique, students were previously given reading material with the main theme “Writing Skills and Reasoning” with three articles entitled; (i) Typographic aspects in writing scientific/academic/ professional works ”; (ii) “The Role and Dignity of Indonesian Language in Science Development”; and (iii) “Writing of Scientific/Academic/Professional Works: Principles, Language Aspects, and Typographic Aspects”. The entire session took place dynamically with discussion techniques to discuss the importance of mastering language for effective writing in accordance with its level (academic dialect). The technique provides a broad space for participants to convey a questions, ideas, and rebuttals.
The professor who received the Best Performance Lecturer award conveys the role of Indonesian in the development of science and technology and as a means of intelligence of the Indonesian people in the globalization era. Academic and scientific papers demand the accuracy of the language because the work must be distributed to those who are not directly dealing with the author both at the time the article was published and in the years after that. Furthermore, foreign languages are clearly things that cannot be abandoned due to the scarcity of Indonesian-language scientific books. However, the main point is “someone will be able to master foreign languages well only if they master their own language (Indonesian) well too”. Thus, it is the duty of academics to provide reinforcement for the use of Indonesian in scientific writings.
Furthermore, ideas alone are not enough for someone to be able to write, there are other conditions that must be possessed such as: having a unique idea, a plan to write the idea, target audience and delivery goals, strong motivations and goals, ability and wealth of language, skills to express ideas in writing, the ability and the pleasure of reading appropriate sources, mastering writing technology and supporting software. In addition, the writer needs to consider the readability aspect of the work. The readability aspect is related to the visual comfort level of the print so that the reader is durable enough to read because the eyes do not experience fatigue. Print readability is determined by the format, arrangement, font type, and print face layout.
The whole session was closed with a photo with Prof. Dr. Suwardjono, M.Sc., and all participants. (RP)