Yogyakarta, 5 Maret 2020—Student Research and Creative Corner (SRCC) FISIPOL UGM held a writing class that discussed about scientific research. The class that took place in building BA 205 FISIPOL UGM was taught by Tauchid Komara Yudha, the writer of international journals, Suara Mahasiswa, and Republika. With Yudha, the evening class discussed how writer’s mindset must be built, especially in the case of scientific paper writing in social field.
SRCC itself is one of the student’s activity units in FISIPOL UGM. SRCC focused on developing student writing competences, reasoning skill, and competition. “The initial formation of SRCC was motivated by the lack of organization to do consolidation for faculty student creativity week,” Riza Nur Pratama, one of SRCC organizers, explained. He also explained, this event was the first class in 2020. But, for the future SRCC will try to make this kind of class become a monthly program.
Starting his lecture, Yudha gave motivation to the participants to not be scared to write journals. “A myth which said that international journals can only be written by a professor is a big lie,” he added. He believes that everyone has the same opportunity, as long as their papers actually have very good quality. That quality is highly related to the writer’s mindset in making the paper.
Yudha said that most of the problems that Indonesian writers faced is being ‘too local’ in writing. He believed that before writing, the writer got to have a ‘global thinking’. “We can take a small case study, but how that case study could represent the global condition,” he explained. That ‘global thinking’ is also a solution to problems about what the writer thought interesting might not be so for other people.
Next, Yudha discussed the importance of justification in writing a case. The justification is about the writer’s reasons in choosing a case. According to him, a case that subjectively interesting is important so the writer can explore further. “But, when we talk about scientific papers, a case that subjectively interesting is not enough,” he stressed. So that the case that were written could represent something that is global, because writers also have to pay attention about what the readers would think.
Not less important than that, Yudha also explained about the importance of paying attention to the contents of preface in scientific paper. He believed that a good preface is the one that is straight to the point, means that it ables to explain the research purpose directly. “After that, then explain the reasons why (writer) chose the case, what is the urgency, then the research,” he said. Yudha explained those things so that the writer’s thoughts will not be inseparable from the other people’s historical experiences.
Yudha continued, the most important part from a background is to convince that what is written has scientific contributions and novelty with the related study. Other than that, a chosen case should reflect the field of study that the writer’s focused in. “Journal’s editor should pay attention to both of them, contribution and novelty,” he explained. Thus, Yudha suggested that writers could focus on particular scientific fields.
“Truth is a consistent lie,” Yudha explained about how the western research become a reference for the college students. He explained that repeated publication would be recognized as the factual knowledge that was believed to be true. And so, the western theory becomes the reference because its publication can be consistent.
Moreover, it is also important for the writer to know whether their study is new or not. A writer must be able to review study. According to Yudha, a writer does not have to review in detail. A good review is writing with the same data, but with a different point of view. So, for him, a writer must be able to understand the data and to analyze the cause and effect. “When it comes to writing, do not be assumptive. Because the result will be just a guess,” he said.