|
|
| Volume 49, Number 1, Spring 2000 |
by Rick Borchelt
With our traditional annual meeting mentoring program going like gangbusters, but remarkably well in hand by Mariette DiChristina and Kelli Whitlock, the NASW Education Committee has been scratching its collective head about a suitable retired-chairman task for me. And we think we've hit on one--scaling up our success with traditional mentoring to a new program on the World Wide Web.
With the support and assistance of NASW Cybrarian Bob Finn, this summer we'll be launching a mentoring Web site for student members and regular members who have been with the Association for up to two years. Each month, we'll accept several short submissions from such members, to be posted-with the author's name removed-to an internal NASW Web site for review. Then we'll ask two NASW veteran members each month-grizzled oldsters with the scars to prove their mettle in literary battle, but who still have a little spark left in them-to review and comment on the pieces, and post those reviews with the articles for the benefit of both the writers and other NASW members. Since nobody knows the identity of the members writing the pieces, the criticism can be provided without embarrassing a new writer out of the field. And since the comments are posted publicly for other NASW members to see, we can all learn a little from the editing and critique skills of our master professionals.
Submitted pieces will be manageable in size (around 1,000 words) and-we hope-will span the range of our profession from daily print journalism to radio and television broadcast to press releases to Internet products.
From time to time, we'll also post samples of exemplary writing, including science-writing-prize winners, for similar comment and feedback. Our plans also include an ask-a-mentor component, with questions and answers posted on the site.
Our hope, long-term, is to build an archive of criticism and feedback on real novice submissions that can serve as guidance and virtual editing for new NASW members. We'd like to grow this part of the NASW Web site into a living mentoring resource for our junior members, to include other writing resources and professional development opportunities of interest to new members of the science-writing profession.
Wish us well on this new endeavor, and look for the new site sometime this summer. Meantime, it's not too early to volunteer as a virtual mentor-working press, freelance, and PIO members all are encouraged to serve as reviewer-of-the-month. Drop us a line at mentor@nasw.org to express an interest in helping with the project.
Rick Borchelt is a senior research associate at Vanderbilt
University and a member of the NASW board.