ABSTRACT
To compete domestically and internationally, Brazilian postgraduate programs face growing pressures to publish research. As a result, many departments include publication as a degree fulfillment requirement. For many years, the Brazilian federal and state governments provided financial incentives to help “internationalize” research publication, by apportioning funds which could be disbursed by universities to help their student and faculty researchers pay for outsourced English language editing and Portuguese-to-English translation services. However, following a study conducted at Universidade Federal do Paraná in 2015, two important issues were identified: 1) students were being pressured by their programs to publish, yet rarely received specific guidance on their actual writing, and 2) many manuscripts that had been outsourced for translation/editing work were being rejected not because of language issues per se, but for other global concerns (e.g., genre expectations, unfamiliarity with publishing practices). The recognition of this gap in student support led to the creation of Brazil’s first postgraduate-focused writing center, specifically designed to facilitate the socialization of students and novice scholars into scholarly publication, as well as a unique multidisciplinary ERPP course. In both cases, integration of conversation between faculty advisor and student advisee was systematically incorporated, with a view to fostering mentorship. This chapter presents details about those initiatives, focusing particularly on the ways in which mentorship emerged. Also discussed are aspects of mentorship that were limited or relatively absent, and what is still yet to learn about making use of such initiatives to optimize their effect.
