In my previous post I said I discovered that I loved reviewing scientific papers and that I thought of making it a career choice. Although it is true that everyone should find their calling, it is also true that sometimes that calling doesn’t pay the bills. More often than not, in fact, becoming a scientific journal editor goes through a lot of volunteering, internships and the like. The applicants are many, the jobs few, and the good journals fewer. That’s probably why a lot of researchers who want to do this kind of job are fine with starting at nearly unknown journals just for the sake of gaining experience and hopefully advance later.
I went for the latter, except for the fact that I did not pick an obscure journal for an internship…rather I was “invited” by a decent journal to be an editor, one of the thousands academic editors they have on board. I of course jumped at the invitation, because I, too, saw it as an opportunity to build on, although it meant to work for free… A LOT of work for free, actually. But I was in a somewhat ideal situation: stuck in Sicily and without a job, I thought I could do something to keep busy while there. I had time to do all I wanted, for as long as the unprecedented situation required, so I decided to give it a go.
I was happy to receive the invitation, so now I am one of them and I cover two different roles for two journals of the same publishing group. One role is topic editor: I proposed a research topic I’d like to be highlighted, and after organizing various things the call for papers is made. I and other editors of my choice will then assess each submitted manuscript and find reviewers, then manage the back and forth of comments until acceptance for publication. The usual. This role will last for the duration of the topic open call, typically one year from topic announcement to publication of all submitted manuscripts.
Another role is the journal’s associate editor, a minimum 2-year appointment involving all the standard editor activities: a submitted manuscript is brought to my attention, I assess it and if I deem it fine I find reviewers, rah rah.
It hasn’t been yet a long time since I began with both positions, but soon after the inclusion in the members board I already started receiving papers to evaluate. Crazy.
What I hope to get from these two roles is to learn to judge manuscripts objectively, broaden my interests, stay updated about the latest developments overall and in a specific area (like with the topic editor role), step out of my comfort zone (like, more genetics, or molecular biology papers to assess), connect and smoothly communicate with academic researchers through the review processes.
While I do that, without breaking any confidentiality rules of course, I will also try to sci-comm a bit more, which is the reason why I started this blog, eventually. A bit late, perhaps, but I’ll see how this goes.
