Functions of editors, managing editors, and manuscript editors - The review process (How to deal with editors) - Publishing the paper

How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

Functions of editors, managing editors, and manuscript editors
The review process (How to deal with editors)
Publishing the paper

Many editors see themselves as gifted sculptors, attempting to turn a block of marble into a lovely statue, and writers as crude chisels. In actual fact, the writers are the statues, and the editors are pigeons.

—Doug Robarchek

Functions of editors, managing editors, and manuscript editors

Editors and managing editors have impossible jobs. What makes their work impossible is the attitude of some authors. This attitude was well expressed by Earl H. Wood of the Mayo Clinic in his contribution to a panel on the subject “What the Author Expects from the Editor.” Dr. Wood said, “I expect the editor to accept all my papers, accept them as they are submitted, and publish them promptly. I also expect him to scrutinize all other papers with utmost care, especially those of my competitors.”

Somebody once said, “Editors are, in my opinion, a low form of life—inferior to the viruses and only slightly above academic deans.”

Returning to the first sentence in this chapter, let us distinguish between editors and managing editors. Authors should know the difference, if for no other reason than knowing to whom to complain when things go wrong.

An editor (some journals have several) decides whether to accept or reject manuscripts. Thus, the editor of a scientific journal is a scientist, often of preeminent standing. Editors not only make the final “accept” and “reject” decisions, but they also designate the peer reviewers upon whom they rely for advice. When you have reason to object to the quality of the reviews of your paper (or the decision reached), your complaint should be directed to the editor. (Adlai Stevenson joked that the role of the editor is to separate the wheat from the chaff and then make sure that the chaff gets printed.)

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Especially at larger journals, there may be several such editors. For example, there may be an editor-in-chief (the top editor, in charge of overall journal content), a second in command known as a deputy editor, and a few associate or assistant editors. Sometimes different associate or assistant editors oversee the review of papers in different subject areas covered by the journal. Collectively, the editor-in-chief and other editors involved in evaluating and choosing papers sometimes are called scientific editors.

The managing editor is normally a full-time paid professional, whereas editors commonly are unpaid volunteer scientists. (A few large scientific and medical journals do have full-time paid editors. Some other journals, especially those that are in medical fields or are published commercially, pay salaries to their part-time editors.) Normally, managing editors are not directly involved with the accept-or-reject decisions. Instead, they attempt to relieve the editor of all the clerical and administrative details of the review process, and they are responsible for the later events that convert accepted manuscripts into published papers. Thus, when problems occur at the proof and publication stages, you should communicate with the managing editor.

In short, preacceptance problems are normally within the province of the editor, whereas postacceptance problems are within the bailiwick of the managing editor. However, managing editors have observed that there seems to be one fundamental law that everybody subscribes to: “Whenever anything goes wrong, blame the managing editor.”

Another editor you may encounter once your paper is accepted is a manuscript editor, also known as a copy editor. This individual may be a staff member working at the journal office or publishing company or a freelance contractor working at home in pajamas. A manuscript editor edits your paper for consistency with the journal’s style and format. In addition, manuscript editors correct errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage. At some journals, they also work to improve expression in other ways, such as by making the wording clearer and more concise. If manuscript editors have questions (for instance, about inconsistencies between numbers in a table and in the text), they will ask the author for clarification by submitting what are called queries. View the manuscript editor as an ally in communicating your research to your readers and presenting yourself well to your professional community. Or, as one author told a manuscript editor, “Until I saw your edited version of my paper, I didn’t realize how brilliant I was.”