WOMEN IN PLANT BIOLOGY

A Day in the Life of a Plant Sciences Journal Editor
by Jennifer Henry
Editor, Functional Plant Biology; jennifer.henry@csiro.au

When I first started this job, I had afternoon tea with my great aunt. They had only just discovered photosynthesis when she was at school. She probably wasn’t even given the opportunity to study science. So, despite my spending about half an hour describing what I do, by the end of the afternoon tea, I think she thought that I wrote a gardening column for a homemaking magazine. She spent the next hour giving me little tips to put into my column (“Collect the cold water from the kitchen tap while you are waiting to fill the kettle with hot water, and use it to feed your pot plants all around the house.”). I sent her a sample copy of the journal, which I hoped would clarify things, but she then bemoaned, “Oh, Jennifer, when are you going to write an article for your magazine?”

The general public does not tend to know how peer-reviewed journals work. When I try to explain my role as a journal editor, people are surprised that there is enough new information to publish one issue a month. I then tell them that there were, at last count, 136 journals in ISI’s Plant Sciences category. That absolutely floors them. “Don’t they already know most things about plants?”

Maybe these anecdotes tell more about the people with whom I choose to spend my leisure time than about the general level of understanding out there of how journals work. Well, I am here to tell you, the fully versed plant scientist, about what I do for a living and why it thrills me every day to come to work!

A Typical Day

In the morning, I assess new manuscripts that have been submitted overnight and consult a member of the editorial board about the quality, novelty, and importance of the work. If the manuscript clears that hurdle (around 40% don’t), together we select potential reviewers. I also find reviewers from our internal database by matching keywords or by searching the literature through ISI to see who has recently published in that area.

These reviewers are invited via our online system. My editorial assistant and I then chase reviewers who have not yet responded to earlier invitations and invite more reviewers. This is all in an attempt to have the manuscript out to two reviewers within one to two weeks of submission. It is a saving grace that reviewers are also authors, so they know how frustrating it is to have to wait endlessly for a verdict on a manuscript!

I then spend a fair chunk of the day reading reviews and seeking the occasional adjudication from an editorial board member when the reviews are in stark contrast. I also send verdict letters to authors. I make a point of sending the reviewers a copy of my verdict and attaching the other review, so they can benchmark themselves against another opinion. There are also author inquiries to deal with, such as “Is this abstract in the scope of your journal?” to “What’s happening with my manuscript?” and “Can you please send a PDF reprint to these authors on my behalf?”

In the afternoon, I get into “special projects.” These involve marketing or strategy, such as a review paper, planning a themed special issue, or writing columns such as these. I also plan the annual editorial advisory committee meeting and follow up on actions arising from the previous meeting. In the late afternoon, I check for any new manuscripts that have been submitted that day and try to get them out to an editorial board member for perusal. Although it may sound like I am very good at handballing tasks off my desk into the laps of others, I am trying to speed up the handling time on all submissions so that the author gets an answer as soon as possible. One of the many things I love about running this journal from Australia is that I have so many editorial board members in the northern hemisphere (mostly Europe and the United States). If I get my requests for reviewer suggestions out to them before I leave at the end of the day, I often have a response back overnight. I feel that someone is working on the journal 24 hours a day.

A few times a year, I visit a relevant institution or department to give a seminar on journal publishing. Students often like to hear how the peer review process works from a perspective other than that of their supervisor (who may well have his or her own biases). So, to answer questions proposed for writers of this column:

What preparation and talents do you need?

You need to be passionate about where the commas go! Our tearoom discussions are a hoot—full of anecdotes about lousy spelling or punctuation that we have seen on signs or in newspapers over the weekend. You need the scientific background, but also the sharp eye to spot flaws.

How do I contribute to science?

I hope that I help facilitate the dissemination of information: research findings between labs, ideas for future research between groups, and suggestions for improving experimental design and analysis between.

I think it is fair to say that an editor is primarily a judge, not of the quality of the science per se, but of the suitability of the manuscript for publication in the journal to which it has been submitted. Is the message of the article novel? Will the time we invest in adding value to this article reward us, as the publisher? Possible rewards include citations, subscriptions, and incoming manuscripts to keep on publishing! Therefore, an editor in the current era needs to combine scientific knowledge with a business head.