A day in the life of a Nature Nano manuscript editor in Tokyo...
Ai Lin Chun
Thursday, 17 April 2008 15:29 UTC
Greetings everyone,
Due to some interest and requests, I’m writing to share with you what happens when I jump out of bed every morning…
I wake up around 730am each day and prepare to go to my office cubicle in Ichigaya. Usually, I’m in the office at about 9am and begin to turn on the computer, fill up my steel mug with some plain warm water from our dispenser and look through my inbox to pick out about 3-4 manuscripts for the day.
I have a 5-10 min chat with our wonderful cleaning lady, Takada-san, in the kitchen. As she speaks only Japanese, I struggle through the conversations but somehow we understand each other and as the days go by, I’m beginning to feel like a pro! In just under 2 years, we’ve become friends. She brings me fruits and ‘senbei’ (Japanese rice crackers) every now and then and so our early morning chats extend to swapping food. At this hour, the office is still empty and therefore peaceful…
I start reading some manuscripts and as the computer starts up, Outlook downloads all the emails…averaging about 20-30 emails per day. Emails come from other editors, authors, referees, kind emails, rude emails, happy and upset emails, enquiries, etc. etc. I respond to them in order of priority…
By 10am, everyone else arrives at the office and it starts to become noisy and delirious. I put on my ear plugs and continue reading the manuscripts.
After reading each manuscript from beginning to end, I write a short report which includes my understanding of the paper and initial feelings about the work. If it is clearly something that we wish to send out for review, I begin my research…
The research includes looking into the databases to see if any similar work has been done before and to fish out suitable referees. This obviously takes a bit of time and care…
Referees are contacted and I proceed with the next manuscript…On average, I process about 3 manuscripts per day apart from all the other things I’m engaged in such as writing Research Highlights, commisioning and editing News & Views articles or front half content for the journal, scheduling to visit labs or attend conferences etc.
Like everyone else, we break for lunch at about 1pm. In Japan, a ‘bento’ (or rice set box) man chimes in at about 10 mins before the hour. Most people purchase these bento boxes and eat at their desks. I’m guilty of this on some days but do try every effort to take a short stroll in the neighbourhood to grab lunch outside…on a fine spring day, I eat with our Marketing/Sales colleagues by the moat or under the cherry blossom trees – a very typical scene in Tokyo.
The search for fine articles continues after lunch…By 6pm, I start to feel burned out for the day and begin to pack and go home.
I scavenge for dinner on my way home. Typically a bowl of udon noodles is what I have for dinner and off I go for a short run. Our jobs are very interesting but also very sedentary. The daily run is to keep me fit for my weekend travels, hikes, cycling and other adventures.
By 10pm or so, I’m back in my home. Work starts again for another 2 hours until I retire at midnight…
On Thursdays, I attend Japanese lessons to learn new grammar and practice speaking in Japanese with my lovely teacher.
It sounds rather routine but the main thing that keeps me ticking is the new manuscripts and the wonderful and exciting work everyone has done. I enjoy reading them and do feel sad some days when we have to return pieces that do not meet our selection criteria.
Living in Japan has been a tough but interesting experience for me. Juggling work while keeping some time for yourself is a challenge in a fast paced society where people work more than 12hr some days…
Updated 07 January 2009 15:04 UTC
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Japan is famous for its fast paced society. Having lived in Canada prior, it must be a big change in life style for you. Your work schedule sounds fully booked, but I’m glad you are enjoying job and the city!
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Hi Wen,
Nice to hear from you again!
Indeed, Japan has been quite a change from Canada in so many ways. Overcoming the language barrier has been a challenge but the lessons do help! Listening to the news and radio every morning certainly helps with grasping the pace. I feel more familiar with it now but still can’t utter my own sentences properly.
Having such a busy schedule doesn’t help because I have so little time to sit down and study. The Nintendo DS however, is useful when I need to recognise ‘kanji’ or when I have to tell the shopkeepers what I need.
It is my goal to at least speak the language with some proficiency! Writing and reading seem to be a little too challenging at this time…
Were you born in Canada?
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Hey, Its nice to hear that you are friend with the cleaning lady. She is very nice isn’t she? Although I only get speak to her on the way into the building…
People are crazy in Japan where I think some people work non-stop for 24h. But I hope you can keep your working hours to the current pace! It’s much healthier that way ne.
Anyway I’ll try to keep my voice down when I go to your floor :)
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Hey Masa, thanks for the post!
Ganbatte ne (let’s strive and work hard)!
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I can relate to the difficulties living in another country while doesn’t speak its language. I had to make the similar ajustments when I moved from China to Canada when I was 14, although the schools had ESL programs to accomodate students like us! What’s even worse was I had to take French classes in high-school when I barely getting by in English course!
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Hi Wen Jiang,
Yep, same me. I moved to UK when I was 9, couldn’t speak a word of English and when I was just about getting to grip with English, I had French and German class…
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Hi Ai Lin,
I’m glad you’re now a real local. Hope you keep enjoying the life in Tokyo.
I got curious about your statement: pick out about 3-4 manuscripts for the day. Based on your experience, do you agree that there is a certain degree of “seasonality” in the number of submitted manuscripts? Could the acceptance rate differ between high and low seasons, if any?
Senkei (it’s been a while since my last post…)
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Hi Senkei,
Thanks for the question.
First of all, I should have made clear that ‘picking out 3-4 manuscripts’ meant picking out the top 3-4 in the queue. As with everything in life and Japan in particular (as you are probably very familiar with), there is a line for everything…
There are indeed some months where we get more manuscripts than others. For example, at year end when everyone is trying to clear their desks.
As for acceptance rate, it depends on how many good manuscripts are there in the stack. We are averaging about 90 or so submissions per month so it is quite a decent number of papers to read and select from every week.
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Ai Lin, thanks for your response.
So basically, you always have a pool of manuscripts that you choose one from, and only those of good quality will be sent for review. A higher number of submissions during a particular season does NOT necessarily result in a lower acceptance rate.
I feel glad you’re picking them out from a single queue, which I guess means you look through each one of them in any way. It sounds fair. Some people might have thought you would sort them into multiple queues, one for your serious concern and the others just for your origami practice. :P
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That’s right, Senkei, this is how the Nature journals all operate, as Ai Lin describes. We don’t run a “quota system”, as we find that the peaks and troughs of submission numbers averages out over a period of a year or so. Advance online publication also helps to control the flow in authors’ favour in a way that was not possible a few years ago.
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