Nature Chemical Biology associate editor Catherine Goodman treats readers of the Sceptical Chymist blog to a blow-by-blow account of a typical workday. Here are some highlights:
8:53 I’m putting together an agenda for a meeting tomorrow, so that probably takes priority.
11:31 Debating the merits of a paper. Initial feeling is that sugars are cool.
12:28 Got an awesome review outline from an author … Very excited! Also had to answer some questions about proofs … and read a couple of papers as possible research highlights.
3:37 Hopefully commissioned a News & Views.
4:02 Making some notes on the review outline from earlier. Also wrote back to someone who has a cool story they want to submit to us.
In her final entry at the end of the day, Goodman reflects that, despite having a productive day, she had not devoted enough time to reviewing manuscripts. “As a result, I’ll take some papers home to read overnight and plan to devote much more time to our submissions tomorrow,” she says.
Nature 457, 6; 1 January 2009
I hope that wasn’t her workday for January 1st.
Well, to give you a clue, the column is from the print/online edition of 1 Jan Nature – and there is a production schedule…..
3:03 – QC meeting is done, and we continued the editorial meeting. We had to decide what meetings to go to next year and it’s hard to pick! Now done with meetings for the day.
Sounds wonderful. I love meetings.
Awesomely cool. Like, coolly awesome. Yeah, totally.
Oh, those were the days…I sometimes miss the editorial office. Only the meetings standing in the way of your stack of manuscripts and your cup of tea.
I like these blow-by-blow accounts (scattered few and far between). It’s good for vicarious experience. 1/2 hour working on an agenda – what a good idea, in theory! I’ll get on to it, new year’s resolutions and all… Also, how do those tinyurl’s work so they stay unique?
As I wrote to Catherine, I think this would be a really good blog meme for NN (and any other science-related) bloggers in February or thereabouts – at some distance from holiday fallout.