Scientific editors, their roles and
responsibilities
The Nature perspective
Magdalena Skipper, PhD
Senior Editor, Nature
m.skipper@nature.com
Nature’s content by section
Front half
Back half
Editorial
Reviews and
Perspectives
World view;
highlights
Articles
News Features
Letters to Nature
Correspondence
Analysis
Commentary
Hypothesis
Books and Essays
Technology Features
News and Views
Nature jobs
Nature’s editorial structure
Nature Editorial Director
(Ritu Dhand)
Chief Biology Editor
(Francesca Cesari)
16 Editors
(London, New York,
Boston, San
Francisco, Shanghai)
Chief Physical
Sciences Editor
(Karl Ziemelis)
9 Editors
(London, Washington
DC, San Francisco)
Biology editorial team
LONDON Tanguy Chouard: neurosciences, systems biology
Alex Eccleston: transcription, signalling, cell cycle, epigenetics
Patrick Goymer & Henry Gee: ecology and evolution, palaeontology, “fur and feather”
Therese Heemels: apoptosis, neurodegeneration, ageing
Andrew Jermy: microbiology
Nathalie Le Bot: stem cells and development
Barbara Marte: cancer, angiogenesis
Sadaf Shadan: cell biology, plant science
Magdalena Skipper: genetics, genomics, molecular evolution
Clare Thomas: vascular biology and virology
Ursula Weiss: immunology
NEW YORK
Noah Gray: neurosciences
SAN FRANCISCO
I-han Chou: neuroscience, cognition
BOSTON
Angela Eggleston: molecular biology (DNA repair, RNAi, etc.)
Josh Finkelstein: biological chemistry, ion channels
Online manuscript tracking system
Some manuscript statistics
Biology editorial receive ~120-140 papers
(Letters and Articles) a week (plus presubmission enquiries)
~ 70-80% are returned without review
(average 4 days)
~ 20-30% go out to referees for review
(which on average takes around 30 days)
We publish 10-12 papers a week
(8-10% of submitted papers)
Selecting a manuscript for publication
We read every paper that is
submitted
First assessment is done by
an editor – no editorial board
Peer review by experts in the
field (selected by the editors)
Decision made by the editors
on how to proceed
Almost all decisions involve
discussions amongst editors
Manuscript format
It is an editorial consideration whether to
publish a manuscript as an Article or a Letter
We upgrade/downgrade based on
impact and referee enthusiasm
Editorial decision process
What are we looking for
• Technically convincing studies
• Important to the field but of interest to a broad
audience
• Conceptually novel
Amongst our considerations are…
• Conceptual vs. incremental advance
• Depth of findings (mechanism, physiological
relevance, generality)
• Community resource
• Interest to a wide scientific audience
• Our decisions are often not straight forward …
The appeal process
 Nature editors do consider appeals against rejection
 All appeals are seen by the handling editor and at least
one other senior editor
 While we take appeals very seriously, they are not given
the highest priority
 Only few appeals ultimately “succeed”
 What helps:
additional data
pointing out factual errors/missed important
considerations by the referee or the editor
specific evidence of referee bias
Publication policies
Public
database
deposition
of data
Data and
material
availability
• Creative commons licence
ENCODE: threads
Conferences – organisation and attendance
A day in a life of a Reviews’ Editor
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commissioning
correspondence with authors
reading papers
writing
editing
evaluating referee reports
working with an Art Editor (figures, covers, posters, animations…)
Web 2.0 (podcasts, blogs…)
playing with words
attending conferences
doing lab visits
working on cross-journal special projects (supplements, posters,
etc)
Working in publishing: The pros…
 At the cusp of current research
 Young, dynamic, informal
 Sense of completion
 Collaborative
 Travel
 Good career prospects
 Job security
Working in publishing: the cons….
 No role in discovery
 Tight, unpredictable deadlines
 Not 9-to-5
 Demanding
 Angry authors
 Sitting down a lot…..
 Money…
An office survey
“Makes you think laterally”
“Stimulating”
“Broadens your horizons”
“Varied”
“I could just say exciting, because I think it is…”
“Satisfying”
“Intellectually challenging”
“Hard work”
“Gives you a sense of ownership”
“Creative”
What could this lead to?
 Mainstream journalism
 Science/News writing
 Web publishing
 TV/Radio
 Freelancing
 Publishing
 Grant-awarding bodies
 PR/Communications
My background
BSc Genetics, University of Nottingham
PhD Genetics, MRC LMB, Cambridge
Postdoc – ICRF, London
My carrier path
 Associate Editor, Nature Reviews Genetics
(March 2001 – November 2002)
 Chief Editor, Nature Reviews Genetics
(November 2002 – January 2008)
 Associate Publisher
(January 2008 – June 2008)
 Senior Editor, Nature
(June 2008 – present)
 E-mail: m.skipper@nature.com
 Twitter @Magda_skipper