¶ Veterinary Journal Editing Team Experiences
You're listening to Veterinary Vertex , a podcast of the AVMA Journals . In this episode , we chat with our Publishing Editor , Michelle Krieger , and Senior Copy Editor , Vic Schultz .
Welcome to Veterinary Vertex . I'm Editor-in-Chief Lisa Fortier , and I'm joined by Associate Editor Sarah Wright . Today we have two super key members of our journal team with us today Michelle and Vic .
Hey guys , I know you're super busy doing all the editing and everything , and our journals are on fire right now , so thank you for taking time out of your busy days to be with us here .
Yeah , thanks for having us .
Thanks for having us , Lisa .
Let's dive right in Vic . Can you share with our listeners your professional background ?
Well , out of college I was looking for any kind of regular work involving editing or writing . So I did some freelance work , things like editing standardized tests , a bit of tech writing etc . Then I latched on with a medical device company doing copywriting and I quickly realized I hated that kind of writing .
What I think of as clear or elegant or stylish writing is often incompatible with the marketing principles that dictate good copywriting plus good mechanics are . They're not even secondary , I'm not sure they're tertiary . Good mechanics don't matter in copywriting basically . So anyway , I was in contact with an old friend from college while I was doing that job .
She was my co-editor on the undergraduate literary journal . She had gotten a job copyediting for the AVMA's medical journals . She described the kind of work we do here and it sounded lovely . So when something opened up , I applied and it is lovely , I was right . So 22 years later , here we are .
Congratulations . That's a huge testament to you and your work and our whole team . So, thank you . And then , Michelle , welcome back to the podcast . I know that you've been on the podcast before . Can you remind our listeners of your professional background ?
Yeah , thanks for having me back .
So I have served in my current role as publishing editor for the last two years Actually , as of , I think , about this month , it's been about two years and prior to that I was a copy editor for JAVMA and AJVR for seven years , and before that , for a year , right out of college , I was a journal assistant at a publishing service company that managed multiple
Elsevier health science journals , so that's what got me started in my post-college experience .
We're very fortunate to have both of you . You just mentioned Elsevier and I would say that's a mega journal publishing house , and so , Vic , as an author , most people submit it . Once it's accepted , there's all kinds of magic that happens behind the scenes and the next thing they know they get a galley proof . And you're one of our lead copy editors .
Can you tell the listeners what the job of a copy editor is ?
Our job is to help AVMA journals achieve , I guess , a consistent look and format so that when a reader comes to our journals , the professional presentation helps assure them that they can trust the information in our pages .
So you know , I think establishing that trust in a reader is key to a journal being viewed as an authority in its field , which obviously we do . Obviously that's something we want . So , in a line-by-line and page-by-page sense , I would say our job is to help authors convey their message to readers in the clearest way possible .
More specifically , this means helping authors say what they're truly trying to say . So that is like writing in their own voice , really Writing in their own voice within the generally accepted conventions of scholarly writing , I should say .
Fantastic . You already answered my second question how do you help authors ? And as the author of a monthly editorial , I'll say thank you every time for helping me as an author to convey things . I just sent Vic an editorial that I wrote yesterday and I knew it was a bit verbose and probably a bit obsequious and I was like Vic , can you help ?
And it came back much more clear . So thank you .
Great time .
How did your educational and experiential backgrounds that you just talked about prepare you for the role of a copy editor ?
Well , yeah , I mentioned I was , you know , a co-editor of the undergraduate literary magazine and stuff . So yeah , I was . I was an English major . So yeah , like when I tell people outside of work , you know they ask me what I do . When I tell them where I work , I usually have to follow it up with . I'm just a word guy .
I can't give you medical advice about your dog . But yeah , I was just always a very big grammar nerd growing up and a reader , and I thought I'd love nothing more than to read for a living when I grew up . So it's been a great privilege to be able to do just that for so long .
You're also an author , Vic .
Um , I guess yes .
I've read some of it . It's very fun , very fun to read .
Well , thank you , I appreciate that .
Michelle , how about you ? How did your background experience education prepare you for your current role with the journals ?
So , like Vic , I was also a big grammar nerd . I loved reading growing up , and then I was also a lead editor of my college's undergraduate literary journal so very similar backgrounds . And then , like I said , my first job after college was working on Elsevier health science journals and that in that role I corresponded with authors on a daily basis .
So that really helped me hone my like customer service role that I currently use .
So reaching out to editors and authors , making sure that everybody has all the knowledge that they need and giving any support that I can , and then also just being a copywriter for the seven years prior to the creation of my current position was , I think , the biggest key in knowing how our journal should look , how every manuscript should look when it's polished ,
and getting everything through quality control really set me up .
You and Vic have both spoken a little more about your college experiences . When did this spark for copy , editing , journal , literary or scientific writing ? When did that really start ?
So I , let's see , I was , like I said it was , a big reader growing up and I always liked editing . I wasn't a big writer , so a little bit opposite to Vic in that sense I liked the editing because I always felt like I was really good at grammar and spelling and all of that growing up .
And then with my first job out of college with the Elsevier journals , that's what kind of got me into the scientific field . And so from that job , that's when I learned about the AVMA hiring . So it was kind of a similar field and I had really enjoyed my experience working on the health science journals .
So that kind of brought me into the AVMA and I also just loved that we were working with veterinarians and helping animals . In a sense , even if I wasn't doing anything that a veterinarian is doing , I'm still helping animals in a sense because I'm getting you know this important work out there .
Great , it's a very fulfilling job . How about you , Vic ? When did this spark for authoring , editing , when did it start ?
I mean . So you know , you mentioned I , you mentioned I write , and I don't know if I don't know if I can pinpoint a time that it started , but it always appealed to me to do kind of kind of hard editing of the sort that we have to do here , kind of as a counterpoint to the writing that I that I also do .
And so , yeah , I think it's something that I always had interest in . So I mean , I guess I always thought I was well suited to it . So , like you know , I mean I was a big grammar nerd and everything , but I also write .
And so when I got into this field , you know I realized a lot of writers are not actually nearly as obsessive , compulsive about , like , the mechanics of the sentence as I am . Well , you know , a lot of copy editors and you know copy editors they're my people . I don't disparaging , but they , they can .
They could tend to be a little bit rigid and , you know , tied to rules and may not always understand , you know the flexibilities of expression that a writer might need .
So since I kind of occupy this , this unusual , this unusual position , where I'm really passionate about both the mechanical copy editorial aspects of publishing and the generative , writerly side of it , I always just felt , you know , especially well suited to help authors with copy editing . So , yeah , it goes way back .
Yeah , you say that you're rigid . I haven't found that in working with you . If I bring something to you like you can't end the sentence with a preposition , you're like , yeah , that's kind of old , we don't really stick to that anymore . So I don't think you're that rigid .
You have a keen sense of style , but also go with what is currently acceptable and that's awesome .
Yeah , I take that as a great compliment .
It is .
And you are both so key to and helping with our time to publication , and I feel so super , super fortunate as an associate editor to have you just down the hall where I can walk and ask you a question and say , well , our viewers saying this do you think this can maybe wait , though , until production , if it's just something related to , like , grammar style ?
So thank you so much again for all that you do .
Pleasure .
We're happy to help !
We're happy to have you here . So, we talked a lot about what you both do within your roles , but what's maybe one of the most surprising aspects of your roles ? And we can start with you , Vic
Say the graciousness of the authors I mentioned .
You know that writers and copywriters , you know , sometimes you know they might be it might be seen as having a little bit of an adversarial relationship , you know , or a writer , can you know , I say this as a writer a writer can be hostile to edits , but the truth is that usually our authors are very thankful for our help and really on board with you know ,
kind of making something great together . So you know , it's just , yeah , it's a bit surprising and humbling always to me that they're so receptive to , and usually thankful for , the feedback they receive from me .
Awesome . How about you , Michelle ? What's one of the most surprising aspects of your role ?
For me , it's really learning the ins and outs of what goes on behind the scenes from what it takes to secure paper for publishing to how certain software works , and then also getting an in-depth knowledge of Manuscript Central .
I've learned so much over the years and I'm always learning and , as Lisa likes to say , every day is a school day , which is just very appropriate .
I definitely didn't expect to learn a lot of these technical things , but I've loved learning how everything works , and it's also a really nice experience to figure out how we can make things better , not only for our own staff , but for the authors , reviewers and editors as well .
Very well said , thank you . So you both have a lot of experience in the publishing field , specifically with our journals
¶ Manuscript Submission and AI Editing
. So , vic , in your 22 years with the team , what advice would you share with authors that are hoping to submit manuscripts to JAVMA or AJVR ?
Read our instructions for authors , please do . It'll help your manuscript so much .
Drop the mic .
Listen to Michelle at the quality control stage . She's there to help you and just remember that if we copy editors suggest a change , that we always did so because we felt it was best for the manuscript and the information you are trying to convey , and our copy editors are always happy to discuss those kinds of matters with authors .
Thank you and then Michelle . So in your almost nine years with our team , what advice would you share with authors that are hoping to submit manuscripts to JAVMA or AJVR ?
I will echo Vic and say please read our instructions for authors , but primarily , just visit our journal's website . You'll find the instructions for authors on there . But also you can see how previously published articles look and just get a better sense of what we're publishing , how it looks , how you know you can get a good feel of it .
So, then you know how to better structure your own manuscript . Our website is really a great source .
A lot of times authors I've gotten this feedback from authors, and I've probably been guilty of it myself , I think a lot of times you're like yeah close enough . To see if the reviewers or editors even like it . The importance of following instructions for authors so the reviewer really see what might be the final product .
So that's why we say oh you know , if we're only going to allow , I'm making it up four tables in a manuscript , then we're not going to let the reviewers see six of them , and I think that's where authors don't understand why it's important to follow the instructions for authors and it's just an unnecessary delay in the movement of their manuscript .
Absolutely .
Agreed .
Now switching gears a little bit to just copy editing in general . Vic , do you see a role for AI in copy editing ?
I would say freely and cheaply available AI can help clean up some basic things right now , where the technology is at , but I've seen little evidence that these AIs can actually add value to a manuscript and a copy editing role .
It's conceivable that more expensive prototypes might be able to accomplish more , but as far as what's widely available to the public , we're not there yet and may never be . I'm not a fan of AI from a reader , writer or editor standpoint , but it's going to be a part of the landscape going forward .
The landscape might be a bit of a wasteland , however , so I don't know . It's wait and see for me .
I think in medical or biomedical I should say publishing it will last to be really accepted because of all the formulas and the dosing and all the things that really matter if you get them wrong . And it will be at least probably in my lifetime maybe impossible for AI to get all the various formulas , whether it's physics or centrifugation or any of those things .
I think that would be really tough for AI to get right .
Yeah , agreed , it's hard for me . I it's hard for me to . I don't want to say it's hard for me to see a future , but it's hard for me to gauge how far off that future might be , where it could be extremely useful on that stuff and not damaging in some ways .
Michelle , what are your thoughts ?
I would agree with Vic and Lisa to both of their points and I don't think that AI will necessarily get to a point where it can surpass what a human can do , because we can understand the nuances of language much more than AI at least the current AI can . So, we can do a lot more comprehensive editing because of that .
The only AI I think that I think is I think that's super useful right now would be , you know , checking references or using , like the built-in tools that in , like Microsoft Word , some of those little things that can help , you know , just give you a little bit of assistance but isn't generating information . I think can be helpful .
But yeah , I think , like Lisa was saying , when it comes to scientific editing , when you have a lot more stakes at play , I think AI can do probably more harm than good .
Yeah , I think that's a good definition or a good distinction , like stay more wary of generative AI currently in scientific writing .
You know AI I don't mean to cut in AI you know like the spell check people have used for years in their word processor as a form of AI and you know the word predictive functions and you know and various apps . Now that's AI and that stuff can be useful depending on what you're doing . But yes , generative is the key word .
Generative AI can generate a lot of not very useful stuff .
Since we're all in agreement , we'll start to wind down and we'd like to ask a little more of a fun fact . So , Michelle , your question is what is your favorite animal fact ?
So I love that cows have best friends and that they experience lower stress levels when they're with them and they actually get , I think , depressed when they're away from each other .
It's interesting that you bring that up , Michelle . I learned that at an AI conference .
Oh really ?
Yep , and because they had these monitors on the cows and they could measure , you know , all their stress levels and heart rate and they actually their physiologic stress goes up when they take their buddies away , like milk production and all those things drop . So it's yeah , it's fascinating , and AI , because AI then can monitor those herds from a long ways away .
But still , is the data correct ? Who's generating the data ? All that sort of stuff ? But that is that is a really cool fact there . They , they have buddies . Vic , for you , what is the oldest or the most interesting item or maybe one of each on your desk or in your desk drawer ?
I think the most interesting item on my desk I've always thought is this I have a figure of a figurine of a panda bear that JAVMA's great long-ago editor-in-chief , Dr Janice Auden .
She's the editor-in-chief who hired me, she gave me this figurine in my first couple of years here and you know I think you know I've always interpreted as her seeing my reverence for the written word and feeling like . You know that . You know I was a bit of a dying breed and so pandas weren't endangered species at the time .
I'm not sure if they are anymore I hope not but I always took that as a great compliment from her kind of you know that I was a rare dying breed .
I got the opportunity to meet her . I've heard nothing but amazing things . She was a legend .
She was .
Well , thank you both again for all that you do for our journals , for our team and for being here on the podcast too .
Thanks for having me .
Yeah , thanks for having me back .
And to our listeners be on the lookout for next week's episode and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to .