The Inside Scoop: What We Learnt About Getting into Academic Publishing During Our Editorial Internship

TL;DR

This paper offers practical advice for newcomers to academic publishing, focusing on how to gain access through reading, authoring, reviewing, and editing.

Contribution

The paper provides a novel perspective on entry-level access to academic publishing through the authors' editorial internship experience.

Findings

Reading across disciplines is foundational to understanding academic publishing.

Newcomers can gain experience through non-research manuscripts and peer review.

Editorial opportunities are accessible with perseverance and proactive engagement.

Abstract

The world of publication can seem intimidating and closed to the newcomer. How then does one even begin to get a foot in the door? In this paper, the authors draw from the literature and their recent lived experience as editorial interns to consider this challenge under the theme of access, and how it overlaps with the various components of academic publication. The main three components of the publication ‘machine’ are discussed in this article, authoring, reviewing, and editing. These are preceded by the first, and arguably foundational, interaction with academic journal publishing—reading. Without reading articles across different journals, and even in different disciplines, understanding the breadth of scholarship and its purpose is impossible. The subsequent components of authoring, reviewing, and editing, which are all enhanced by ongoing familiarity with current literature through further reading, are considered in further detail in the remainder of this article, with practical advice provided as to how to gain access and experience in each of these areas, for example, writing non-research article manuscripts, engaging in collaborative peer review, and applying for editorial opportunities (with perseverance) when the opportunity presents itself. Medical education publication can seem daunting and closed to entry-level academics. This article is written to dispel this view, and challenges the notion that the world of publication is reserved for experts only. On the contrary, newcomers to the field are essential for academic publications to retain relevance, dynamism, and innovation particularly in the face of the changing landscape of medical education.

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