Pippa Smart
Consultant, PSP ConsultingUnited Kingdom
Past-President of EASE, Editor-in-Chief of Learned Publishing, and publishing consultant.
The Science Editors’ Handbook
The EASE Science Editors’ Handbook, published in 2013, features 56 chapters written by 40 international authors with experience in all areas of science editing and publishing. It covers a wide range of subjects, including all aspects of copy editing and running a journal and provides examples of good practice, plus hints and tips that can help to solve problems and support good decisions.
Sections
- Editing: provides guidelines on copy-editing, working with tables and graphics, setting out lists, and standards for using numerals, symbols, references and indexing.
- Nomenclature and terminology: features guidelines for non-specialists including anatomical, bacteriological, mineralogy, algae and plants, and biological and chemical nomenclature.
- Policies and processes: covers the organisational issues that editors and publishers need to consider, from how to establish a new journal to how to establish effective working practices for processing manuscripts. It also covers the creation of policies to ensure ethical and efficient editorial systems, and how to ensure the journal provides sufficient guidance and support for authors.
- Peer review: addresses an essential part of scientific publishing, looking at good practice and providing guidelines on managing peer review systems and developing suitable systems to meet the expectations of authors and readers.
- Ethics: reviews one of the hot topics of publishing, and provides good practice guidelines for dealing with ethical problems.
- Publishing and promoting: looks at the publishing issues that editors as well as their publishers need to consider:
Part 1; 6.1-6.5 explains technical requirements of print and web publishing such as DOI and metadata, for effective discoverability;
Part 2; 6.6-6.12 covers developments in open access publishing, journal and article-level media promotion and bibliometrics, and provides guidance on legal issues and publishing different types of content in suitable formats with effective presentation.
