Scientific Editor, Dr Deirdre Potts

In July 2001, I began working as Assistant Scientific Editor for both Thieme Chemistry journals, SYNTHESIS and SYNLETT. After completing an “aromatic” PhD in organic chemistry in Queens University Belfast, I decided that as wonderful, and varied, as the aroma of a lab was, bench chemistry was not for me. While scaning the different jobs that were open to me I was looking for a position that would allow me to stay within the area of organic chemistry while broadening my knowledge into other areas.

My current position as Scientific Editor offers me a job full of variety. Of course the main aim of my job is to ensure we meet publication deadlines and maintain the high quality of both journals. This involves numerous steps – editing of all manuscripts received, checking for consistency, style and English grammar, of course this would be an almighty task if I had to complete this myself, so to help me out there are five freelance editors working with me. However, all manuscripts that are edited must be approved by me, and then I have to give feedback to the freelance editor on the quality of their work, here effective communication skills are important, as they are in every part of the job. Once authors have seen their editied manuscript their changes must be incorporated and the issue put together. A rigorous process is followed to ensure that an issue is produced with utmost accuracy.

As I joined the company with no knowledge of the publishing industry this was a whole new area for me, although I found my knowledge of computer programming came in very helpful. I am now armed with a knowledge of the technology behind producing a journal and have become proficient in Framemaker, XMetal and SGML.

Of course there is also the advantage of being in contact with people, with authors on a day-to-day basis as the point of contact for queries and the chance to meet both authors and editors when attending international conferences.

All in all the broad nature of my job means I must balance both short and long-term commitments, solve problems as they occur, communicate with a broad range of people and still be at the cutting edge of chemistry means there is a huge amount of job satisfaction.