Veterinary Vertex

The Art of Journal Editing

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Curious about the magic behind the pages of the AVMA Journals? Get ready to learn how to prepare your manuscript for submission to JAVMA or AJVR with Michelle Krieger and Vic Schultz, two of our dynamic editors who are shaping the journal's prestigious content. Michelle brings her expertise from Elsevier, channeling her passion for grammar into crafting impeccable journal quality, while Vic shares his journey through various editing roles to finding his niche in supporting authors. Together, they reveal how their college experiences editing literary journals prepared them for their current roles, offering a rare peek into the meticulous editorial process behind AVMA Journals.

Aside from editorial insights, we tackle the intersection of technology and scientific publishing. Authors submitting to JAVMA or AJVR will find invaluable guidance on navigating submission processes and the evolving role of AI in editing. While AI tools can assist with spell checks and reference management, the complexities of scientific manuscripts present challenges for generative AI. This episode intertwines expert knowledge, personal stories, and a playful banter about the future of publishing.

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Sarah Wright:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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.

Michelle Krieger:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Vic Schultz:

Thanks for having us, Lisa.

Sarah Wright:

Let's dive right in Vic. Can you share with our listeners your professional background?

Vic Schultz:

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.

Sarah Wright:

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?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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?

Vic Schultz:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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.

Vic Schultz:

Great time.

Lisa Fortier:

How did your educational and experiential backgrounds that you just talked about prepare you for the role of a copy editor?

Vic Schultz:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

You're also an author, Vic.

Vic Schultz:

Um, I guess yes.

Lisa Fortier:

I've read some of it. It's very fun, very fun to read.

Vic Schultz:

Well, thank you, I appreciate that.

Lisa Fortier:

Michelle, how about you? How did your background experience education prepare you for your current role with the journals?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

Great, it's a very fulfilling job. How about you, Vic? When did this spark for authoring, editing, when did it start?

Vic Schultz:

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.

Vic Schultz:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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.

Vic Schultz:

Yeah, I take that as a great compliment.

Lisa Fortier:

It is.

Sarah Wright:

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.

Vic Schultz:

Pleasure.

Michelle Krieger:

We're happy to help!

Sarah Wright:

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?

Sarah Wright:

And we can start with you, Vic

Vic Schultz:

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.

Sarah Wright:

Awesome. How about you, Michelle? What's one of the most surprising aspects of your role?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Sarah Wright:

Very well said, thank you. So you both have a lot of experience in the publishing field, specifically with our journals. 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?

Vic Schultz:

Read our instructions for authors, please do. It'll help your manuscript so much.

Lisa Fortier:

Drop the mic.

Vic Schultz:

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.

Sarah Wright:

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?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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.

Michelle Krieger:

Absolutely.

Vic Schultz:

Agreed.

Sarah Wright:

Now switching gears a little bit to just copy editing in general. Vic, do you see a role for AI in copy editing?

Vic Schultz:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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.

Vic Schultz:

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.

Sarah Wright:

Michelle, what are your thoughts?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

Yeah, I think that's a good definition or a good distinction, like stay more wary of generative AI currently in scientific writing.

Vic Schultz:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

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?

Michelle Krieger:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

It's interesting that you bring that up, Michelle. I learned that at an AI conference.

Michelle Krieger:

Oh really?

Lisa Fortier:

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?

Vic Schultz:

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.

Lisa Fortier:

I got the opportunity to meet her. I've heard nothing but amazing things. She was a legend.

Vic Schultz:

She was.

Sarah Wright:

Well, thank you both again for all that you do for our journals, for our team and for being here on the podcast too.

Vic Schultz:

Thanks for having me.

Michelle Krieger:

Yeah, thanks for having me back.

Sarah Wright:

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.

People on this episode

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Lisa Fortier, DVM, PhD, DACVS

Co-host
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Sarah Wright, DVM

Co-host