CHASE Placement (extended June 2021 to June 2023) with 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (Editorial Intern)

by Jemma Stewart, CHASE funded doctoral researcher at Birkbeck, University of Sussex

My CHASE placement was in an area of work that had long interested me — the Editorial Internship with 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century. 19 is a well-established trailblazer in open access publishing and Victorian studies, and as such a great host to gain experience. I had read 19 since studying for the MA Victorian Studies at Birkbeck, but the workings of the journal had always seemed something both mysterious and intriguing. I wondered how contributors were sought, how articles were developed, how online, open access publishing was managed. As I was keen to submit articles to journals myself, I wanted to get a behind the scenes view of academic publishing.

I worked, with other interns, primarily across three issues of the journal:

Issue 33: Victoria’s Self-Fashioning: Curating the Royal Image for Dynasty, Nation, and Empire

Issue 34: Victorian Beauty

Issue 35: Nineteenth-Century Infrastructures

For the first six months of the placement, I was the ‘junior’ intern, taking guidance from the ‘senior’ intern, the generous expertise of the 19 Editorial Assistant, and the General Editor. Eventually, after learning the ropes, I became the more senior intern and took on the role of training new interns. Fixtures of this internship involve coordinating and tracking author submissions; managing the peer review process through liaison with authors, reviewers and guest editors; formatting and copy-editing approved articles; and publicizing the finalized issues. The vast majority of work can be done from home, but I did feel part of a team as in-person meetings and socials took place. From my experience, I would suggest that there are peaks and troughs in working patterns which require some flexibility, depending on the stage of any given issue. I enjoyed updating guides for interns getting to grips with the journal workflows and the Janeway platform, and I found the chance to innovate where possible, for instance, I created an Instagram account for 19. Social media management was a learning curve in exploring the most effective way to share content. This is, perhaps unexpectedly, a key aspect of the placement: considering how to market and expand the reach of journal outputs.

The influence of the placement on my own studies is obvious. I am now near the end of my PhD and have felt more confident with MHRA referencing, and, through osmosis my writing has (I think!) developed stylistically, as I read and absorbed material from leading academics in my field. Additionally, the impact of the journal content on my work is clear: in two articles published during 2023 and 2024 I have referenced 19 articles; and within my thesis several 19 articles are cited.

If you are curious about the processes of an academic journal, if you want to enhance your knowledge of academic referencing and style, if you want inspiration from world-leading academics while working as part of a supportive and friendly team, I would suggest that you can’t do better than the Editorial Internship with Birkbeck’s 19.