My role as part-time Editorial Assistant to English

by Charlotte Goodge

The primary purpose of the English editorial assistant role was/is to help tackle and streamline the various editorial responsibilities of the journal and support the editors so that they could/ can focus their time on more granular feedback and copyediting.

During this placement I:

  • Offered feedback on, and suggested whether to either accept or reject, original article submissions to the journal via ScholarOne

  • Provided commentary on pre-production articles to support the editors in their final copyedits

  • Suggested potential peer reviewers from both the editorial board and external specialists

  • Put together a summary of each of the editorial board member’s research interests for mine and the editors’ reference when suggesting peer reviewers

  • After article revisions had been returned, checked to confirm that peer reviewers’ feedback and corrections had been addressed by the author

  • Reviewing authors’ responses to queries raised by the production team on SmartProof and flagging to either the author or production any unresolved concerns (for example, the clarification of a potential conflict of interest in an interview)

  • Line-edited articles pre-production

  • Proofread articles mid-production (for example, to confirm that authors had adhered to the journal’s style guide (MHRA))

  • Assisted in the sort-through of existing email templates to ensure all incorporated the current editors’ details and responses

As a part-time placement, the editorial assistant role gave me the opportunity to improve my ability to multitask, as well as a break away from the time typically spent researching and writing for my PhD. The placement gave me a sense of the sort of role I could balance alongside teaching and research (,as I learned, academic journal editorial roles are typically voluntary).

One of the most interesting aspects of the role for me was that it was often learn-as-you-do, alongside the editors who, after only recently having taken over responsibility of the journal themselves, were also getting to grips with the various systems in place to process and produce pieces for the journal. Likewise, I was fortunate to be a part of the efforts involved in putting together the journal’s first ‘decolonisation’ special issue, from conception to production. This aspect of the role was particularly eye-opening as the topic of ‘decolonisation’ is one often ambiguously bandied about at universities, archives, museums and the like, but rarely properly addressed – such was the aim of this special issue.

The English editorial role should be undergone by someone who is patient, meticulous and can be self-managing at times – proofing is a lengthy process but a crucial later step to all writing.

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