Many editors stumble into working on articles (or manuscripts) for scientific or medical journals, with little to no training on how to perform a good edit and what's needed to shepherd a manuscript from draft to submission. Even experienced medical and scientific editors may be challenged by the varied and specific requirements of peer-reviewed journals.

This 90-minute session explains how to use a manuscript editing checklist (provided as a personalizable handout), which allows the editor to take a systematic approach to editing a manuscript. It will also provide tips for gathering author instructions, learning what to look for in each section of a manuscript, creating a mock submission to gather other necessary information, and submitting the final manuscript to the journal. Even editors familiar with preparing manuscripts for scientific or medical journals may learn some new tricks, and those new to editing these types of documents and helping authors get through the publishing process will get an essential primer.

Kelly Schrank (she/her), MA, ELS, has been a technical editor for almost 30 years. She has been a medical editor in the pharmaceutical industry for the last 14 years, and she continues to freelance through her business, Bookworm Editing Services. Kelly is an Associate Fellow of STC and a BELS-certified Editor in the Life Sciences. She has presented on checklists, editing, infographics, Microsoft products, side gigs, and networking in webinars and at conferences.

This webinar originally aired on March 16, 2023.