Six months into being a Reviewing Editor for Journal of Neuroscience and my top favorite things, in no particular order, are:

1) Sending out “Your Manuscript has been Accepted” emails.  This is So. Much. Fun. Serving on study section, you never know what’s funded and what’s not, so there’s a lot more immediate gratification here. Of course, my lab thinks I’m a wackaloon because I’ll get excited and when they ask what’s up, and I say, “My paper got in!”It takes them a few minutes to realize it’s not “my” paper but a paper I served as an editor on. They think I’m weird, so…whatever. But there’s a sort of proud you have for folks when they have a paper accepted. For extra fun, I try to follow up with a short email to the authors congratulating them. More fun reaction gifs in science. It’s what I’m all about.

2) Having colleagues thank you for the reviews you have facilitated and say something about how it made their papers better. Turns out it’s not a thankless job. Which is cool.

3) The hilarious times that some angry, overworked and tired corresponding author messes up the email distribution list when they are trying to forward reviews to their team and instead send them back to you. “The editor and reviewers are clearly a bunch of @#$% idiots!!” It’s sort of a disaster, but it’s also really funny. Fair warning, YMMV.

I have this image in my mind of the small moment where they might have come close to sending it to the right people.

About the Author

Screen Name

Fighty Squirrel, PhD, Awe.Some.

About Me

The Fighty Squirrel is very thin pseud for a molecular and cellular neurobiology type who runs a lab studying neurodegeneration. She is mother to a 14yo half child/half honey badger and 16yo half child/half border collie and a Reviewing Editor at Journal of Neuroscience. She also sort of a badass at air hockey. She speaks for herself unless her employer likes it, in which case it's patented.