From “hot type” to Evise: A 50-year career in journal editing

Abstract

I began work as an editor on NIMH's quarterly publication Schizophrenia Bulletin. Later I became the Managing Editor of Elsevier's Psychiatry Research. Over 50 years, I saw changes in scientific review and journal production that were at first quite slow but later rapidly accelerating. I started in an era before PCs, where authors submitted typewritten (i.e., on typewriters) paper manuscripts and editors relied on pencils for typographic instructions and copy-editing changes. Manuscript review was entirely by mail, three copies of each manuscript being sent to reviewers worldwide, and reviews likewise being returned by mail. Efficiency was enhanced with the appearance of fax machines, overnight courier services and, best of all, email communication. The ubiquity of PCs led to the submission of manuscripts on diskette and later as email attachments. Manuscript submission, review, copy editing, and transmission to the publisher were all done by email. In a parallel development, the review process and journal visibility were revolutionized by the advent of the “electronic” library, aiding the selection of appropriate reviewers and leading to a worldwide explosion in manuscript submissions. Web-based manuscript-reviewing systems like Evise are state-of-the-art, but will doubtless be replaced by other advances to delight and confound the editor.