Kinesis Magazine: Copy Editor

I am a second year Natural Sciences student who joined Kinesis at the start of this year. I really enjoyed writing an article on edible insects for Issue 9 – and who knows I might even bring some cricket brownies to committee meetings if I’m elected!  I have also been working as a researcher and writer on the new podcast team, which has been an amazing experience hearing from scientists about current, real-world research. So, even though I’m quite new to the society, I’ve loved being a part of the Kinesis team.

Being your Copy Editor would be an amazing way to be involved in all the articles that our talented writers and artists produce. Even more importantly, I want to help our writers produce the best articles possible. I know that feeling when you’ve finally finished writing and you’ve still got to trawl through to make those small changes that turn a good article into a great one. I want you to be able to focus on the science, rather than sweating over semi-colons and spelling. After all, why should you worry about the difference between ‘effect’ and ‘affect’, or whether your infinitives have been split? With me as your Copy Editor, you can just relax and enjoy writing about science.

In a sentence: I want to contribute more widely to the journalistic work Kinesis does and help each writer put their best foot forward.

For me, becoming a copy editor is a natural progression in building my journalistic skills and experience as I have been editing articles for Kinesis for over a year, as well as contributing to our associated podcast. The experience I've gained as an editor previously has given me skills in collaboration, developing the storyboard of an article, getting creative with language to succinctly and clearly convey science, and overlooking formatting and grammar. A good editor needs to be able to zoom in closely to the article but also zoom out to see the big picture, ensuring that technical accuracy, logic, coherency, and enthusiasm for creative writing are embedded throughout. Now with the role of copy editor I want to see these aspects from a different angle as I focus on the technical details and learn more about how publishing standards come into practice.

With this understanding of the role, a tight grip on the English language and grammar, and enthusiasm for the science journalism industry, I hope to receive your vote for copy editor!