DAY 2: Elizabeth Blalock posts on workshops

If you weren't at the ISMTE meeting in Baltimore, here's a sample of what you missed at August 5's Excel and Copyediting workshops:

Tom McLung showed us how to use conditional formatting and filters to identify data of interest in an excel file. VLookup lets you relate elements in one table to those in another (i.e., do you spend lots of time hand-assigning countries to regions for your reporting? VLookup can automate this task for you!). Pivot tables allow you to look at your data in flexible combinations, and, once created, can be used as a shell with which to process updated data. Mastering these and other excel features will streamline your reporting tasks no matter your peer review system.

Deborah Bowman of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy talked about the importance of creating a journal-specific style guide appropriate for your readers and their specialty. A general style guide will give the basics, but your journal-specific style guide can address issues you and your editor find particularly annoying (how about "firstly" and "lastly"?), as well as common errors you find when proofing articles. By noting these as you go along, you will, after several months, have a style guide. Deborah suggests sending important changes to your copyeditors immediately as a "tip of the day", while minor changes should be compiled and the updated guide sent once or twice a year.

There's still time to register for the UK meeting in Oxford on August 25 -- don't miss out![link for registration: http://www.ismte.org/conferences2009.html]

Elizabeth Blalock posts from ISMTE Baltimore Conference

For those of you not able to attend ISMTE's meeting in Baltimore, here's a taste from August 4's invited speakers:

Kent Anderson of NEJM and the Scholarly Kitchen blog alerted us to the importance of social networking for journal publishers. Might seem unlikely at first, but when our users are discussing publications on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs -- perhaps our publications ought to be out there, too (does your journal have a Facebook page???). To get an idea of out what's being said about your titles, go to Twitter.com and search on your journal's name; you might find a few surprises. With barriers to entry for these media at practically nil, Kent argues there is low risk in experimentation and high risk (i.e., obsolescence) in not giving it a try. Ultimately, you may understand your customers and the value of your content in ways you had never imagined.

Peter Binfield of PLoS One helped us envision the future of online publications, where they're all online-only, HTML supplants .pdf, publishers move closer to their users, and articles become more important than journals (and rating systems change). New toys, tools, technology, semantically enhanced articles, and online interactivity will create an environment of experimentation, where the "version of record" will come under discussion. -- And in a lot of ways that future is at our doorstep. Check out these sites recommended by Peter: ICEROCKET.com, friendfeed.com, authormapper.com

Conference time at last

Hi All
As you read this I am assuming you are all packing your suitcases and checking you have your passports in your hand bags and man bags, and you are heading in the Baltimore direction somewhere on the east coast of the USA.

Well you lucky people are in for a bit of a treat if you are attending the 2009 ISMTE conference, this year there are 2 speakers: Kent Anderson, The New England Journal of Medicine and Peter Binfield, PLOS One.

You will be starting off on Monday evening with a little cheese and wine, and I hear it is more wine than cheese, so go crazy ;o)

Then on Tuesday the real fun begins, one speaker in the morning and one in the afternoon based on 'ideas for your journal in the current climate' and 'what is the future of online publishing'.
On top of that there are 2 workshops one in the morning with Glenn Collins on 'Best Practice' and one in the afternoon with Irene Hames on 'Publication Ethics'.

I am sure after the first day you will having much more merriment in the bar and maybe a little nibble.

Wednesday you are in for another little treat with 2 workshops going on, the first is with Tom McLung 'Taking excel to a new level' and then a little later Deborah Bowman will be taking the 2nd workshop on 'Managing your journals editing'.

I am sure you will learn an immense amount at this conference and the networking will be invaluable, I am just gutted I can't be there as my twins are about to be born any day now.

But hey ho, enjoy with passion.

Toodle oo people.