---

We recently received some great news on the Organic Applications team, which was that Food & Function, one of the RSC newest journals had been accepted for indexing in ISI’s Science Citation Index^®. This means that, in addition to my usual activities of Blogging and Commissioning I have spent a lot of time preparing some promotional activities to let our readers and potential authors know this news.
 
Why is indexing in ISI so important?  The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) which is part of Thomson Reuters produces a Journals Citation Report^® each year which gives an impact factor for every journal covered in the Science Citation Index^®.  If a journal is not indexed here then it will not receive an Impact Factor which is an essential mark of quality.  Being accepted for indexing is the first step in achieving this important recognition. 
 
To promote this news I wrote a blog piece and a message highlighting this and all the great reasons why to publish in Food & Function which we sent to all of our contacts.  We also used this mass mailing to launch a blog competition which we are running to celebrate the official launch of Food & Function, which will happen at the Institute of Food Technology Annual Meeting and Food Expo in June.  The competition poses the question ‘Do any longevity foods exist and what are they?’ the best reply will win a kindle!  Working on this competition and the launch event has given me the opportunity to work with colleagues in Marketing who are responsible for promoting all the journals.
 
Joining RSC Publishing has given me a huge amount of experience in 7 short months; it has also provided a great career progression opportunity.  I recently applied for and was selected for the job of Deputy Editor on the Organic Applications team. 

---

Anna Simpson is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email

---

Hello again from the Analytical team! Since my first blog post a few months ago, I have celebrated my one-year anniversary working at the RSC (cake was involved ...) and have continued training in aspects of the Publishing Editor role.
 

When I wrote my initial blog post back in February I had just started training in the peer-review process, dealing with new manuscripts submitted to our journals. I am now doing much of this independently, and selecting referees, looking at their reports and making decisions as to whether an article is suitable for publication is now a regular part of my day! I am still spending time editing manuscripts and applying proof corrections before publishing articles online, so it’s nice to be able to follow an article right from submission to publication.
 
At the opposite end of the publication process, I have recently become involved with issue makeup for Analytical Methods, which involves the coordination of articles into a print issue and commissioning for journal covers. It’s great to have so many different things to do, and as I am still spending half of my time working on Analytical Abstracts, one of our team’s databases, my day is always very varied!
 
As well as the main aspects of the job, there are many other things to get involved with here. In March, along with many other staff I helped out on the RSC stands at the Cambridge Science Festival, which were coordinated by colleagues in the Science, Education and Industry department. We enjoyed playing with gloop nearly as much as the children! There are also various training opportunities on the graduate scheme – I recently attended a Chemical Science Writing course, learning to write for the RSC magazines and supplements, and a few weeks ago had my first article published on the Chemistry World website.

---

Sarah is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email

---

more...

---

 I’ve been on the Graduate Scheme in RSC Publishing for 4 months now and I'm really enjoying it. Having completed my training in proof-reading, editing and making up issues, I’m just starting to select referees and make informed decisions on papers for Chemical Communications.

The speed of my training is definitely down to the experienced people who have been teaching me, answering all of my questions and making sure I get to work on a variety of papers from a variety of journals. This is especially important for me, as I now work in the General Chemistry team so anything could come up, from maths equations to crystallographic space groups or organic nomenclature.

I also started at the same time as two other graduates, who I still eat lunch with every day, which made it a lot easier to compare how we were all doing, ask questions of each other and see how each person would solve a particular problem. One thing I’ve learned is no problem is too small and everyone in the department is willing to answer. Last week, 5 people from various teams and with varying experience were crowded around my desk to solve a seemingly small nomenclature problem in a Dalton Transactions paper.

This is such a friendly place to work, with lots of recent graduates making it a good environment for the transition to working life. There are lots of opportunities to try working on other things than purely your Publishing Editor job, especially on the Graduate Scheme. I recently took an internal course in writing for the chemical sciences, and this week I’ve had my own chance to write an article for Chemistry World- why not take a look at some newsworthy science right now?

---

Helen Clare Bache is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email
 

---

I joined the Membership Services Team in January and it has been an amazing experience, to the point that I am not sure where the time has gone.

When I commenced this rotation I was unsure what kind of things I would be doing. But so far I have attended regional meetings, a ‘Look what Chemistry has done for me’ event at the Big Bang Fair, ChemNet Ambassador Training, a university visit and the Cambridge Science Festival. I have also been involved in creating a resource pack to help Local Sections engage more fully in IYC 2011, become editor of the Networks Newsletter and conducted market research.

In particular I have enjoyed having contact with the wide spectrum of RSC members. I have been really impressed with the number of people who are willing to give of their time freely to advance the chemical sciences! ChemNet ambassadors are a great example of this; these are individuals who visit a school promoting Chemistry on behalf of the RSC. The idea is that engagement with an enthusiastic ‘real life’ chemist will inspire students to consider studying chemistry and chemical related degrees at university. You can find out more information about ChemNet here.

The Membership department has allowed me to observe first hand the dedication of RSC staff to their members with the result that I now value my RSC membership all the more!

---

Anne is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Science, Education and Industry Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email
more...

In just over a week I will have been here 6 months – tempus fugit and all that!
 
So what have I been doing all that time?  Our core role is dealing with manuscripts all the way from submission to creating the final printed and bound issue – so each day is a great confection of peer review, copy-editing, proof corrections, and making up issues for print, all sprinkled with a little blogging about top papers.  Right now we are chasing up the last few papers for a great commemorative issue we have coming up, and I’m glad to say that all of my papers look like they will make the deadline (famous last words…).
 
Other dilemmas you face when working here include whether to go the staff chocolate-tasting evening…  More seriously, it’s great to work for a top publisher like the RSC and see some of the best work in the field coming in, so if you are thinking about a career in science but want away from the laboratory bench then publishing could be for you!
more...

---

I started working at the RSC a year and a half ago on the Science, Education and Industry Graduate Training Scheme, then 5 months ago I moved to the role of Development Editor in the Publishing Department.  A Development Editor is part of the Journals Development department in RSC Publishing; we are responsible for getting the best quality work submitted to RSC journals and for ensuring that this content is highly accessed and visible.

To increase the number and quality of submissions I do a lot of commissioning, both for original research and review content.  This involves following leads on topics or people we are interested in submitting to our journals, we get these leads from all sorts of sources such as Editorial Board members, investigating who is speaking at the best conferences and simply searching online.  I read about what work they do and if it fits with the scope of a journal I then invite them to contribute a paper.

Another important aspect of my role is increasing the visibility and usage of our published content.  One way we do this is through the Journal’s Blogs.  We highlight hot articles and also use the blogs to communicate news about the journal and the field to those in the community.  I have been writing for two of RSC publishing’s newest journals, on the Food & Function Blog and Metallomics Blog.

Having come to the RSC from a PhD in biochemistry I have now worked on a variety of journals covering topics from materials science (Journal of Materials Chemistry) to analytical science (Analyst) and finishing up on food (Food & Function)!  It’s great to be learning about cutting edge science, across a variety of topics.  Philip was absolutely correct in his blog piece earlier this month, working in publishing allows you to keep in touch with a broad range of science without having to specialise to the extent required in research.  In addition, RSC Publishing is part of a non-profit scientific society and having worked in a variety of roles at the RSC I have seen first hand the value, quality and range of the work that the RSC carries out; I enjoy working for an organisation whose work I believe in.

---

Anna Simpson is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email

---

Studying science can be a great experience. For kids who are inquisitive about how the world around them works, and are hungry for answers, choosing to pursue scientific subjects during their education will not only give them those answers, but will provide them with a completely viable career opportunity. What could be better than spending your days pondering the nature of what’s going on around you?

As you continue on through your education, you are required to specialise more. By the time you get to PhD level or beyond, you really do dedicate all of your energy into a very narrow field. Whilst this is an extremely rewarding experience, giving you the opportunity to make a contribution to the fundamental understanding and progression of your chosen field, it is very easy to lose touch with the wonders of science in a broader context.

However, this level of subject specialty isn’t inevitable in a scientific career. If you are someone who enjoys learning about a variety of topics, and embraces learning new skills, then working in publishing might be for you. In only four months at the RSC working as a Publishing Editor, I’ve been exposed to, and learnt a lot about, a wonderfully diverse range of subjects. What’s more, you are given the opportunity to contribute to the progress of science as a whole, which is a very rewarding experience.

One of the best things I've done at the RSC is write for the journal blogs, mainly Nanoscale. These serve as a great way to interact with the community which RSC Publishing serves, and have allowed me to exercise my expertise.

---

Philip Howes is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Science, Education and Industry/Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email

more...

---

I have been at the RSC for ten months now, so am nearing the end of my year on the graduate Publishing scheme. The time seems to have flown by! I work on the Analytical team, where we deal with four journals and a series of databases.
 
When I first arrived I began my training on the database Analytical Abstracts, a current awareness and information retrieval service for analytical chemists worldwide. The work involves searching the literature in this field for relevant new articles, then indexing them for inclusion in the database according to the analytes and techniques used. As my chemistry background is not strongly analytical, I’ve found it really interesting to read papers in a field quite new to me, and it seems I’ve learned a lot in a short space of time!
 
I now divide my time between working on the database and the four journals in our team: Analyst, Analytical Methods, JAAS and Metallomics. I have so far been trained in the technical editing aspect of journal work (involving all stages between the acceptance of a manuscript and its publication), and I’ve now just started my training in the peer review process (dealing with manuscripts from submission to acceptance). There are several stages to the process, but at the moment I’m learning to find suitable referees for each manuscript and look at their comments, and then decide whether or not to accept the manuscript for publication - today I accepted my first one!
 
With all the different aspects of dealing with manuscripts as well as working on the database, my job is very varied and I’m never doing the same thing for long! After my degree and PhD, I was looking to stay involved with chemistry without working in the lab, and working in publishing is an ideal way to do that – I’m able to use and expand my chemistry knowledge and read about the latest research, and I honestly don’t miss the lab at all!

---

Sarah is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email
more...

 

---

Hello from the Publishing side of the RSC! The graduate scheme in Publishing is a year long traineeship to become a Publishing Editor. The job involves all aspects of handling a manuscript, from when it's first submitted right through to when it gets printed in an issue. I've been here for over six months and have so far been trained in both of the main aspects of the job: the peer review process and technical editing.
I am currently working on the Materials Team, which handles three RSC journals: Soft Matter, Journal of Materials Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry. My team has about 10-12 people, and currently there are four of us at different stages of the graduate program. I came directly from a research job, and have had a steep learning curve in going from bench work to sitting in front of a computer all day. The best bit? Never having to run a column again! It's definitely interesting being on the other end of the peer review process, and seeing how and why manuscripts get rejected or accepted. I find the most interesting part of the job is when you first read a paper, you have to judge whether it's suitable for the particular journal within about five minutes. The next part is finding the reviewers, which can be easy on popular subject areas, but pretty tricky when it comes to quite obscure topics.
Apart from handling manuscripts there are also other projects that come up. For instance, I have just started blogging about Hot Articles in Soft Matter. I even tweeted for the first time ever, thus joining the 21st century finally!
 

---

Serin Dabb is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email

---

I am getting near the end of my rotation with the Communication Team. I have really enjoyed being involved in some of the activities been organised for the International Year of Chemistry (IYC 2011). As some of you will probably already have heard, 2011 will be an opportunity for everyone everywhere to celebrate the achievements of chemistry and its contribution to the well-being of human kind. 2011 will also be an opportunity to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Maire Curie’s Nobel Prize, the founding of the International Association of the Chemical Societies and the publication of Rutherford’s Theory of Atomic Structure.

The official launch of IYC 2011 takes place in Paris at UNESCO headquarters on 27th-28th of January. But there will be a chance to celebrate earlier by taking part in Woman sharing a chemical Moment in Time for breakfast at the Chemistry Centre on 18th of January. The Global Experiment – Water: A Chemical Solution will also be launched next year. Experiments will be conducted at 1000’s of schools to measure acidity, salinity and look at methods of water purification. The data obtained will be available online and form part of the biggest chemical experiment ever conducted. There will also be an opportunity to attend Our Children on Water art exhibition on the theme Water: Refreshment or Responsibility? I have been involved in the planning stages of this exhibition and I am looking forward to seeing the exhibition in London and tour many prestigious locations around Europe.

To participate in any of the events outlined above or get a global view of IYC 2011 check out the International Year of Chemistry  website.
Happy Christmas and all the best for IYC 2011!

---

Anne is a Graduate working in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Science, Education and Industry Department. To see if there are any current vacancies go to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' Blog or subscribe to 'RSC: Latest Vacancies' by Email