Taking on an editing position at a journal enables you to influence discussions in your field, highlight promising research and perhaps boost your own visibility. But how can you best position yourself to be considered for such a role?
Sandra Mattar, PsyD, long held what she describes as a secret professional desire to become a journal editor. But Mattar, now the associate editor of Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, didn’t have a lot of role models. Born in Venezuela to Lebanese parents, she felt an editorship might be a steeper goal for her to achieve as a woman of color. “But I knew I had a lot to say that was a new voice, a different voice, and I knew it was not represented in the field of trauma psychology,” says Mattar, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine.
So Mattar took steps to raise her profile in trauma psychology, including becoming one of the founding members of APA’s Div. 56 (Trauma Psychology). Leonard Simms, PhD, a coeditor at Personality and Mental Health, agrees that early career scholars must look for opportunities to shine by presenting at conferences and volunteering as journal reviewers.
“It’s all about visibility—the quality of your own scholarship, the quality of your own reviews,” says Simms, an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University at Buffalo in New York.
An editorial role will allow you to contribute to scholarship, whether it’s as an editor or by assuming a position on the editorial board, where you can suggest subjects for special issues, recruit promising authors and help review manuscripts. Here are some steps that Mattar, Simms and others suggest to better prepare yourself for an editorial position.
1. Boost your research expertise
To develop the multifaceted expertise required to become a journal editor, you must be proficient in your subject matter and work to address any gaps in your knowledge, says Beverly Vandiver, PhD, editor in chief of the Journal of Black Psychology.
For instance, if you’re uncomfortable with statistics or methodology, dig deeper to truly understand those areas, she says. Even though Vandiver took numerous statistics courses as a graduate student, she says they didn’t sufficiently prepare her for editorial work. As an early career psychologist, she regularly consulted with experts in methodologies and statistics, whether it was meeting up for coffee or calling them to flesh out her understanding, and then she applied what she learned to her own research or editorial reviews. “I tell people that you should approach hard and develop that skill set that you want so badly,” says Vandiver, a professor in the department of counselor education and counseling psychology at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. “If you really want to get to an editorial level, you want to embrace knowing your subject matter and you want to be thorough, because it also increases your own confidence.”
2. Learn by reviewing others
To elevate your credentials and research prowess, volunteer as a reviewer for journals in your field, says Vandiver, echoing a frequently stated piece of advice. Vandiver believes that the caliber of her reviews helped set her apart earlier in her career.
“I didn’t just write about one area or aspect,” she says. “I reviewed a manuscript from top to bottom. I would give very specific feedback regarding what I thought was a concern or a problem,” she says, along with being respectful to the authors involved.
It’s never too early to start, says Mattar, who encourages her doctoral students to become reviewers or team up with a faculty member to be a coreviewer. “First, it destigmatizes the process of what it means to publish something,” she says. “As a reviewer, you are on the other side of the journal. That empowers you.”
Additionally, Mattar notes that as a reviewer you learn from the comments submitted by the other reviewers and gain the opportunity to interact with a journal’s editors.
3. Get out of your office
When deciding which conferences to attend, be sure to add some smaller ones to the mix that align with your research focus, says Kerry Kawakami, PhD, editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes. That way you’ll get to know leaders in your field, she says.
And don’t hang back once you’re there—speak up when you have a question or a point that you want to make, says Kawakami, a professor in the department of psychology at York University in Toronto. Another strategy: Volunteer for some of the myriad jobs that go into organizing such an event, whether it’s joining the symposium committee or judging awards.
“It’s making yourself accessible, right?” Kawakami says. “Let people know who you are. They see your talks at conferences, they see you asking questions.”
At its heart, landing an editor’s or associate editor’s spot requires interpersonal skills along with expertise, Vandiver says. “There’s one level that’s about competency,” she says. “But there’s another about whether you’re well known and you’re well liked.”
4. Cultivate mentors
Kawakami says she benefited earlier in her career from the support of a talented mentor, Jack Dovidio, PhD. She credits the Yale University psychologist with promoting her research and encouraging her to pursue editorial roles. “It’s especially important for visible minorities and women to have people who support them and encourage them,” she says.
Kawakami initially got to know Dovidio through research collaborations. Ideally, mentors emerge organically through interactions within your department or by teaming up with other psychologists for studies, she says. Another strategy would be to attend mentorship gatherings at specific conferences. Kawakami notes that the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology typically has mentorship lunches to which you can invite researchers in your field. (For more on mentoring see the Monitor’s mentorship series in the January–April 2019 issues).
5. Try your hand at editing
As a prequel to an editorship, strive to join an editorial board in your area of focus, Simms suggests. While there might only be a handful of editor spots, an editorial board can include a dozen or more people, he says. Another idea: propose to be a guest editor for a special section or a special issue. While special sections are sometimes developed internally, Simms says, “oftentimes it’s the people outside the journal who propose it or are commissioned to do it in some way.”
Simms, who is also an associate editor at Psychological Assessment, says that he proposed a special issue on the current state of psychological assessment practices for that journal. Partway through the process to develop and co-guest edit that issue, Simms was asked to join the journal as an associate editor.
“I don’t know if my guest editorship played into that,” he says, noting that he already knew the journal’s editor through conferences and other professional circles. But it didn’t hurt to be on his radar, he says.
6. Push through perception barriers
Over time, Mattar says that she’s been able to push past her own worries that her contributions to the research discourse won’t be as well perceived once she speaks up in her Venezuelan accent. She still recalls the days as a doctoral student when a point that she made in class would be largely overlooked, while a very similar comment by another student would be commended.
Don’t let whatever stereotypical perceptions are layered onto your race, culture or other background sabotage your own behavior or ambition, Mattar stresses. “It’s an active effort that you need to make,” she says. “Just put that aside and just be yourself and say what you need to say. Make sure that if you have something to say that your voice is represented.”
Vandiver says her own sensitivity to criticism when she was younger might have held her back at first. To become an editor, you need to develop a degree of what she jokingly describes as “gator skin.” Editors can get critiqued from all corners, she says, from colleagues to authors whose work has been rejected.
7. Don't underestimate the time commitment
When you’re approached about an editing role, find out more about the workload involved, including how many papers you’ll be asked to handle, Simms says. One of the challenges is not only the time commitment, he says, but also the pressure to move manuscripts along, with tasks popping up amid academic and other work commitments.
“An article might come in today that I wasn’t expecting and I have to do something with it,” Simms says. “I could have one waiting in my email box right now.”
As an editor, Kawakami has committed to developing a roster of associate editors that’s at least half female, along with recruiting as many visible minorities as she can. It can be more difficult for women and individuals of color to accept an editing role, as they might have already been approached to add their diverse perspective to other roles, such as sitting on committees, and thus feel overcommitted, she says.
To broaden the diversity of the editorial bench, there are some accommodations that publications can make, or that potential editors can request, Kawakami says, such as reducing the number of manuscripts that must be reviewed each year. Also, keep in mind that an editorial position can burnish the reputation of the university or college where that psychologist works, she points out. Perhaps that institution can be approached to see if it would reduce the editor’s course load or provide other types of support, such as funding a research assistant.
Despite the time and mental energy involved, Kawakami encourages interested psychologists to pursue editorial opportunities, saying that she’s gotten back even more than she’s put in.
“Building a network with other people that I really respect—for example, my associate editors—was worth it,” she says. “Getting to know them, reading their evaluations of research, I learned a lot. And you get to support young researchers by working with them on their manuscripts to try to produce the best publication possible.”
