Well, what’s that title all about then..?

As you may have seen from Josh’s post not so long ago, I have accepted the position of chief editor of Nature Chemistry. Other than a name, however, there’s little else to the journal at the moment, but things are moving – fast. You may notice that there is no link yet for ‘Nature Chemistry’ in this sentence or the previous one. That won’t be the case for long – the first incarnation of a website should be up and running soon.

So, what is ‘Journal journeys’ then? Think of it as a diary of how ‘Nature Chemistry’ is taking shape. It won’t necessarily be a day-by-day account of what’s going on – that may well be a little dull… and there will almost certainly not always be time each and every day to tell you what’s happening. And obviously there will be some things I can’t tell you, but I will share with you as much as I can of what I think might be interesting.

So, why ‘Day -11’? Well, I officially begin on February 1st, and so there are 11 days to go… in the meantime, rather than sunning myself on a beach, I’m still dealing with my Nature Nanotechnology responsibilities – and will continue to handle manuscripts for the next few months. Watch out for the Feb issue by the way, it will have a lot of chemistry content.

And finally, ‘Deadline day’ – how about that? Well, the deadline for applications for associate editor positions on Nature Chemistry closes on January 31st – see here. I want to offer a few words of advice (rather than an exhaustive list) to any of you out there who plan to apply – these should be fairly obvious – but they’re important.

1. If applying for any job, but especially as an editor of some description, make sure there are no spelling mistakes in your application – get someone to read through your cover letter, CV, and any other materials you are requested to submit (see 2!).

2. Read the job advert carefully – and make sure you do everything it asks you to. I copy in the requirements for the Nature Chemistry positions below:

Applicants should send a CV (including their class of degree and a brief account of their research and other relevant experience), a News & View style piece (no more than 500 words) on a recent paper from the chemical literature, and a brief cover letter explaining their interest in the post, salary expectations, and indicating whether they wish to be considered for a position in London, Boston or Tokyo.

So, I look forward to our personnel department forwarding a flood of (complete, spelling mistake-free) applications to me once the deadline passes…

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)