Medical Editing - Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing by Barbara Gastel

About the Book

"From an award-winning instructor of medical editing, this is the first guide designed to introduce the field to prospective and early-career medical editors. Medical editing is a thriving and wide-ranging specialty within the editorial profession. Its practitioners occupy a unique ecosystem that involves its own style manuals and the ability to work with highly technical medical terminology and issues, and its work helps ensure that health practitioners, researchers, and the public receive sound, understandable medical information. Today, opportunities abound for medical editors-who come from many backgrounds and work in many settings, such as medical journals, medical institutions, and the freelance realm. Written by an experienced and award-winning editor, Medical Editing: A Guide to Learning the Craft and Building Your Career provides a thorough introduction to the profession. At levels ranging from the punctuation mark to the publication, Barbara Gastel provides accessible and concrete instruction in editing medical writing. Distinctively, the book also explores ethical issues encountered in medical editing and other topics such as working effectively with medical authors, editing medical writing by and for nonnative users of English, and editing medical conference presentations. For those considering entering medical editing or transitioning from other employment, the book also provides helpful career guidance. Readers will learn about the range of medical editing positions, receive advice on taking medical editing tests for employment, learn about certificates and certifications in the field, and more. Enhanced by examples, exercises, and humor, Medical Editing will benefit both prospective and beginning medical editors while serving as a useful resource for experienced editors, teachers of courses in related fields, and supervisors mentoring interns or new hires"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

From an award-winning instructor of medical editing, this is the first guide designed to introduce the field to prospective and early-career medical editors.

Medical editing is a thriving and wide-ranging specialty within the editorial profession. Its practitioners occupy a unique ecosystem that involves its own style manuals and the ability to work with highly technical medical terminology and issues, and its work helps ensure that health practitioners, researchers, and the public receive sound, understandable medical information. Today, opportunities abound for medical editors--who come from many backgrounds and work in many settings, such as medical journals, medical institutions, and the freelance realm.

Written by an experienced and award-winning editor, Medical Editing: A Guide to Learning the Craft and Building Your Career provides a thorough introduction to the profession. At levels ranging from the punctuation mark to the publication, Barbara Gastel provides accessible and concrete instruction in editing medical writing. Distinctively, the book also explores ethical issues encountered in medical editing and other topics such as working effectively with medical authors, editing medical writing by and for nonnative users of English, and editing medical conference presentations.

For those considering entering medical editing or transitioning from other employment, the book also provides helpful career guidance. Readers will learn about the range of medical editing positions, receive advice on taking medical editing tests for employment, learn about certificates and certifications in the field, and more.

Enhanced by examples, exercises, and humor, Medical Editing will benefit both prospective and beginning medical editors while serving as a useful resource for experienced editors, teachers of courses in related fields, and supervisors mentoring interns or new hires.

Review Quotes

"A welcome contribution to a field that often leans on informal learning and practice. . . . Overall, the book's educational orientation -- its tone, the exercises, the frequent lists and sources, and key points for some of its chapters -- means it will be useful as a teaching text, and as an entry point into the profession, it will serve commendably. The book embodies the ethos of good editing: it is well-written and reader-focused. Its key principles of clarity, consistency, and collaboration are universally important in the publication lifecycle."-- "Journal of Science Communication"

"I have rarely seen the work of a medical editor so clearly, and entertainingly, defined. The next time someone asks what working in medical editing is like, I'll hand them this book. As Gastel notes, medical editing is a broad term encompassing a range of activities and skills, with its practitioners often coming from diverse backgrounds. By deftly covering all aspects of medical editing, readers get a comprehensive view of the profession that can help inform their career choices and enlighten what they do in their individual roles. Truly, an authoritative guide for anyone interested in medical editing in all its forms."
--Jonathan Schultz, editor-in-chief, Science Editor

"Barbara Gastel is well-known and admired in the field of medical editing, so medical editors of all levels of experience can trust that she knows what she's talking about in Medical Editing: A Guide to Learning the Craft and Building Your Career. She lays out the basics and then goes on to teach you how to edit many types of medical writing, give you editing exercises to do, point you to career and editing resources, explain how to get work as a medical editor and the settings where you can get it, discuss employment versus freelancing, and even explain what satisfactions medical editing can bring you. She's the only one who has written a textbook on medical editing, so believe me, you want this excellent, comprehensive book!"
--Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, ELS, medical editor since 1991

About the Author

Barbara Gastel, MD, MPH, is a professor at Texas A&M University, where she directs the graduate program in science journalism. She also teaches in the University of Chicago certificate program in medical writing and editing. She is lead author of the most recent editions of How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, and her other publications include the Health Writer's Handbook. She has received top awards and recognitions from the American Medical Writers Association, the Council of Science Editors, and the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.