What I learned as an Academic Editor for PLOS ONE | Mind the Brain

"Open access week is just around the corner, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to share my experience as an Academic Editor for PLOS ONE. I was invited to join the team following a conversation at Science Online 2010 with I think Steve Koch, who recommended me to PLOS ONE, and before I knew it I was receiving lots of emails asking me to handle a manuscript. The nice thing about PLOS ONE is that I get to choose which articles I get to handle, and I am very picky. I think that my role is not just to’ handle’ the manuscript but also make sure that the review process is fair. To do this, I need to understand the manuscript myself. I read every article that I take on and write a ‘mini-review’ of it for myself. When I get the external peer reviews I go through every comment they make against the submitted version, compare the different reviews and revisit my first impression of the manuscript. I have learned a lot from the reviewers, they see things I have missed, and they miss things I have detected. It has been a great insight into the peer review process. And I love not having to pull my crystal ball out to determine whether the article is ‘important’ but just having to decide whether it is scientifically solid.