Questions for a Medical Copyeditor: Katharine O’Moore-Klopf

Katharine O’Moore-Klopf of KOK Edit has worked in publishing since 1984, spending the last 17 years as a freelance copyeditor. She is a board-certified editor in the life sciences who specializes in English as a second language (ESL) medical editing. Katharine talks about medical editing, mentoring, and more in the latest issue of the Copyediting newsletter (subscription is included in a basic membership to the website).

In the Copyediting newsletter and on your blog, you’ve given great advice on how to become a medical editor and “How to Find Medical Editing Freelance Work.” What books, guides, websites, etc., make your short list of useful resources for medical editors?

• AMA Manual of Style, 10th edition
• Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 7th edition
• Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, 28th edition
• Stedman’s Medical Abbreviations, Acronyms & Symbols, 4th edition
• The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), which includes medical editors
• PubMed, accesses MEDLINE, a database of citations from biomedical journals
• The NLM Catalog, journals indexed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
• The DOI System, searches for an item’s Digital Object Identifier, a permanent way of identifying digital information (when, for example, an article has been published online but not yet in the printed version of a journal)

Any interesting projects or amusing stories you’d like to mention?

I was so excited to find out recently that an article I edited for an ESL author in Japan will be published in an English-language medical journal. The article gives details about the questionnaire that he and a team of orthopedic researchers developed to better assess hip disease in Asian people, who tend to deeply flex their hip joints much more often than Westerners do. So now physicians will be able use a tool that works much better for Asian patients than do questionnaires designed for assessing Western patients.

Also, I’m amused when some ESL authors from outside the United States assume that because I do medical editing, I have an MD. I get e-mails addressed to “Dr. O’Moore-Klopf.” I don’t treat people, but I do perform triage on manuscripts.

What are some non-copyediting activities that you find helpful to your work?

I subscribe to e-mail alerts about medical research in several areas to keep up with advances in knowledge. I also read the AMWA members-only e-mail lists, where I glean business tips and can ask editing- and writing-related questions.

If you weren’t editing, what would you like to try as a career?

If I had an additional lifetime, I’d become a physician. I’ve always been fascinated with the workings of the human body.

Thanks, Katharine!

See more of Katharine and her copyediting world on her website, blog, and Twitter @KOKEdit.

Image copyright KOK Edit.