Questions for a Medical Editor: Stacy Christiansen

Stacy Christiansen began editing right out of college and has been in medical editing for 15 years. She is a coauthor of the 10th edition of the AMA Manual of Style and has taught medical editing for the University of Chicago since 1999. Stacy will be our instructor for next week’s audio conference “Medical Copyediting: Using the AMA Manual.” 

What's your current editing gig and how long have you had it? 

I was fortunate to find an opening at the American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago, where I’m from. I was hired to work for the Archives specialty journals. After two years, I moved over to JAMA as the director of manuscript editing. And here I am still. 

How is medical editing different from other editing and what resources are particularly helpful? 

Medical editing requires learning a lot of nomenclature and specific presentation styles (such as math, genetics, and statistics). All editing work requires a firm grasp of grammar, punctuation, and usage as well as resourcefulness. Medical editing has a technical layer of things such as anatomy, physiology, and statistics. Luckily, there are plenty of tools and resources at our disposal, such as the AMA Manual of Style, medical dictionaries, other stylebooks, the Web, and experts in the field. I am lucky enough to have coworkers I can corner and ask for help. 

What advice would you give other editors interested in medical copyediting? 

The best way to learn a new field is immersion. Get as much exposure as you can: read, join professional societies, attend meetings, and edit whatever you can get your hands on. Also, sleep with the stylebook under your pillow. 

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

Reading of course is a great way to strengthen editing skills in general. I think word games such as Scrabble and crossword puzzles expand one’s vocabulary. Confession: I also have an Angry Birds addiction that does not help my language skills, unless you count new curse words. 

Any favorite techniques or tips in your Angry Birds editing arsenal? 

One of the most useful technical tips I have is to use the split screen in both Word and PDFs. It is so helpful when I need to check data or terminology in different parts of the same document. 

If you weren't editing, what would you like to try as a career? What's a job or area that fascinates you? 

I love to bake. I am still learning and have to remember that there is no spellcheck for icing. 

Thanks for taking the time to give us a glimpse of your editing world, Stacy! 

Hear more from Stacy on Twitter @AMAManual—where she Tweets every day with tips, updates, and water-cooler blurbs—and in our December 15 audio conference, “Medical Copyediting: Using the AMA Manual.”