Saturday, June 12, 2021
By:
Last week was introductions, but this week has been full of real work. I got to experience what it was like to be an adult employee! Even though I’m just an intern, the Physics Today editors have made me feel like I’m really part of the team.
I started the week by attending the online content editorial meeting. I thought the meeting would be about pieces we were writing and stories to be posted, but we didn’t talk about that at all. Instead, we focused on web design and viewership—two important attributes of a successful online magazine. I had always assumed that the website team was completely separate from the writing one, but that isn’t the case. They work together to keep the online content relevant to readers and the website functionality at its best.
During the meeting, they asked me how I got my science news, and I was able to share the (little) information I know about being successful on Twitter. It was so exciting to be a useful member of the team. As an intern, you spend most of your time trying to learn how to succeed in the field, so I was happy to give a little more back to the magazine.
My first story for the website is almost complete! I finished the draft early in the week, and then got comments from my mentor and two other editors. We had a meeting so they could explain their comments and I could understand what they were looking for. Even though they said my draft was well written, there were a lot of changes I needed to make. Most of them had to do with clarity, but I also learned some of Physics Today’s unique style rules. For example, they use an en dash instead of a hyphen when the words have equal weight, and they spell out the names of US states. In addition, they only use “while” when two events are happening simultaneously and only use “constant” when something is not changing with time. Next week, I’m going to have a second round of comments to review.
I also got to edit some print magazine pieces this week. I was a little nervous though, so I didn’t post too many comments. I mean, all these people have been working at Physics Today since before I ever considered writing as a career! (Though I should mention that the idea of writing as a career started after I started college.) After I sent back my comments, my mentor let me know that the comment I left on her piece was very helpful and that I was the only person to point it out.
Then, I helped research stories for the next issue of the magazine. The editors look for academic articles published within the last month that make big contributions to their fields. I spent much of this week scouring journals, press releases, and emails for recent studies that fit this description. Then, I looked for experts so we can ask their opinion of the articles we chose in their field.
Finally, our week ended with an SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma Happy Hour, where we played Pictionary! It was really fun (and I was really good at it). Moments like these make me wish our internship was in person, but getting to virtually hang out is the next best thing.
Madison Brewer (she/her)