CACTUS presents at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Council of Science Editors and wins the “Best Poster” award

CACTUS participated in the 56th Annual Meeting of the Council of Science Editors (CSE) in Montreal, Canada (May 3-6, 2013), as a sponsor, presenter, and exhibitor. This meeting was attended by editors, publishers, and specialists from different domains in the scientific publishing industry. We were represented by Donald Samulack, PhD, and Sandi McIntyre from the US office and by Clarinda Cerejo, ELS, and Remya Nambiar, ELS, from the head office in Mumbai, India.

This year, the CSE adopted a very practical theme for their meeting: Communicating Science Effectively: The world depends on it. The meeting included sessions on a wide variety of industry-related topics including editorial processes, technological advances to aid publication, and author-related issues that affect publishing. In keeping with the theme, CACTUS conducted a session entitled “The east-west divide: Challenges facing eastern authors and how a global perspective can bridge the gap.” Joining Donald Samulack, President of CACTUS US Operations, as speakers for the session were Philippa Benson, President and Owner, PJB Consulting, and Boyana Konforti, Editor, Cell Reports. P. Benson set the context by describing her experiences with authors in China and the pressures they face. D. Samulack then presented the results of a CACTUS survey conducted with authors and journal editors, shedding light on the challenges East Asian authors face in getting published and the perspectives journal editors have regarding submissions from the East. B. Konforti finally tied all this information together with examples of best practices adopted by Cell Reports to make the publication process easier for authors. The session provided useful recommendations for smoother communication between authors and journals.

We also presented a poster entitled “How complete and clear are author guidelines of international English-language journals?”. The study assessed the completeness and clarity of the information conveyed in author guidelines of international English-language journals and shed light on issues that needed immediate attention. This poster won the "2013 Best Poster" award. (CACTUS has now received this distinction for the third year in a row.) Congratulations to Remya Nambiar, Managing Editor, Center of Excellence for Molecular Biology, and Priyanka Tilak, Manager, Publication Support, who authored the poster, and to others involved in this work!