56. Mary Elizabeth Sutherland: scientific editing, behavioural sciences at Nature, and how to improve submissions

BJKS Podcast

Mary Elizabeth Sutherland is senior editor at Nature, where she edits submissions in the behavioural sciences and cognitive neuroscience. In this conversation, we talk about how she became an editor, what editors do all day, how to improve your submissions, the future of publishing at Nature, the harp, and much more.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. In 2022, episodes will appear irregularly, roughly twice per month. You can find the podcast on all podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google Podcasts, etc.).
Timestamps
0:00:00: Introduction
0:05:51: How Mary Elizabeth started playing the harp
0:11:19: Harp music recommendations
0:13:09: How Mary Elizabeth became senior editor at Nature
0:18:11: What do editors do all day?
0:31:04: What's the difference between Nature, Nature Communications, and Scientific Reports?
0:38:53: How representative do samples need to be for Nature?
0:44:12: What exactly is a cover letter for?
0:50:43: Common errors in submissions
0:56:11: Why do the official PDFs of papers have unidentifiable names?
0:59:11: Do we still need journals?
1:04:07: Will Nature offer Registered Reports?
Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Mary Elizabeth's links

• Website: https://geni.us/sutherland-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/Sutherland-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/Sutherland-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References and links
Harp music
Carlos Salzedo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Salzedo
playing his composition Scintillation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ8bA1XXQpM
Lucile Lawrence (her teacher): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucile_Lawrence
performing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm_-Omk_bl0
An example of Kora music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cLAwAOi-hA
Episode with Hugo Spiers: https://geni.us/bjks-spiers
Episode with Michael Hornberger: https://geni.us/bjks-hornberger
Talk Mary Elizabeth gave that I found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5akzsfqwJiw
Papers mentioned
Aiken, E., Bellue, S., Karlan, D. et al. Machine learning and phone data can improve targeting of humanitarian aid. Nature (2022).
Camerer, C. F., Dreber, A., Holzmeister, F., Ho, T. H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., ... & Wu, H. (2018). Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour.
Coutrot, A., Manley, E., Goodroe, S. et al. Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation ability. Nature (2022).
Douaud, G., Lee, S., Alfaro-Almagro, F. et al. SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank. Nature (2022).

Chapters

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. How Mary Elizabeth started playing the harp (00:05:51)

3. Harp music recommendations (00:11:19)

4. How Mary Elizabeth became senior editor at Nature (00:13:09)

5. What do editors do all day? (00:18:11)

6. What's the difference between Nature, Nature Communications, and Scientific Reports? (00:31:04)

7. How representative do samples need to be for Nature? (00:38:53)

8. What exactly is a cover letter for? (00:44:12)

9. Common errors in submissions (00:50:43)

10. Why do the official PDFs of papers have unidentifiable names? (00:56:11)

11. Do we still need journals? (00:59:11)

12. Will Nature offer Registered Reports? (01:04:07)