To be a great medical editor, you need great copyediting skills: a sharp eye, attention to detail, and a drive to get things right. You also need to master the special conventions that govern medical publishing. Here are the resources you need to do that.
Style guides
AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, 11th edition
Primary style guide for editing all manner of medical publications
Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association, 7th edition
Default guide for editing material in the social and
behavioral sciences
The CSE Manual: Scientific Style and Format for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 9th edition
Reference for editors in scientific, medical, and related fields
The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition
Comprehensive style guide that should address any questions not covered in the above guides
Medical dictionaries
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary
Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary
Two gold-standard dictionaries for the health care field, each covering more than 100,000 medical terms and their definitions
Medical spellcheckers
Stedman’s Plus Medical/Pharmaceutical Spellchecker
Available as a plug-in for word processors or as a downloadable file, a spellchecker with more than 500,000 medical, pharmaceutical, bioscience, and medical equipment terms
Inductel Medical Spell Checkers
Plug-in spellcheckers for medical content; scientific and technical content; and combination medical, legal, scientific, and technical content
Spellex Medical Spell Checkers
Spell checkers for medical, scientific, pharmaceutical, and laboratory terms that work in Microsoft Office applications
Resources for getting references right
PubMed Single Citation Matcher
References, abstracts, and DOIs for articles on life
sciences and biomedical topics
National Library of Medicine
U.S. federal government hub for biomedical literature and research
Perplexity
Artificial intelligence platform with an academic focus helpful for research and generating complete citations in the style specified
Google Scholar
Niche search engine that enables you to search a broad array of scholarly literature
ClinicalTrials.gov
U.S. National Library of Medicine database of clinical studies conducted around the world
General medical references
Cleveland Clinic Health Library
A patient- and caregiver-focused site of searchable health information, including images and video
Medscape
One of the world’s largest accredited continuing medical education creators for health care professionals
The Mayo Clinic Patient Care and Health Information
Consumer-focused health condition database
Merck Manual
Offers trusted medical, veterinary, and pharmaceutical information online and in print, including 3D models and descriptions of surgical procedures
Information about ethics in peer-reviewed scientific publications
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
Recommendations for best practices and ethical
standards in the publication of medical research
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of
publication ethics, particularly how to handle research and publication misconduct
Professional associations and certifications
Board of Editors in the Life Sciences
Offers Editor in the Life Sciences (ELS) certification
Council of Science Editors
American Medical Writers Association
Members can become Medical Writer Certified (MWC)
Association of Health Care Journalists
International Society for Medical Publication Professionals
Members can become Certified Medical Publication Professionals (CMPP)
National Association of Science Writers
Additional resources
AMA Manual of Style SI Conversion Calculator
Enables conversions between metric units and conventional units
HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee
Listing of standard nomenclature for human gene names and symbols
PlagScan
Allows you to scan for plagiarized text
Reference managers
Software tools for managing and publishing citations, bibliographies, and references
