Writing from an author's perspective

Deborah Cohen has been on both sides of the Student BMJ. She is one of our student advisers and is also a regular author. She shares some pearls of wisdom that she's picked up from both experiences

When I decided to write about my experiences of writing for the Student BMJ I had to sit down and really think about the issues that most affected me when I first started sending in work.

I later spoke to a couple of friends who also write fairly regularly for the journal, and many of their thoughts echoed my own. We all agreed that seeing our work in print is rewarding, but it can be difficult to know where to start, and the editorial process has the potential to be demoralising.

On the whole, writing for the Student BMJ tends to be a much less soul destroying experience than working for other large publishing houses, and I always try to bear this in mind. It's a much more writer friendly experience, both in terms of guidance before and after rejection, and the fact that it also give authors the opportunity to rewrite copy if they like the idea--something almost unheard of in journalism. But that's not to say it's all been easy.