Copy Editing: The Long Road To Publication

It’s now been five weeks since I received the long-awaited acceptance email for one of my latest music education articles. Exciting? Absolutely. But if you thought acceptance was the finish line, think again.

After just over a month of silence, the copy-edited version dropped into my inbox, full of requests for reference corrections (mostly doi numbers), additional citations, and house style adjustments. Meaningful work, no doubt, but undeniably tedious. Hunting down missing page numbers, standardising citation formats, and cross-checking every detail can feel like the academic version of picking lint off a black jumper.

Now it’s a further four-week wait before I see the first typeset PDF and online first version. The finish line is in sight, but it’s a slow crawl. Still, there’s something oddly satisfying about watching the raw manuscript evolve into a fully polished publication. It’s a reminder that behind every journal article is a long (and sometimes painful) process of refinement, accuracy, and patience.

Worth it? Definitely. Quick? Never.