By Erica Nielsen
Gearing up for their first publication, the staff of a health-related campus journal encourages students to participate by submitting articles or joining the editing team.
The journal, Mind, Body & Spirit, will accept submissions from students of any discipline until Friday. Students may also join the editing staff, which meets every Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Erin Sanders, a senior from Layton majoring in English and the editor-in-chief of the journal, said it will help students diversify themselves by adding publishing experience, as a writer or an editor, to their resumes.
?There?s no reason why people should not submit articles,? Sanders said. ?We?re saying, ?Hey ? let us help you!? Why? Because we have a desire to share it with the rest of the undergraduate population.?
Joseph Miller, a senior from Chicago who first proposed the journal, pointed out that the journal serves several purposes: educational value, health awareness and mentoring opportunities.
Once an article is selected for publication, two student editors are assigned to work with the writer. The article is also sent to a faculty member who is knowledgeable about the subject of the piece. Working with both the student editors and the faculty member provide the writer with a valuable mentoring experience.
?This is good practice for people who want to go into these fields, both health and publishing,? Sanders said.
She said publishing looks excellent when applying for graduate programs and professional positions. Since many students will go into public service careers, they will need to know how to conduct studies and explain their findings. Mind, Body & Spirit provides a forum for students to practice these skills.
In addition to publishing, students interested in editing can gain the experience they need by working on the journal?s staff.
?It gives them the chance to work with authors, to help them keep their text while also seeing through the audience?s eye,? Sanders said.
About half the staff consists of English majors, while the other half is composed primarily of students studying dietetics. Anyone in a health-related major, such as pre-dental, pre-medical and exercise science, is well qualified to work with the journal. Yet the staff also welcomes students from other disciplines.
?It?s cool to meet people outside my major,? said Lindsey Daniels, a senior majoring in dietetics and the assistant editor of the journal. ?It?s fun to meet other people that like to talk about nutrition but aren?t saturated in it.?
Miller said if all goes well, the first volume of Mind, Body & Spirit would come out before March.
The volume will feature articles on health issues such as the genetic differences that make Africans the best distance runners, the dysfunctional relationships people create with food and how to maintain good posture during pregnancy.
?We consider health to be comprised of all three of these elements: the body, the mind and the spirit,? Sanders said. ?We challenge readers to consider the relationships among these elements. A healthy lifestyle is incomplete without the balance of all three.?