Volunteer to work on your schools newspaper or for its radio or television station. Being involved in researching, writing, proofreading, and other related tasks will help you to understand editing and research and how they relate to the entire field of publishing or other content creation. In college, try to land a research-related or a general publishing internship, cooperative education opportunity, or volunteer position to build your skills and professional network.

Talk with an editorial research assistant about his or her career. Ask your school counselor or English teacher to help arrange an interview. Suggested interview questions include: What made you want to enter this career? What do you like most and least about your job? How did you train for this field? What are some key skills for success? What advice would you give to young people about preparing for the field and being successful on the job? How will advances in technology change the field? Perhaps you could even job-shadow an editorial research assistant to learn even more about the field.

Participate in summer exploration programs in publishing, writing, and related fields that are offered by colleges and universities to build your skills, meet people with shared interests, and learn what college classes are like. Some programs even award college credit.

Editorial research assistants generally perform research tasks such as verifying the dates, facts, names of persons and places, and statistics used by a writer. They may review a writers sources and then verify that the information provided by these sources is correct. As more writers use artificial intelligence to conduct research and even write entire articles, editorial research assistants are needed to check the veracity of the information provided. When working on research assignments, they may contact any persons interviewed by the writer to ensure that any quotes used by the writer are truthful and correct. Research assistants also contact experts in subject areas pertaining to the topic of the article, often to obtain additional information for the writer, or verify information already used in the article. If a research assistant finds any errors or discrepancies with the writers text, they are expected to flag and correct them. A research assistant may meet with the writer and/or editor to discuss any discrepancies that are not easily resolved.

Research assistants use a variety of tools to do their jobs. They rely on telephones, computers, and other methods to obtain the information they need. Researchers may utilize libraries, the Internet, and in-house collections of information as sources of facts, figures, and statistics. Although they may work in a variety of settings, many research assistants work in the magazine/periodical publishing industry.