Summer 2026 Intern | Brooke Johnson
The FIU Undergraduate Research Journal launched in 2022, with Volume 1 having 8 articles and 12 student editors. Nicholas “Nick” Cabezas was one of those first student editors in 2022. He worked as an editor for Volumes 1 and 2, while getting his master’s degree in English. Then, during Volume 3, he moved into a Student Engagement editor role. Now, during Volume 4, he has helped with some light copyediting when the current FIUURJ team has asked.
Nick is currently doing his PHD at Rice University, but for the summer found himself working around FIU as a guest professor and a writing center tutor. I was able to sit down with Nick and conduct an interview about his time at the FIUURJ.
Q: What makes a story stand out to you?
A: “I can really tell when a student is in love with what they are writing. Its in their choice of words, like the way that they prioritize certain information over others. Even in science papers where you are sort of encouraged to be effectively low. There is something marvelous about the way that students move through their narrative. For example, I had a student that was working with, sustainable urban design and her paper was full of so much heart, every piece of evidence, every study that she did was particularly charming, you can tell that even when she talked about thinks like a type of porous material that can be used for streets to absorb water. She was able to be like this technology, if it is added to all these other things, can truly bring about a more beautiful life, even though the article is not necessarily about a beautiful life, its about, why we should have sustainable design or gree urban design. There was still these little hints of beauty and fascinating throughout the article and I thought that was particularly beautiful… I would say that when a student leads with love that its tangible in every article.
Q: What’s your philosophy as an editor?
A: “My philosophy goes back to this idea that I’m a glorified cheerleader. I think the editor is in a unique position to just be a witness to someone elses process. And a servent first and foremost. I think some people go into editing thinking like, oh, i’m going to make this other persons work so much better right? But maybe because the URJ comes out of the writing center to a degree. I think we have a very different ethos in the sense that we exist to serve, and we exist to be as non-directive as possible, so that the writing is primarily the students. So I do think that there is like a spirit of servitude and privileging the students voice throughout the journal. Theres something especially egalitarian to the FIUURJ, which matches the spirit of FIU as a school which is a particularly diverse, linguistically and multiculturally.”
Q: How do you balance maintaining a writer’s voice while improving their work?
A: “I think a writers voice doesn’t have to be antithetical to the quality of the work at all. I think you can write something beautiful while still being very clear. I think you can still have something that reflects the writers ethos, values, and their culture, while not sacrificing all of the basic things that we look for. The problem is that we think that clarity sounds a particular way, and thats not always the case. For example I will not pick as many fights with students for having long sentences. A lot of our stiudents come from hispanic traditions and in spanish sentences don’t have to be a short as they do in English, which is sort of like an arbitrary requirement in any language. So if a sentence comes to someone with more elegance and grace and captures the spirit of what they are trying to argue, in any discipline, in a longer sentence than a shorter one, then it should be in a longer sentence frankly. I think it’s quite possible to do both very well and to listen to what a writer desires and then to communicate with them and say, well, you know I’m not getting this, do you want to run this by someone else and see if they get it better? And make that a conversation and see where they are willing to compromise and where they’re not.”
Q: What are the most common mistakes you see from new writers?
A: “One of the most easily avoidable is that not enough people will emulate what other work has been published in a journal and like what that looks like. I’m guilty of this too and particularly rebellious. Like when I write my papers and pray to god that they want them. But sometimes emulation is good becaus if you want to add its easier to add a spirit to something you have emulated than it is to have something very spirited and then try to emulate it.”
Q: Can you describe the editing process from submission to publication?
A: “It will look a little different depending on your student editor and the decisions that you make with the student editor. But typically what tends to happen is that a student has a paper that they’re very proud of from their classes, they’ll submit it to us as an abstract or proposal and then it gets accepted. You then get assigned a student editor. Then the real bulk of the process happens in different phases. Some phases are lighter than others but truly the first phase tends to be the most intense at leasy when I was working. I think I would try to hit a lot in the earlier phases so we wouldn’t have so many issues later on. But in the first phase you get assigned a student editor and what typically happens is you meet with them just to get to know the student editor. And then you decide on goals, for example, for me, I would always say like, I suggest we meet biweekly. Then as an editor I’ll read the whole manuscript myself and then i’ll be like ok well for this next week let’s try and hit the first few pages of it. Let’s read it together and go line by line to see the work and than we’ll tweak things little by little. Then you get to other concerns. So there’s a lot of intimate work, very meticulous work early on. Once that first manuscript is done then it goes to the advisory board and faculty review. They give you feedback. Then you will make changes based on the feedback. Then it get’s sent to an advisory review and they give you feedback again. You work wih the editor to implement those comments as well. Then there is the copy editing phase and then it’s just waiting until things get you know nice and shiny, they send you the proof, you approve it, and then theres like a really nice celebration at the end.”
Q: What’s your favorite part of editing?
A: “It goes back to what I started with. There is something incredibly beautiful about bearing witness to the process of another person. I think it’s the greatest privilege of the editor to be able to see how people work in a space that is normally solitary. We like to teach in writing and rhetoric classes that writing is not a solitary act but it kind of is. A lot of what writing is, especially in the humanities, is a solitary act. And science you can get away with that sort of thing because sometimes that work is done in a larger group and there is some sort of camaraderie there. But the act of writing itself tends to be done in isolation, and it can feel very isolating, because it is something that is being evaluated. So there is something particularly beautiful about being given special privilege 0f seeing how somebody else does that work. And making sure that they continue leading with love. At least it galvanizes me in moments when it can be very difficult to write, so I think that’s my favorite part.”
Q: What’s something FIUURJ readers don’t realize editors do?
A: “Two parts. When I was a student editor, sometimes my students didn’t know how many times I would read their manuscript over and over and over again without them you know around. Sometimes I just like to read it over and be like oh you know this part sounds weird to me. Let me make a comment and mention that later. Early in the process, I would read like a whole manuscript maybe like 4 to 5 times in its entirely, outside of sessions, where I read the manuscript with a student. So I’m not going to burden them with telling them I’m reading your manuscript again. And then they’re like oh god why are you reading my studd again? The other part is like oh my god all the logistics that go into getting the volume done. Like lots of students, even student editors don’t know sometimes just how much work is being put into creating that pretty little book at the end. How much coordinating, how many times the advisory board or the copy editing people look over the same draft over and over again to tweak little things and then send it back to the writer and that goes back 34 times. And then coordinating with printers and finding out how things are gonna fit and you need program expertise, and you need to talk to people and theres weekly meetings etc. Theres a lot of stuff that goes into it that just isn;t, ok thanks for your essay. We’re ready to print. It takes a lot of teamwork, and I think the FIUURJ benefits from that sort of like the incredible privilege and miracle of having such like-minded, kind, and generous people on the team and this goes for everyone from student writers to editors to the advisory board, to the chief editors. Theres a real sort of spirit of camaraderie that I think makes all those sometimes complicated or even tedious tasks much nicer.”
Q: How do you know when a piece is “finished”?
A: “There comes a point where you just have to decide like, okay, we’ve done enough. But honestly I think trusting the student writers, gut feeling tends to be good. If you do good work as an editor and you keep track and you keep checking in with them, especially, emotionally. Their emotions tend to be a good indicator for knowing when a piece is done, especially when you as an editor have pushed them plenty. At leasy as a writer myself, I know when my work is good enough for the task and as an editor I try to be that hand that says like I think this is really good. If they say no, it still needs more work then we keep working. And if they say I think it’s good enough then we might give it a final read through and that’s it.
Q: How has contributing to the FIUURJ expanded your network?
A: “It helped me a lot in the sense that now I feel capable, like showing up to career faiurs and stuff and seeing other publishers and being lik oh, I’ve done some editing work and I feel like a little bit confident in being able to say that sort of stuff. But mostly where it’s expanded my network is in meeting diverse students. I teach freshman composition here at FIU and I’ve taught literature as well. Which means I don’t get to see the advance work very much. So truly the network expansion has happened mostly with student writers and seeing impressive work from different worlds from my own. I think that’s been the main thing.”
Q: What aspect of working with the FIUURJ did you find the most rewarding?
A: “The most rewarding I think is like my brain gets to heal a little bit when I do editing work. I think I thrive in detail oriented spaces. We have this phrase in spanish ‘trabajo amiga’ meaning very sort of small meticulous work that is sometimes very laborious. My brain feels good in that because i’m not using the same part of my brain that I would use to write a paper.
Q: Why did you choose to be an editor for the FIUURJ?
A: “The people. I knew I wanted to be an academic from the moment I started college. That was sort of like a dream and I figured, you know working for a journal would be very smart for my career. I was recently thinking about if I wanted to continue in this editing world and I might but the reason why the FIUURJ was such a sort of like magnificent beginning, is because of this sort of spirit of camaraderie, this very nurturing spirit that is concentrated in the FIUURJ but is generally true of the entire institution, and I will die on that hill.”
Q: Is there a valuable lesson the FIUURJ has taught you that you would like to share with other students interested in being a FIUURJ editor?
A: “I live by this mantra as much as I can and I’m going to sound like a hippie, but the truth of the matter is, I think FIU is a place that leads with love. Like I said, I think that’s concentrated in the FIUURJ. So if I had any advice for a student editor, for a student writers, for anyone that’s getting involved with the FIUURJ, so long as you lead with love, I think you’re gonna be in a good group of people, and you’re gonna be doing good work. Because love will always be the greates marker of rigor.”
Q: What’s a moment you’ll never forget?
A: “Oh my god. I have a student, the one I was mentioning earlier about sustainable design. I remember when she finished her work and she was telling me, she got accepted into the university of Kyoto. You know it’s one thing to bear witness to someone’s incredible ability and to the incredible things that they can do on a paper. But also seeing how that paper evolved into literally like moving to another country to do that same work and take it to new heights. I remember crying not because I like like I was a part of this but more so that I got to see this sort of thing, so upclose and to see someone be so brilliant all the time. I don’t know, theres something very special about that because you get to still be a cheerleader for people no matter how far they go, especially as a student editor.”
Q: What project are you most proud of, and why?
A: “Her project was one I was very very proud of but truly every student that I worked with, all three of the main students I worked with during those two years were remarkable young women of incredible ability. So no I don’t have a favorite. I am proud of all of them and hope they’re doing well.”
Q: What are you currently working on or excited about?
A: “These days I’m retreating a little bit from the academy and working, mostly on personal fiction. I have have like crazy aspirations to be publishing any of that. But truly fiction has been soothing my soul and particularly tempestous times. So maybe a future novel to come but that’s a crazy ambition. So we’ll see for now just like writing a bit every day.”
The work Nick has done for the FIUURJ is indispensable and everyone on the team is grateful to him for his work. I want to thank Nick for sitting down for an interview and answering my questions so thoroughly. We wish Nick the best as he continues on with an incredible life.
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