7 weeks of editing is almost done

This week is our last week of our seven week intersession course for Editing Print and Online Media.   It seems as though the weeks have flown by, but it made me look back.  Though seven weeks is not that long, it got me thinking as to what I have learned within that time frame.  I tried to think of what I knew about editing before I began this course compared to what I know now.  I would like to think that I have learned tips and tricks to use in the future.  The main thing I’ve learned though is how appreciative we should all be for editors.  Here are a list of items that I learned throughout this course:

• Steps to editing a story
• Spotting screwups
• Working with poll writing
• Writing headlines properly
• Laying out a website for readability
• Dangers in legal writing
• Spotting urban legends

Although I like to think I am a better editor now, it’s definitely not an easy task.  It takes a trained eye to carefully edit letter after letter, word after word, sentence after sentence, and so on.  I am ashamed to admit that even after everything I’ve learned, I still managed to send an email with a spelling mistake.  I only caught it when it was too late, right after I hit the send button. 

I have a new found appreciation for editing, as I never really thought of the mechanics and hard work that lay behind it.  Editing takes time, precison, and a good eye to catch things that other people may not have noticed.  Though I’m still working on my editing skills, I am happy to have taken the course and am now more aware of editing.

With whatever position I end up working in after my second year of CreComm, I know editing will come about at some point.  When it does, I can look at the piece and know I have backup, such as the info stored in my head, hand-outs, Caps and Spelling and the trusty CP Stylebook on my side.

Pictures need editing as well

In my Editing Print and Online Media class, we often discuss grammatical and spelling errors in various pieces of writing.  

However, what about errors that are made when trying to alter a photo in Photoshop?  Here is a website with some examples of Photoshop editing gone wrong.

http://photoshopmistakes.com/

Mad Libs: oh the fun we had

Today's blog post has a similar feel to my last post. The reason being is an experience that I had this past week at Chapters. I was browsing the fantastic gift section, just looking at all the neat gifts. I then came across a table of toys which is where I saw it.

Mad Libs.

I haven't seen a Mad Libs book since I was a "tween", as the kids call it nowadays. I remember looking through the Scholastic catalogue that we would get in school and then ask my Mom to buy it for me. I used to love filling in the spaces in the Mad Libs book with my friends and then read the story out loud to everyone, while laughing at how much it didn't make sense. But what really got me thinking was that among the hilarity, I was actually learning English grammar.

For anyone that has never seen a Mad Libs, it is a series of short stories with various word omitted. You then fill in the blank based on it asking for a noun, adverb, verb, or adjective. Once you have filled in all of the empty spaces, you then read your creation out loud.
So obviously you must know what a noun, adverb, verb, and adjective is or you wouldn't be able to play properly. And since I played it as a younger child, it definitely helped with my learning and understanding, while having fun!

Now I'm not even sure if kids still play with Mad Libs, because it's probably not "cool" anymore. But I think it's fun for all ages. So I searched the internet and found a couple sites that are all about Mad Libs. So here they are....happy playing!

www.madlibs.com

www.itsamadlibsworld.com

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